Free Web Applications - Review

Google Documents

Google Documents is a great solution for creating a document, spreadsheet, or presentation without the need to purchase and install software on your computer.  This software as a service is referred to as Cloud Computing.  Google documents services are free unless you want to purchase additional storage space on their servers.

After experimenting with the interface, I believe that anyone with minimal computer skills would be able to take advantage of what Google Documents has to offer.  The main benefits include using the software/service on multiple computers.  You could start a document on your work computer, save the document to Google’s server, then continue working on the same document on your home computer.

Google Documents also allows for multiple people to make changes to a project at the same time.  It was interesting to test this feature out.  I logged into a document then had a co-worker log-in to the same file.  As he was making changes to my file I could see the new text appear on my screen.  This option allows for increased collaboration on projects without the need to e-mail files or transfer using a flash drive.

If you are in the need of using an office suite and do not want to purchase software or would like a service to collaborate with others easily, I would highly recommend trying out Google Documents.

Picnik

Picnik is another form of Cloud Computing that offers a service to edit photos from a digital camera or other device.  Before Picnik became available, it was necessary to purchase a program such as Photoshop which could cost as much as $100.00 for one computer.  Picnik’s slick user interface and comfortable design makes editing photos extremely easy and fun.  I noticed the blazing fast upload speed during the file transfer process that others sites/services could not compare to.  Most of the more common files formats such as JPEG and GIF are available which allows you to edit almost all of your photograph needs.  Again, with Cloud Computing, the main benefit here is not having to purchase and install software on each computer.  Any computer that has the ability to sink up to the Picnik website could take advantage of this photo editing service.  I would encourage anyone with the desire or interest to edit photographs to give it a try.