Zoho posts

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Symbian, Office, BlackBerry, iPhone, Mobile, Web, Android

Zoho Docs goes mobile

by Brad Linder Apr 28th 2009

Zoho has launched a new mobile interface for its web-based office and productivity applications. That includes a mail and calendar app, as well as word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database utilities.

To launch the mobile version of Zoho, just visit m.zoho.com in any mobile browser. Or if you just want to see what the interface looks like, you can use the same URL in a desktop browser.

Zoho says the mobile interface supports mobile devices running Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Google Android as well as the iPhone and BlackBerry devices.

Zoho Mobile is available in English and Japanese. The team plans to develop mobile interfaces for additional Zoho office applications in the future.

The move means that mobile phone users who are unhappy with the built in office applications on their devices have another alternative -- although one that you'll have to use up some mobile minutes in order to use.

Tags: zoho, zoho-docs, zoho-mobile, zoho-office

Filed under: Office, Web services, web 2.0, Web

Zoho Gadgets give you quick access to Zoho from Gmail, Facebook, etc

by Brad Linder Apr 16th 2009

Zoho has launched a new feature that lets you access Zoho's suite of web office documents from Faceboo, iGoogle., Orkut, or any web page that either supports OpenSocial XML or lets you embed an iframe. Zoho Gadgets are little widgets that provide you with an overview of the following Zoho services:

In other words, you can add a widget to Facebook that will let you see the latest documents in your Zoho Docs account, allowing you to click an item to open and edit it. Or you could add your Zoho Calendar or task list to your iGoogle page.

Using the OpenSocial XML option, you can also add Zoho Gadgets to your Gmail sidebar. First you need to enable the Add Any Gadget option in Gmail Labs. Then you just click the OpenSocial XML link next to the Zoho Gadget you want to add and copy and paste the URL into the Gadgets section under your Gmail settings.

I have to say, the Zoho Tasks gadget doesn't work nearly as well as the Remember The Milk gadget for Gmail. And when I tried adding events to the Zoho Calendar gadget they didn't show up, unlike the Google Calendar gadget that's available from Gmail Labs. But the Zoho Docs gadget worked just as you'd expect.

The one problem with adding a bunch of gadgets to your Gmail sidebar is that Google still doesn't provide an easy way to rearrange the gadgets. They show up in the order you add them. So if you want the Zoho Docs gadget to show up near the top of the sidebar, you'll have to uninstall any other gadgets you have, install Zoho Docs, and then reinstall your other gadgets. Update: I stand corrected. You can enable Navbar Drag and Drop in Gmail Labs to reposition items in your sidebar. Thanks Tom!

Tags: gmail, gmail-gadgets, opensocial, opensocial-xml, zoho, zoho-gadgets, zoho-office

Filed under: Internet, Web

Zoho Chat 2.0 takes aim at Meebo, falls a bit short

by Brad Linder Apr 1st 2009

Zoho is adding to its line of web-based productivity apps with the launch of Zoho Chat 2.0. The service is a web-based instant messenger that lets you connect to multiple IM networks to chat simultaneously with your AOL, Windows Live, Yahoo!, Gogole, and other contacts. In other words, Zoho Chat is a lot like Meebo.

But Meebo has some features that are still missing from Zoho Chat, including the ability to create aliases for contacts and recognize contact groups that you've already set up. Meebo also lets you send files to users no matter which IM network they're using, while Zoho Chat users can only share files with other Zoho users.

That doesn't mean Zoho Chat is useless. The service does show promise. And more importantly it ties into Zoho's impressive suite of online office apps. You can launch Zoho Chat from within other Zoho applications including Zoho Writer or Zoho Sheet. And you can click a "Share your desktop" button from any chat window to launch the Zoho Meeting web conferencing application.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Tags: im, meebo, zoho, zoho-chat

Filed under: Office, Web

Zoho Writer web-based word processor gets a visual makeover

by Brad Linder Mar 5th 2009

Zoho has launched an updated version of Zoho Writer, an online word processor that lets you create, edit, share, and collaborate on text based documents. Zoho Writer 2.0 includes a bunch of tweaks, most of which affect the visual appearance of the web app.

Probably the biggest change is the adition of a new MenuTab interface which saves space at the top of the screen by breaking up menus into both drop-down lists and tabs. Here's how it works. You can click the little arrow next to the buttons labeled Format, Insert, Review, Share, Views, or Page Setup for long lists of commans. But if you click on the tabs (not the arrows), the options in the second row of the menubar will change accordingly. For example, if you click Format, you'll see the usual font and alignment options. If you click Share, you'll see options to post to a blog, email a document, or share with other Zoho users.

The MenuTab feature is a clever way to offer a ton of functionality without a ton of icons cluttering up your toolbar area. If you'd prefer to do everything using drop down menus, you never have to click on a tab. Or you could use the tabs exclusively and ignore the drop downs.

Zoho has also updated the sidebar area of Zoho Writer 2.0, making it look more like the Zoho Sheet sidebar. For a more thorough list of changes, check out the product announcement on the official Zoho Blog.

Tags: menutab, zoho, zoho-writer, zoho-writer-2.0

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services, web 2.0

Box.net launches new design, more collaboration features

by Christina Warren Feb 5th 2009

We've covered Box.net before -- the file storage site with collaborative tools and a really great iPhone app -- today the company has launched a redesigned site and even more tools to make online collaboration easier and more effective.

Last year, Box.net added the ability to let users invite other collaborators to view or edit documents. Coupled with Box.net's OpenBox platform, you have a really slick light content management system that allows you to store, share, and group edit documents, spreadsheets, images and more. Today, even more features have been added to aid in project and team management.

Some of the highlights:

Profile pages for each user that can be customized to show their role in the current project and their contact information and recent project activity
Discussions that can take place across your shared workspace. You can also comment on individual files
Bookmarks -- it sounds simple, but it's actually pretty cool because you can share a URL and the rest of the group can then comment on it and its findings.
Updates - you can see updates across all your various projects to see what the newest discussions, edits and uploads are, all from one page.

Tags: box.net, cloud, collaboration, google docs, zoho

Filed under: Internet, Office, Freeware, Browsers, Web

OpenItOnline for Firefox opens Office, image files with web apps

by Lee Mathews Dec 16th 2008

By now, many of you are probably using web-based office suites like Zoho, Google Docs, or Thinkfree as your primary office applications. If you do and you're a Firefox user as well, you'll probably love the OpenIT Online addon.

I mentioned it previously in my list of 14 extremely useful addons, but it's been updated quite a bit since then.

When you install the plugin, the configuration wizard will help you create file associations. You're not limited to one suite, either. If you'd rather open spreadsheets with Zoho and documents with Thinkfree, OpenIT can handle that. Zoho viewer is also supported and is a nice, fast way to view files you don't need to edit.

OpenIT adds two context menu entries (which you can see in the screenshot above): one to open a file with your default viewer/editor and a submenu that provides access to all available options.

This is a great extension to add to your portable Firefox install. It's an excellent way to make sure you can open a wide array of documents on any computer.

Tags: addons, extensions, firefox, google-apps, google-docs, office, thinkfree, zoho

Filed under: E-mail, Web services, web 2.0, Web

Zoho Mail now online - and offline thanks to Google Gears

by Brad Linder Oct 10th 2008

Online productivity app makers Zoho have publicly rolled out Zoho Mail, a webmail application that's been in private beta up until today. While the world may not really need yet another webmail app, there are a few things that make Zoho Mail a notable challenger to offerings from Google, Yaho!, Microsoft, and AOL.

First and foremost, Zoho Mail offers an offline mode thanks to Google Gears. If you have Gears installed for Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can configure Zoho to download your most recent email messages and attachments so you can catch up on your email when you're stranded somewhere without an internet connection. Yahoo! offers a similar feature, but despite the fact that Zoho Mail's offline access is powered by Google Gears, Google's Gmail does not have an offline mode... yet.

Zoho Mail also has a user-friendly interface that, like many other Zoho Office apps, feels more like a desktop application than a web app. You can sort messages by labels, Gmail-style. And there are a bunch of options for customizing your display. For example, you can open emails in a split-pane mode or in a pop-up window.

There's also a "send mail as" option that lets you change yoru reply to address. In other words, if you decide that you like Zoho Mail but don't want to bother letting everyone know that you have another new email address, you can just forward your old email account to Zoho Mail and change your Email ID so that nobody will ever know the difference.

Tags: email, google-gears, zoho, zoho-mail

Filed under: Office, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

Zoho Creator 3.0 and Marketplace launched

by Christina Warren Sep 30th 2008

When it comes to the online office app market, Zoho absolutely kills the competition in terms of its offerings. To me, the product that most outshines the competition is Zoho Creator. I love the forms in Google Docs, but Zoho Creator is far more robust. With Zoho Creator, you can basically very easily create a database driven web app using drag and drop form elements and support for functions and scripting (if the scripting stuff is too complicated, you can just create a standard form that will store data in a spreadsheet/database). With enough time and skill, you can do some pretty amazing things with Zoho Creator.

Thus, it's not that surprising that Zoho has launched a marketplace where users can offer up and download user-created Zoho apps. The Zoho Marketplace, which offers both free and paid apps (though I haven't been able to even find any pay apps), offers users the ability to take advantage of pre-written apps and integrate it into their workflow. Everything is hosted on Zoho, so you don't have to worry about compatibility or viruses.

Users can even request a specific application and get a response from the development community. If you want to sell or offer up your own Zoho apps in the Marketplace, listing is free.

To go along with the new Marketplace, Zoho also rolled out version 3.0 of the Zoho Creator. I've been playing around with Zoho Creator in the last couple of days, because I need to automate a data collection process, and am really impressed and excited by the changes. You can now create custom HTML pages that are actually part of the app itself, and embed forms and widgets and other elements into those pages. You can also now use something called Stateless Forms, which basically means you can use the Zoho Creator tools, but not have the data store in Zoho. So if you have your own database system already set-up, you can just use Zoho to collect and export the information.

I started playing around with Creator after I hit a wall in what Google Docs would let me do. Not only did I solve my orignal problem, I now have all kinds of ideas for future stuff, now that I know what Zoho Creator can do.

Zoho Creator 3 and the Zoho Marketplace are available now. Free business and personal accounts are available for Zoho, and paid monthly subscriptions for more storage space, the ability to create more applications and support more users are also available.

Tags: zoho, zoho creator, zoho marketplace, ZohoCreator, ZohoMarketplace

Filed under: Business, Internet, Office, Web services

Zoho: on a roll and not looking back

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Sep 4th 2008

As usual, TechCrunch makes a good point about Zoho calling their offerings "still a bit all over the place." But the fact that Zoho now has over one million users and just launched Zoho Docs bodes well for the company (and the still-nascent online business suite business at large). Zoho Docs integrates Writer, Sheet and Show, allows some version controls, more organization features and access control lists. That's a powerful set of glue tying some already-useful apps together. Now we'll have to see if they continue to grow beyond their core users and make real traction in the business space. With Office Live Workspace and Google Docs + Chrome powerhouses coming on strong in Q4, it'll be one heck of a battle.

Previous coverage of Zoho:

The launch of Zoho DB.
Zoho's iPhone-tuned set of pages (we'll give them a full review soon).
Zoho did DocX before some others, and it works well.
Did you know you can export PPT, PDF, ODP files and send to Picasa and Flickr?
It was only a week or so ago that they released Zoho Share, which allows you to embed docs on a page.

And here's how you can log in to Zoho with your Google Apps account.

Tags: cloud-suite, google-docs, office, office-live-workspace, office-suite, zoho

Filed under: Internet, Office, Web services, web 2.0

Zoho Show now supports PPT export, Picasa import

by Brad Linder Jun 26th 2008

Those folks at Zoho just don't quit, do they? Last year the company rolled out a major redesign of its powerful, web-based PowerPoint clone. And now Zoho Show 2.0 has 8 new features, some more exciting than others.

Export to PPT, PPS, PDF, and ODP. You've been able to export files as HTML for a while, but the addition of PowerPoint and PDF export brings Zoho Show a bit closer to being a true PowerPoint replacement
You can now import images from Picasa (Zoho Show already supported Flickr importing)
Support for up to 50 undo/redo actions
Support for 9 new languages: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Portguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
Create contact groups for sharing your presentations with
Copy and paste slides from one presentation to another
Enhanced remote presentation user inteface
Advanced options for embedding presentations on a web site

You can see a demo presentation highlighting the new features after the jump.

[via Mashable]

Tags: powerpoint, presentations, zoho, zoho-show

Filed under: Business, Internet, Office, Web services, web 2.0

Zoho does invoices

by Brad Linder Mar 28th 2008

Zoho has added an online invoicing application to its ever-growing suite of online office/business products. While Zoho Invoice is hardly the only online invoicing tool around, the application gives users a lot of control over the invoicing process. You can add your own logo to your invoices, add custom messages, and choose from several customizable templates. You can also keep a list of customers, products and services and run reports.

On the down side, you can only create and send up to 5 invoices per month with a free account. For $5 per month, you can send up to 25, while $15 per month will get you 150 invoices, $25 brings you to the 500 invoice level, and if you do a lot of business you can create up to 1500 invoices for $35 per month. Meanwhile, services like Invoice Journal and Invotrak let you create as many invoices as you like for free, but they lack some of Zoho Invoice's features.

The other thing that makes Zoho Invoice worth checking out is the fact that it's just one of more than a dozen online services offered by Zoho. If you like the idea of managing your office documents, web conferencing, and HR management all through the same company, Zoho's got you covered. For a small fee.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: invoice, invoice-journal, invoices, invotrak, zoho, zoho-invoice

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Zoho shoots for world (or at least small business) domination

by Brad Linder Mar 10th 2008

Zoho already has an online office suite that makes Google Docs look like Microsoft Works. Now Zoho is expanding its software lineup from document management to people management. Zoho People is an online human resources application suite designed for small businesses.

At first glance, this might seem like a strange fit for a company that provides word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software. But part of the appeal of Zoho's office applications is their collaborative nature. You can easily share documents with your colleagues because they're all stored online. So if you're already collaborating with your employees using Zoho Office, why not manage your personnel using the same application suite?

Zoho People gives you tools for creating custom forms, creating and managing company departments, recruiting employees, creating checklists, and allowing employees to enter their own data.

[via CenterNetworks]

Tags: hr, human-resources, small-business, zoho, zoho-people

Filed under: Text, Productivity, Social Software, web 2.0

Zoho Writer updated, now compatible with DocX files

by Simon Kerbel Feb 27th 2008

Online office suites are gaining some serious steam, and Zoho Office (along with Google Docs) remains one of the innovators in the market. Today, Zoho has released an update to Zoho Writer, their online word processing application.

The biggest highlight of the update is the added support for Microsoft's OOXML file format, mercifully titled DocX. In case you didn't know, whenever you save a Word document, PowerPoint file, Excel spreadsheet, etc...in Office 2007 (or 2008 on a Mac), the default format is DocX.

Zoho Writer now allows you to export your documents as a DocX file – though it looks like importing a DocX file is still a short time away.

Other notable feature updates include:

Thesaurus (available in ten languages)
Groups: Share documents with multiple people without having to enter in multiple email addresses each time you share a document.
Enhanced support for endnotes, footnotes, headers, and footers.

It looks like the line between online word processing and desktop word processing just got a little thinner. How about you, constant reader? Have you made the leap to online word processing? Sound off below.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: docx, online office, OnlineOffice, zoho, zoho writer, ZohoWriter

Filed under: Internet, Office, Google, Microsoft

Study: 73% of Americans have never heard of Google Docs

by Brad Linder Dec 17th 2007

We spend a lot o

f time talking about Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Zoho, and other online office suites. For the most part they don't have all the features of Microsoft Office, but they attempt to make up for that in convenience (access them from any computer) and price (usually free). But we've always had a suspicion that most computer users have never heard of these web based office suites. And if you believe a recent NPD survey of 600 PC users, we were right.

According to the study, 94 percent of US computer users have never tried a web based productivity suite. More than 20 percent say they've at least heard of Google Docs or other suites, but have still never tried them. And only 0.5 percent of users say they've replaced Microsoft Office with an online office suite.

So while online office suites are perfectly serviceable replacements for Microsoft Office if you don't need advanced formatting options or other fancy features, the simple truth is most people just aren't ready to let go of Microsoft Office. That makes Microsoft's online Office strategy a bit more understandable. We may have slammed the company for failing to offer a standalone word processor, spreadsheet app, or presentation platform online, (Office Live Documents simply provides a way to access documents created on your desktop from the web), but Microsoft isn't worried about the competition from Google, Zoho, ThinkFree, or anyone else at the moment. Not in the short term anyway. Office Live Documents is just a new bonus feature for many users, not an alternative to Google Docs.

Tags: google-docs, online-office, thinkfree, zoho

Filed under: Internet, Office, web 2.0

Zoho updates its online PowerPoint clone

by Brad Linder Dec 12th 2007

Online office suite Zoho has rolled out Zoho Show 2.0. Probably our favorite part of that sentence is the fact that Show and 2.0 rhyme. Try saying it out loud. Fun, isn't it?

But seriously, brings much of the power of Microsoft PowerPoint to a web based application. In fact, there are some things that you can do with Zoho Show that you can't do with PowerPoint. For example, you can embed a presentation on a web site, or invite a group of people to watch a presentation live in real time while sharing comments in a chat window.

A few of the updates in Zoho Show 2.0 include:

New themes
Clip Art
Zoho Meeting and Zoho Chat integration
Enhanced import feature
New user interface

[via Zoho Blogs]

Tags: powerpoint, presentations, zoho, zoho-show

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters