Drawings in Google Docs

image Google has added a drawing option to it’s Docs applications so now you can insert simple diagrams into documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

To insert a new drawing select Drawing from the Insert menu and a new window pops-up over the document (see left). This is the same for all application types.

You are then free to draw using any combination of lines (both straight and free form), text and a series of predefined shapes (see below). You can do all the sorts of things that you would expect to be able to do such as change the colour of the … Read the rest

Zumodrive

imageThere are a number of online storage companies popping up and I have covered Dropbox, Box and Skydrive previously. Now there is a new player, Zumodrive, offering something that sets it apart from the rest.

On the face of it the service is similar to the others: a (small, 2gb) amount of free online storage that you can access from your Windows, Mac or iPhone devices or via a web interface. However, where Zumodrive differs is in how it is presented on the host machine. So on my laptop ZumoDrive appears a a removable storage device on drive … Read the rest

Does Free Lead to Buy?

imageA fairly common practice for software providers is to provide older versions of their software for free as a taster to encourage you to go on and purchase the latest versions. This applies equally to online apps as it does to desktop – the delivery mechanism is different but the principal is the same.  But does it work?

Reading a story on the web recently I was reacquainted with the Softmaker products which are equivalents of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The story pointed out that Softmaker were offering a copy of their previous version of TextMaker and PlanMaker for … Read the rest

Box vs. Dropbox

A while back I wrote about Microsoft’s Skydrive service which provides some storage in the cloud that allows you to access your files from anywhere. There are plenty of others (Lifehacker has a good overview of some of the main players) but I was taken by both Box and Dropbox as they provide access from the iPhone.

At their heart both services provide online storage (1gb and 5gb, respectively, for free with other paid options) which you can upload files to from a web browser. Once up on the cloud you can then access these files anywhere. Additionally Dropbox also … Read the rest

Google Mail as Communications Hub

image When I am away from the office or home I still want to be able to communicate from anywhere and these days that means from a browser. A while ago I moved both my home and work emails over to Google Mail which has allowed me to get my email from anywhere but, until recently, I hadn’t managed the same for IM.

Google Mail has had a Chat gadget on the right hand side of the workspace for as long as I can remember but as I am not a Google Talk user it was of no use to me … Read the rest

Network Hard Drives

image A while ago I bought this hard drive enclosure from Maplin. What I wanted was some storage that I could access across the network rather than locally via a USB cable and this seemed to fit the bill at £35. I slotted in a spare 80gb hard drive and plugged it into the router. Within a couple of minutes I had connected to it from across the network and was able to transfer files back and forwards.

The management software for the device is pretty simplistic allowing you to setup folders and privileges and not much else. However, it does … Read the rest