Online Applications & Tools

Google Docs have been pretty respectable so far. In a minimalistic sort of way, it gets the job done. Obviously if you need the more complex tools offered by Office, well cough up the dough because your gonna need it.

This week I have been contemplating the new version of Office and it's gonna be $480.00 big ones. That's not even the pro version. I don't think so!!!

In light of that, Google Docs is looking pretty good. So is Zoho Writer. They have the same basic components and if nothing else, they will keep each other in check.

I'll be playing with them more in the near future and see how they continue to evolve. You never know, Office might be on it's way out.

Search Engines

So, I have been a googler for as long as it's been alive. More so now than ever. I remember a few of the engines we use to use in the mid-nineties. Magellan, WebCrawler, Excite, and Infoseek are a few that come to mind. Mid-nineties...Wow! That was not that long ago, was it?

Anyways, I tried Mamma and Dogpile for the first time. I used the same search terms on all my inquiries (including Google).

Mamma was not so impressive. I got some links that I just said, what the ??? Irrelevant to what I was asking for, but some hits that were perfectly acceptable as well.

Now Dogpile was more respectable. Because I was doing a search that required more educational resources, I was quite surprised by the good hits I got. Even some outside the US that in some cases were preferable.

Google is definitely my mainstay, but I will consider other sources in future. Maybe. ;0)

Podcasting

I went to Arizona State http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLibraryChannel and
Washington State Libraries http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/rssapp/rssfeed.aspx?feedid=11
to check out the podcasting features. The lectures available are pretty slick...

Which reminds me, MIT has made their curriculum available online now for free. That's 1800 course available to the average Joe. Audio and video available through the link below. Of course the audio is mp3
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/index.htm#Physics

I can see the benefits that are available through college and even to a degree in high school. I believe that Sno-Isle is already working on interviews with WWII veterans as well as recorded some book recommendations in the past. There are currently children's stories on the website available for playback as well.

Our eAudio site is working beautifully toward this end. It has a crossover effect meaning, the folks that want to or only have the ability to listen on the computer can, the folks that want to be able to burn to CD can, and the folks that want to transfer everything to an mp3 player (me) can.


So I have added the MIT RSS to my Google reader and have a radio online subscription that I have had for years that I have been very happy with. I can either download the next day manually (which is my choice) or I can use a podcatcher which I do not use anymore. I can get very selective if I do it manually.