Solitude and Hope: Y'all Come Visit!

With so many free on-line applications being developed, it is quite useful to consider some of the primary elements of Office Suites currently available on the Web. Who, among the big or small companies, is currently providing the best examples? Here I describe some of the contenders for outstanding free, on-line collaborative Office tools.



ThinkFree

This office suite is one of my favorites!! ThinkFree is said by many to be the leader in next-generation of productivity solutions for platform independent, anytime, anywhere-computing. ThinkFree usability extends beyond PCs and is perfect for Internet-connected devices, including thin client and mobile computing platforms.

The award-winning ThinkFree Office is a Microsoft Office compatible application suite comprised of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics software-all usable online at absolutely no cost to you.

ThinkFree Office is automatically installed and upgraded over the Web and features integrated, Internet-based file sharing and storage as well as end-to-end security. Built for cross-platform functionality, ThinkFree Office is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Unix and Linux systems.

It comes with a gigabyte of free online space and offers word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. ThinkFree takes a bit longer to load, but it has a large number of a bunch editing tools. Both the icons and toolbar emulate MS Office. An additional feature, which I especially like, allows you to publish your document (with pictures and links) as a post to your own blog.

Link To: THINKFREE

Open Office

Open Office is one of the most highly touted free office applications. OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. It is compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use and distribute to others.

Link To: OPEN OFFICE

Zoho Writer

This is another of my favorite free on-line word processors!! You can access, edit and share documents from anywhere. Documents can be created, edited and re-formatted using their WYSIWYG editor; this word processor also provides for collaborative editing of documents, multiple users can work on a document simultaneously

Load your existing documents

With Zoho Writer, you can import Microsoft Word (DOC), Open Office text (ODT & SXW), HTML, RTF, JPG, GIF & PNG files, and generate PDF/DOC/ODT. You can also export documents created in Zoho Writer as PDF, DOC, ODT, SXW, RTF, HTML & text files

Again, one of my favorite features is that with Zoho Writer, you can directly post documents (with images, pictures and links) directly to your blogs (including WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and Live Journal).

Link To: ZOHO WRITER

Zoho Show

Zoho Show allows you to access, import, and edit presentations from anywhere. You can Load your existing presentations, the application can import Microsoft PowerPoint(.ppt, .pps) or OpenOffice Presentation(.sxi).

You can build and edit presentations on-the-fly using WYSIWYG editor. You can use Zoho Show for remote presentations. Zoho Show helps giving remote presentations with complete control for the presenter. The presenter can see the participants in the presentation. It has Flickr integration allowing you to pull publicly shared images from your Flickr account into your presentation.

Zoho Show is ideal for sales persons, business owners, teachers, students, freelancers ... and for just anybody else who wants to create presentations online.

Link To: ZOHO SHOW

Zoho Sheet

Zoho Sheet is an on-line spreadsheet, which allows for: number formatting, sorting and the insertion of comments. With Zoho Sheet, you can import and export Excel files and share sheets with multiple people to view or edit the same spreadsheet.

It supports more than 300 functions. You can create bar/line/pie 2D/3D charts and publish the charts in your websites/blogs.

Link To: ZOHO SHEET

Zoho Polls

Want to decide on something? Use Zoho Polls to narrow down your choices and get opinion from others. As with all the applications listed here, it is 100% free!!

Link To: ZOHO POLLS

ajaxWrite

ajaxWrite is a web-based word processor that can read and write Microsoft Word and other standard document formats. Anytime you need to open, read or write a word processor file, simply point your Firefox browser to www.ajaxwrite.com and in seconds a full-featured program will be available for you to open, edit, print and save.

ajaxWrite has been designed to look like Microsoft Word, making it easy for anyone to start using it without needing to learn a new program. ajaxWrite also handles all the popular document formats, so it is easy to share your files and collaborate with your co-workers and friends. Once finished with your document, you can easily save your work right to your hard drive. This keeps you organized and works in the same way that you are already accustomed to.

ajaxWrite works from a Firefox web browser on any operating system and on any device, no matter where you are or what computer you are using. In addition, because the application itself lives on the web, we handle the updates automatically so that you don't have to deal with costly upgrades or being stuck with old versions.

Link To: ajaxWrite

Eyespot

Bloggers are remixing videos by several emerging bands, and then posting the mash-ups online at Eyespot to share with the world. What makes this site different from others is that here the art form is legal.

Link To: EYESPOT

ajaxTunes

ajaxTunes is a web-based music player that lets you play high-quality streaming music straight from the Internet on any computer. It gives you all the basic controls (pause, fast-forward, rewind, selecting play list or artists) in a mini layout that won't clog up your desktop.

Try ajaxTunes immediately, it has been preloaded with a demo account containing songs from more than 25 artists. You can also create your own locker, add your own music collection and choose from over 40,000 songs to add to your personal play lists.

Link To : ajaxTUNES

ajaxXLS

ajaxXLS Viewer is a web-based spreadsheet viewer that allows you to easily open any .xls file within your Firefox browser. Compatibility with Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice allows ajaxXLS to preserve all your common cell formatting categories such as text styles, decimals, currencies, dates, and times as well as formulas, backgrounds and borders from the original documents.

The ajaxXLS web-based editor is still in the early stages of development. With it, you can write, edit and save standard spreadsheet files to your local machine. If you would like to try the sneak peak pre-release version of the ajaxXLS editor, please visit the link below.

Link To: ajaxXLS

gOffice: Web Office Suite

gOFFICE is a free online application offers desktop publishing and word processing, and spreadsheet applications

GOFFICE makes extensive use of XML, which makes it easier to define and transfer data between applications. This turned out to be important for gOFFICE's feature to convert a document into a PDF file.

Link To: gOFFICE

iRows

iRows provides easy data management. You can edit, compute, chart, sort, dynamic web data and more. Display your spreadsheet on any web site, change it here, and all sites change automatically.

Link To: iROWS

PDF Online

As a web based service, PDF Online allows you to quickly generate PDF documents from your PC, Mac, or Linux, from your home, your office or anywhere in the world.

Link To: PDF ONLINE

Thumbstacks

With Thumbstacks.com, you can make presentations, like slideshows, or outlines, right in your web browser. When you are done, you can share your presentations with anyone, anywhere, just by sending them a link.

Link To: THUMBSTACKS

Empressr

Empressr is the first Ajax/Flash-based web application that lets you create, share and store presentations online. It goes beyond current presentation applications by enabling you to incorporate rich media features, like streaming video and animation, to create and share the most dynamic presentations possible. With Empressr, all you need is a web browser to easily: create rich media presentations, share them with a client or team members, and store/access them at any time from any computer.

Link To: EMPRESSR

Zooomr

A step ahead of Flickr!! With Zooomr, photos are no longer just photos, they are emotions, ideas, and stories meant to be shared and explored. Zooomr helps you share them with the world. Here's how: you can show your favorite photos to the entire world in anyone's language, actually put your photos on the map, add sound to your photos.

Link To: ZOOOMR

posted by D. Patrick Zimmerman, Psy.D.  # Sunday, July 30, 2006