Access and save Zoho Office documents in Microsoft Office - Lifehacker

Well, as I posted yesterday about Zoho making moves, today Lifehacker puts out into about a new plugin which enables Word and Excel to open/save devices from/to Zoho online.  Pretty nifty.  I’ve always wanted an online space to which I could save through a network link (not on campus, but my own space) without the whole FTP setup.  This is moving in the right direction.

The question is, how many of these online office or storage repositories will follow suit (or may have and I haven’t seen them).

UPDATE: Had a faculty member stop by at the end of lunch, so I took a moment, after they left, to download and test this puppy.  I’m thinking it could be very useful for faculty/students writing as a group.  I’m wondering what the options are for versioning and check-out for individual documents.

Pretty simple.  Downloaded the plugin.  Created a Zoho account (it is free).  Had to quit Outlook so that it could install.  The plugin adds a new toolbar to Word (haven’t tested Excel yet).  I selected Settings and entered my new login info.   Selected Remember me and clicked Save.

The one non-intuitive aspect was logging into Zoho in Word.  You click the Zoho Writer dropdown and select  login.  Zoho shows a little bar and takes about 15 seconds to login (different network speeds may effect this).

I entered some text and selected Save in Zoho Writer.  A window came up requiring me to save the file locally.  I saved it to the desktop and tried again.  Got a request: This document si not available in Zoho Writer.  Do you want to add it?  I clicked Yes and up it loaded.

Now for the real test.  What does it look like?  So, I opened up Zoho and ws already logged in.  I clicked on Zoho Writer and it took about 40 seconds for the app to load.  Once it did, there was my new document in the left My Docs panel.  I clicked on the title and Zoho opened it in a new tabbed document (next to the original blank document) with all of the toolbars for working on the device.

Pretty nifty.  Don’t have time to test this with groups, but it may be worth looking into as time permits.

The Best Unknown Mac Apps - 1 » Dustin Bachrach Blog

And, even more Mac apps.  Sweet.

10 Programs I Can’t Live Without…All New for 2007!

Ten more Mac Apps.  PDFlab and Renamer look cool.  Witch looks interesting, but I don’t really need any more interface modifiers on my Mac.

MAKE: Blog: Turn your $60 router into a $600 router

I keep running across references to this site (this one through Make:blog) and I own one of the recommended routers.  Right now, I’m safe and lazy in the suburbs.  Not too concerned over wireless security considering the range of my router barely passes my property.  But, if we end up moving somewhere with lots more people close by, I’m going Fort Knox with everything ’cause a little paranoia goes a long way…

MAKE: Blog: Turn your $60 router into a $600 router

I keep running across references to this site (this one through Make:blog) and I own one of the recommended routers.  Right now, I’m safe and lazy in the suburbs.  Not too concerned over wireless security considering the range of my router barely passes my property.  But, if we end up moving somewhere with lots more people close by, I’m going Fort Knox with everything ’cause a little paranoia goes a long way…

if:book: blogging restructures consciousness?
So, is it just me, or does this bit of text (not all of it, just the scary part) make you want to stop blogging?

“After two and a half years of virtually non-stop blogging, my perception of myself as a distinct individual has dramatically waned. My interior monologue has virtually disappeared. I no longer have aesthetic-based epiphanies, and I almost never concern myself with examining internal passions or emotions anymore. Blogging has not just changed the activities in which I engage–the activities in which I engage in order to be a successful blogger have profoundly altered the way my mind operates and the way I conceptualize my agency in relation to others. In effect, I do not exist in the same way I once existed.”

Don’t think it will make me stop blogging.  And I do agree with what this individual says.  It will change and restructure your thinking process.  But, I don’t really want to give up “my perception of myself as a distinct individual” any more than I want to give up my nose.  Yet, I think it can help us to look back over time.  When I started my first blog, it was purely to keep track of the incoming bits of flotsam and jetsam that was influencing my “self” as it is.  That blog didn’t work.  Not enough time at that point (and Wordpress wasn’t as well developed; didn’t need more tech stuff to take care of on my own time) to do it properly.

I’ll keep this in mind and try to write something on it as time progresses.  The entire article is a good read, but I haven’t the time to discuss it further tonight.

Cats hosted by Knitemare

I don’t know what it is about this particular set of images with bad writing, but it cracks me up.  Just can’t get enough of it.

Goal Setting Toolkit | Success Begins Today

This little printout gets two checks: as a tickler (make certain to fill it out if nothing more than as an exercise) and as a great little GTD effort.  If you have specific goals, it makes getting there easier.

NMC Virtual Worlds

A Second Live, you attractive vixen you.  If only I had more time.  But, I get in there every so often.  And I have to commend the NMC for setting up a service.  So often, good support, even just someone to answer some newbie questions, can be so important.  So, starting a support service to help institutions grow an Second Life presence to assist with instruction (if I’m reading this correctly) is just wonderful.

Can’t wait to see what they develop over time.

Get on the Love Train

I’m not certain what is more important about the story.  First, it seems to tell us that standing up for someone else’s dignity is a good thing and may carry rewards.  Second, that you can’t trust good stories any longer because it may come from some evil marketing genius’ mind.  Either way, if it makes people feel good, should it diminish the result?