November 2008

Googles plan to rule the world?

22 November 2008 by Ross McLean

There are things I like about Google, there are things I don’t. Recently I’ve tried there blog reader – I think it sucks. I have also been trying Chrome. well…

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There are a few reasons.
Here’s one, I don’t like “no chrome”, that sounds ifffy to me

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But this worries me more, especially if your using Goggle docs for typing up your business plan!

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more here…

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Categories: White Noise • 6 Comments »

Why Woffice (web office) is such a disappointment to me

13 November 2008 by Ross McLean

It makes me wonder; if Henry Ford had been asked to design a boat, would he have taken a model T and put a giant hull around it? That’s what people have seemingly done with woffice. Ok so Blits are a bit different, and Google finally seems to be doing things that are a bit more inspired (Google forms = good!). Microsoft, having ploughed god knows how much into Office Live (no, I don’t know why it’s Live either, presumably I prerecord my self typing this?) and have now come up with, “Office Web Applications” (groan..). And in so doing have created nothing new or original what-so-ever, in fact all they have managed to do is to take an established product and dumb it down wonderful.

So what should they be doing? A bloody lot more, that’s what. That counts for Google, Microsoft, and all the others. I don’t want a desktop app that I can use in a in a web browser. The clue’s in the name, its not called, “the spear bedroom at the back of the house”, or “the laptop on my knee in the lounge which is a bit hot”, or, “my 5 year old Parckard Bell on the pine effect chipboard PC desk over in the corner, which I got form PC world, but I don’t use now because its full of spy wear that I cant get off.” It’s called Office dam it; because I use it in a bloody office! If you want me to use an on-line app, then get it to do stuff that makes sense on line. Make an app that works like one-note or Google note book, but that ties it altogether and allows me to produce a rich text doc at the end of it. What about a database that lets me build a web-based front end (and back end) that I can use as a lite weight warehouse management system, or pay roll system. Surely there’s a market for a robust easy to customise online database product!!!!!

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Make it integrate with Google maps in fact let me browse Google maps, copy that into my document and then give me a load of choices, browse shops in this area, look at pictures from here, search for information about the place. Find out about that country (link to wikipedia), that sort of thing.

Come on, stop reinventing the wheel, we want hover boards, and we want them now!!!!

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Categories: General, White Noise • 2 Comments »

The case against on-line collaboration.

11 November 2008 by Ross McLean

I was going to write a post about why I thought web office (woffice) was (currently) such a waste of time. But then I thought that nobody would listen to what I was saying so that would be a waste of time! Instead then I’m going to write a short post about collaboration. Join in if you like”¦

One of the reason often given as a benefit for using web based apps is the ability to collaborate on documents. I think this is absolute rubbish!!! More over, this is why.

Collaboration, in this context means two things. Firstly the ability for two or more people to work on the same document and sometimes at the same time. Secondly it means shearing documents with people.

Clearly the second is like replacing a paint brush with a roller, take your pick, e-mail, shared drive, x/cloud-drive, on-line docs, it’s horses for course, it’s not a solution to a problems, it another option, don’t you forget it!

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The first point is a bit more interesting. I feel that there are a few reasons why this falls apart. Firstly, and this might be me, but the need for two people to be working on the same document at the same time has been in my experience been never! Second I have always found that anything slightly more complex than a shopping list is best managed by one person that is they keep the master and update that. Lets say that I resize a picture on page 3, while Dave is drawing a picture on page 6, now its not going to look right when I finish. Thirdly, and in the words of the small faces, it all or nothing. On line collaborations USP is that there’s just one version of the truth, i.e., you don’t have to manage lots of versions of the same document, but this has implicit weaknesses as well, what if you only want some edits, not all of them?
Then there’s concurrency issues. It’s physically impossible for this type of bi-lateral collaboration to work right. It’s like Groove. I’m Sven from Swiss Cottage, your Peter form Torquay. Hello. I log on to our spreadsheet database, at the same time as you, we both update the same cell, but to different numbers, who wins, who fails, who knows? Erlang that’s who. What about introducing errors when more than one persons is working on the same document, at the same time think about a set of excel formulas no don’t it’s to horrible to consider. And lets not talk about actual fraud!

That’s enough, I could go on, feel free to do so in the comments. Some of these problems are not, of course, unique to woffice, but it sure doesn’t help!

Bar humbug!

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Categories: General, White Noise • 4 Comments »