Share your documents online with Google Docs

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States should collect Internet sales taxes

Chief Editor Ted Como brings you the latest tech advice on Tech Bytes

Published Wednesday, October 21 2009 - (0) Comments

In its quest to capture the real time digital communications market - and it will - Google released promised upgrades to Google Docs, adding shared folders and improving the look of the interface. Google Docs is a free service allowing you to post documents - and now entire folders of information - online, accessible by persons you designate. A shared document may not only be read by users you authorize, but edited.
I use it for genealogy information that other family members can add to but it's also an easy way for families to share photos, compile family menus, exchange vacation information, etc., and for remote businesses to collaborate in real time. You may create basic documents from scratch or start from a template (http://docs.google.com/templates) such as a family budget planner, resume, invoice, yearly calendar, project manager schedule or todo list.
You can put a photo slideshow up on Google Docs and invite family members to view it. There's a template for business cards - fill it out and print on Avery business card stock. You may create a loan amortization schedule, a checkbook register, project report, school calendar, wedding album - if you can imagine it, there's likely a template for it among the thousands offered. Going to a business meeteing with a Power Point presentation? Just put it here, and open it when you get to the meeting.
Each document can have a maximum size of 500K and each image, 2MB. Spreadsheets can be up to 256 columns and 200,000 cells or 100 sheets; you may store up to 10MB per .pdf from you computer. The free web space offered here by Google is more than generous: up to 5,000 documents and 5,000 images, and data you place may be copied or downloaded by those you authorize.
With folders, you may not create a file structure at your Docs page and organize content as you would on your computer; determining which individuals have access to which folder. allowing access by some to some information. A new upload page allows you to choose multiple files and upload them simultaneously into a folder.
File types can be almost anything, though in my tests Docs refused to upload some documents including an RTF document created by Wordpad. But at no cost to the user, I'm not complaining.
The next step in this approach to realtime data exchange is Google Wave, already being tested by thousands, myself not included. Despite all the free publicity I give Google in this space, I didn't get an invititation on Wave, which slight will result in my looking for opportunities to promote Microsoft at Google's expense (you folks at Google may redeem yourself but time's running out.)
Wave is, well, pretty cool - it takes the online communication and collaboration tool to a new level. A "wave" as used here is a conversation with multiple participants collaborating on the wave's content. They may access the conversation at any point, rewinding it if they choose, and inserting images or video.
I'll holler when Wave is released sometime next year; meantime, more information here: wave.google.com.
Getting Bang Out Of Bing: As promised, herewith a shameluss plug for Microsoft: Bing (bing.com) is a search utility designed to compete with Google and does a pretty good job of it. But there's more to Bing than you may realize.
Bing's focus is to help users make decisions - currently about buying something or going somewhere. Other launch aspects center on obtaining health information or directions, but the interface at bing.com always has an interesting photo as background and if you pass your mouse over it, you'll see little information sqaures appear within it; hover over one and find information tidbits about the image with links.
While those are interesting, of more use (and something Google doesn't offer) is the ability to glean some further information from a search return and I'll bet you weren't aware of it because there's no reference to this function on the search return page. For example, open Bing, and do a search for "Kingsport." If you're used to Google, you'll begin scroll down the list of returns, looking for particular information. But before you do that, place your cursor over the first item returned and you'll see a little orange bullet appear to the right of that item. Now, pass your mouse over that, and you get extended information about this referenced web page.
For instance, on a search for "swing flu" the fifth item returned points to a site called www.swineflu.org and the organge bullet tells you that at this site, you can discuss the latest swine flu developments with others, around the world, in real time.
At left on this results page under what Bing calls the Explorer Pane are other results that attempt to hone in on what you might be looking for, including articles and related searches - and under that, your search history. Under search history, click "see all" and on this page, you can put a check mark next to a particular search and then share it - saving it to file, connecting directly to Facebook, or e-mailing it.
While on this returns page for swine flu, click on the images tab and pass your mouse over the returned images to see an exploded view with some information. Go back to the explorer pane under Images and you'll find options to narrow your search by image size, layout, color, style and people.
Now click the Videos tab and pass your mouse over any of the returns to hear what any of these videos are about. Click Shopping and you'll find returns for health products; click Maps and you'll see local pharmacies listed. So how does Bing know where you are so that it can tell you about local pharmacies? Click Preferences at top right and enter your current location.
You may also get maps in 3D, save maps or e-mail them - the 3D aspect will require a download. Click the Maps tab and type in Kingsport, TN; click on the map and then and save information. Do a search for Kingsport, TN, click on the map and then right click and select "Add a pushpin." In the box that opens under the General tab to save or e-mail the map; and the 3D Tour tab to view the map in 3D - you'll get instructions to download and install the 3D aspect. Once installed, you'll get a satellite view and instructions on how to use it to rotate or tilt the image, to see Bays Mountain looming over the city.
For the last trick, if you're not sure whether you want to use Bing, or, Google, then use both at the same time. Visit www.bingandgoogle.com and type in Kingsport, TN to get two windows, side by side, showing returns for each search engine.
You can add this dual search site to your Internet Explorer browser by clicking the down arrow at top right on IE right next to the default search box. Select "Find more providers" and on that page at botton left, click on "Create your own Search Provider." Now, open another copy of IE and visit www.bingandgoogle.com. In the search field, type TEST in all capital letters and click "Bing & Google" to effect the search.
Now, highlight the URL that appears in the browser (it should be as follows: http://www.bingandgoogle.com/bing_google.php?q=TEST) and copy it. Go back to your first browser and pasts the URL into the space on the Add-ons Gallery page marked "URL:" and give the new search a name, i.e., Dual Search. Leave the Character Encoding field as it, and click Install Search Provider.
The search may complain that the URL is not valid; if it does, repeat the process - it worked for me. You may make this your default search site for that search space at upper right in IE, or, simply access it in the future by clicking the down arrow.

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