Posted Jun 19th 2008 3:00PM by Joey Celis Filed under: Fun
Tag clouds are a great way to visualize content. Sites like Flickr, del.icio.us as well as a little blog called Download Squad use clouds. The larger the word, the more popular it is compared to the rest.
Now what if you wanted a cloud of your very own? One way to go about this is to enlist the help of Wordle. Put in a bunch of words or enter your del.icio.us user name and based on the information you've provided Wordle will generate a cloud for you.
The clouds generated by Wordle are for display purposes only. You won't be able to click on a word and have it go to a particular site. It's just mainly for fun. And you got to admit, a bunch of words all mashed together looks rather interesting.
So you love Mac OS X. We love Mac OS X. But you don't have the money to pony up for Office 200whatever, or maybe you don't even like it. Microsoft Office is overkill for most people who just need a simple word processor. We've used Open Office, but it's probably too much to play around with if all you want to do is write a document.
We've mentioned Bean before, along with other Mac "toolkit software", but a new version came out late in April (version 1.2.0)l, so we felt it deserved another look.
What's the first word processor you remember using? Word, WordPerfect, Works or something else altogether? On the one hand, word processing has come a long way in the last two decades. On the other hand, the image above shows Microsoft Word 1.0, which is almost 20 years old. And you know what? You could still use it to write most of your daily correspondence if you really wanted to.
ImpressionSoft@Work has an overview of the history of MS Word, from version 1.0 all the way up to Word 2007. Do you remember when Microsoft added real-time spell checking or the ability to draw to Word? What about the first version to include the annoying paper clip pop-up assistant?
If the trip down memory lane is making you nostalgic, don't forget that you Microsoft made Word 5.5 for DOS available as a free download a while back. And the download link still works.
For those looking to convert a Word document to a PDF file, there are a largenumber of solutions out there. But how about vice versa? There haven't been many programs brave enough to try and convert a PDF to a Word document.
One program that has stepped up to the plate is PDF to Word Converter 1.1, a free tool that converts a PDF back to a Word document for editing, removing and adding elements, and more.
The program is a small download (about 1 MB), and installation is straightforward. The user interface is straightforward as well: you select the PDF you wish to convert, choose where you want the Word document to be saved, and you're ready to go. Options include the number of pages to convert (you can select all or portions of the document), choice of a default font, and the option to retain shapes and images.
In our test, PDF to Word converter worked flawlessly, quickly and neatly converting a 5 page PDF file in about five seconds.
PDF to Word converter is a nice desktop solution, though it is limited to one conversion type. If you can get online, you might be better served with Zamzar, the online file conversion tool with support for a huge amount of conversion types.
We covered Live Documents, the new online office documents competition last month, that is about to make a move to steal some market share aware from Zoho, ThinkFree and Google.
Live Documents has released some screen grabs from its interface, giving a little more insight into what they are all about. The Flash based interfaces do resemble what Microsoft currently has on the market, but add the ability to collaborate. Screenshots include Presentations, Spreadsheets and Documents.
Live Documents does reference Microsoft, and Microsoft's Office applications quite a bit when talking about its own suite, and the look and feel closely resembles what MS offers, so we have to assume that they have relied heavily on Office as a starting point. Is this a bad thing? Not if you're looking to quickly build and sell the business.
We'll have to test Live Documents when it becomes readily available to see what its winning points are, and whether or not it will become a major player in the online office space.
If you are a Google Docs user you are going to be happy to know that Google Docs Mobile was recently released. Accessing your online Google Docs has gotten easier but don't get your hopes up yet, there are some restrictions.
There were some hints in September about the new mobile service when users came across a working web address for the service. Google Docs Mobile is still in its early stages and it's far from perfect. For instance, only iPhone and Blackberry devices are officially supported. And you can only view documents. You can't edit them. You can either open spreadsheets as an HTML document or you can download an XLS version.
Presentations are said to be viewable on the iPhone. Other devices may work with the mobile version, but Google has said that the more advanced a phone's browsing capability is, the more seamlessly it will work with the Mobile Docs site. As for the interface, it's basically a stripped down version of the online site offering not much more than plain text with no formatting.
A trend that has been flowing with Google has been the development of proper mobile applications, as with Gmail, and Gmail Apps for your domain. We wonder how long it will take for a Google Docs mobile application to get off the ground?
Microsoft Office 2007 may include a bunch of nifty updates from previous versions of Microsoft's office suite. But it also includes new document formats for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In other words, it causes a bunch of headaches when an Office 2007 user sends files to Office 2003 or OpenOffice.org users.
There are a bunch of services that will convert the new .xlsx, .docx, and .pptx files to old fashioned .xls, .doc, and .ppt files. But Microsoft has a solution for anyone who just needs to read documents without editing them.
This summer Microsoft release a compatibility update allowing Office 2003 and earlier customers to open the new file formats. It turns out that update also lets you use the free Word Viewer 2003 to read .docx files. Now Microsoft has also released PowerPoint Viewer 2007 with support for .pptx files.
There's no update to Excel Viewer 2003 yet, but we're guessing it's just a matter of time.
With some students already in school, and some preparing to enter yet another journey into a new semester, let DLS make your studies that much more organized with a few free desktop and web applications that will make your school life that much more enjoyable.
From free document creation applications, online to-do's and organization applications, users are faced with a decision, go for the costly desktop versions and upgrade every few years, or stay ahead of the curve with free web based applications that are constantly updating with new growing feature sets. The choice has never been easier.
This DLS special feature lists out current tools that are floating around the web as highly competitive alternatives for both students and professionals.
Hot on the heels of today's new iLife suite, iWork '08 comes to the table too. Whilst new Keynote, and Pages, features are expected, the most hotly tipped question was "Would Apple bring out an Excel rival"? Behold Numbers and so much more.
If you are a regular user of Microsoft Office, and the Box.net storage platform, you are going to love this new feature that makes storing and accessing your docs online an easy alternative to Google's Docs and Spreadsheets.
The Box.net team has just completed work on an Office On Demand feature for Word users that enables an easy way to save Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Access files directly into Box.net storage accounts.
The application is only available for Windows XP and Vista users. It adds a "Save to Box.net" button to the application toolbar, that when clicked, instantly uploads the file. This new feature is great if you are constantly switching between multiple computers, no more flash keys or manual uploading required.
ThinkFree has launched a few different ways for people to startup their own little applications and mashups.
We covered the company last year when it returned from the dead and began offering a web based application suite. ThinkFree now has a plugin available that was released yesterday that gives Wordpress bloggers the ability to drop in MS Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations that can be viewable even if the end viewer does not have the associated Office or Acrobat applications installed. This opens up the ability for bloggers to drop in a powerpoint presentation into their blog posts, or embed excel spreadsheets of information.
The company has also announced their Viewer API which gives people the opportunity to create mashups and applications using the Viewer utility. ThinkFree wants to get the ball rolling with web service companies who they hope will create mashups and applications using the utility. With the API, designers can integrate Viewer files, doc's, xls, or ppt files directly into an online application, giving end users, regardless of Operating systems or plugins, the ability to view files.
ThinkFree is also working on a document exchange product called ThinkFree Docs that has been described as a Flickr for Office files. Through this new location ThinkFree will enable content creators to read, share, get feedback, and source office documents. There is a demo up online now, but the actual site will be up with a redesign in the near future.
Its time for some space travel for a former Word Doctor.
This is no usual day at the office for a former Microsoft employee. Dr Charles Simonyi will be headed into space today from Kazakhstan at 1731 GMT.
The 58 year old Dr Charles Simonyi made his money working a program that most of us have installed on our computers, Microsoft Word. The billionaire has spent $20m on the space trip, as well as over six months in an intense and physically strenuous training program at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City Russia in preparation for the journey.
He will be headed up with two other Russian crew members in a trip that will take two days to reach the International Space Station. There, the team will spend ten days onboard and complete 200 orbits of the Earth while performing a series of experiments on radiation in the space station.
The program was put together by US-based Space Adventures who have already sent up four other private trips to space. People interested in keeping track of the 450th person to write their own check to get to space can track his journey on his blog at charlesinspace.com.
Consilient wants to push your email. Should we forget about Blackberry's and try out Consilient's new push mobile email application? This former partner of RIM looks like it has the inside scoop on push technology with this new offering that was built for the Asian market, and has recently traveled to North American soil.
Consilient's free push offering includes access to five email accounts, including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, along with IMAP and POP accounts. The company states that they do not store passwords and the free application will push out emails in real time as they are received into personal and corporate email accounts that have been setup in the application. The push application is available for most popular phones and Windows Mobile devices, and does have the ability to accept attachments in Word, PDF and Excel formats.
For users wishing to upgrade from the free account, a $5/month (plus a $10 activation fee) plan is available that will unlock enhanced features that allow content sharing and mobile social networking.
Could this online office suite steal people away from the popular Google and Zoho? It seems far from likely that Peepel will ever take market share away from the online office application space. However, they might look a little amateur, but a lot of development work has gong under the Peepel hood, showing how serious people are indeed trying to get into this space.
Peepel has just announced their beta release for their online office suite of products that are currently not running head to head with Google, Zoho and Thinkfree. Peepel's suite includes a spreadsheet, calculator, word processor, help system, and a file manager. The Peepel workspace manager is a feature that saves the desktop as you have left it, and will open with everything where you were when you login the next time. A Task manager lives on the screen and shows everything that is open and active. In Peepel, users can have many different applications and files open at once, all overlapping in resizable windows. The big claim to fame by Peepel is the claim that they are the only competitor offering a true multiple window system in an online desktop, and not just a bunch of stacked popups. Some neat features, but nothing out of the ordinary that is going to make users want to switch.
Aside from the fact that there is currently no importing or sharing files, as well as limited storage sizes, Peepel does have a very welcome offline work mode. It's not up to standards with their competition, but if they are serious about success, they do have potential to grab a tiny share of the market space. We will hold off on storing any major files here yet, but our radar will be following Peepel's further development.
Mac users seem to always get it last, and this upcoming version of Office 2008 is no exception. The team at Microsoft has been testing the next version of Office for Mac which is scheduled to be out in the middle of this year, and luckily adds some features that Apple fans have been missing out on.
Office 2008 has been finally released in a private beta test version for Mac users to test on Intel and Power PC setups. This release has taken longer than Microsoft's normal schedule of 18-24 months for new Mac versions of software releases. The current Mac version of Office is 2004 came out in April 2004. Mac Office will also finally get support for XML file formats, which was added in the Windows Office 2007 version. Office for Mac will also see an application called My Day, which give quick access to calendar items. Other improvements include improved page layout in Word and Excel with ledger sheets.
An Office alternative that more and more users are getting turned onto is the new OpenOffice 2.2 which has recently been released.
Tag clouds are a great way to visualize content. Sites like Flickr, del.icio.us as well as a little blog called Download Squad use clouds. The larger the word, the more popular it is compared to the rest.
