OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Google Docs Extension for OpenOffice

There's a nice little extension for OpenOffice.org that lets you quickly upload your document to your googledocs account. Click here to get it.

Installing the extension gives you this toolbar, as well as a Google Docs menu.

 

Click it to get this window; just enter the appropriate information.

 

Your document will be automatically uploaded to your account in Google. It works pretty nicely.

Installation

Installing extensions is pretty easy. Download the extension. Then choose Tools > Extension Manager. Select My Extensions and click Add.

 

Find the extension file you downloaded, an installation process runs, and you’ll see Enabled next to the extension. For some extensions, you’ll need to restart. Look for a new menu, new menu items, new toolbars, or all three.

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Google's Doing PowerPoint

Looks like Google is heading toward the Powerpoint/Impress area.

http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070418/google_adds_presentation_to_its_apps_suit-id-103333.html

Google enters the office suite/email space officially

Read the articles here.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1421520.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article1423608.ece

Here's the Google Apps site. http://www.google.com/a

Google will launch an assault on one of Microsoft’s biggest earners today when it unveils its first suite of paid-for office tools.

For $50 (£26) a year per user, Google Apps Premier Edition will offer corporate customers a bundle of web-based applications including e-mail, a word processor and a spreadsheet. It will compete with Microsoft’s Office, which includes the software stalwarts Word and Excel...

... Google added that its own 10,000 employees have been using its system for several months, although as recently as October most of them were using Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail service. Robert Whiteside, head of enterprise services at Google UK, said: “We have been eating our own dogfood.”

What makes this work, of course, is that Google has a kajillion units of storage space for rent,  and most people have high-speed. (My parents in Montana with their seeminly 1k dialup could no more use Google spreadsheets than they could pull bricks out of walls with their bare hands.)

There is also a wide-open space for just a freakin' simple application with fewer features but the right features. If I were a programmer, I would create a cut-down simpler version of OpenOffice.org. (I know I can modify the toolbars and menus, but you can't delete menus that are already there.)

I haven't checked out the new site yet, though I do use Google Spreadsheets to tracks lists of things I need to access from multiple locations.

TechTarget Article: Google Spreadsheets Review

I've written an article for TechTarget on the new Google spreadsheets. Here's part of it.

"My first reaction was, "Oh, cute," and "Looks like a good design." It seems like the GUI designers stood up inside the box and looked at what was outside. The design is not revolutionary, but it avoids, at the least, a retread of the client-based spreadsheet GUI. The designers used different types of widgets to provide the navigation and options. There are three tabs for different types of functions: drop down buttons for key features like Saving, buttons for standard toolbar features (Cut, Copy and Paste) and a few plain old links for common features like New and Open."

Essentially, I think it's great for some, and others will never take a second look. Click here to read the whole review.

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