Rich's Random Thoughts

Google just launched a new version of Google Apps for US Governments.  Why do they need to have a version of their “Apps” product specifically for US governments?  Because of a sensible requirement that American government data be store only on US based servers.  I’m glad that Google Was able to do this for American governemnts.  What I’d like to know is when the internationally based version is going to be launched?

I live in Canada, specifically in the Province of British Columbia, and our government passed a law several years ago requiring that publicly funded institutions store personal data on servers in Canada only.  This makes sense especially in light of the US Patriot act, which allows for American law enforcement agencies to look through private data without necessarily obtaining a search warrant, and without notifying the owner of the data that they have been snooping around.

So Google, when is the Google Apps for Canadian Governments going to be launched? I’m looking forward to the press conference!

I’m happy to see that Microsoft is finally getting into the on line office market. There is nothing better for inovation than competition between two companies with a lot of money, and a lot of smart employees. I’ve been a heavy user of the Google Docs wordprocessor and spreadsheet apps since 2006.  The Google Docs apps are not as powerful as the desktop Microsoft Office programs, but now have enough features that I have almost stopped using Microsoft Office desktop products.  The thing that drew me to Google Docs in the first place was it’s excellent collaboration features, like real time multi-user document editing and a strong version control system – all essential features for college students.

Here are my thoughts on Microsoft Word Web App (live.office.com). Before you test drive it yourself, you’ll need an active hotmail.com or live.com account.

Word Web App Pros:

• The look and feel of the Word Web App is very similar to Word 2007.  Similar, but not as many features, which is to be expected at this point in it’s product development. If you use Word 2007 you have a very small learning curve.
• Sharing a document with others is easy to do.  Having the document on the internet makes collaboration simple… no more worrying about whether or not you have the most recent version in your email inbox or not.
• The built in version control looks solid.  It is now a trivial task to revert the document back to an earlier version if necessary, or see what was deleted by accident.
• 25GB of file storage is excellent. I’m not sure what the limite is in Google Docs to be honest.
• You can edit documents in any web browser, not just Internet Explorer.  I’ve been working in Google Chrome on a Mac, and the experience has been good.

Word Web App Cons:

• No printing.  This is huge.  You cannot print unless you open your document in the desktop version of Microsoft Word, or a compatible word processer like OpenOffice.  I can understand that they still want people to buy their desktop version of Office, but not being able to print makes Google Docs look very good.
• No footnotes or endnotes. For students this is a problem.  You can add footnotes and endnotes in the desktop version of Word, but you can’t edit them or even see them in the online version.  Hopefully this will change soon, as this is a big problem for students who need to cite their references.  Google Docs started out without footnotes, but added them in October of 2008.
• While you can edit documents just fine in any web browser, if you want to edit the file in your desktop version of Word you need to be on a Windows computer in Internet Explorer.  Not a huge deal, unless you need to add footnotes, or want an easy way to print.

Whether you end up using Microsoft Office Web Apps, or Google Docs, we’re all going to benefit from Microsoft getting into this market.  Overall this is a good first effort from Microsoft.  Hopefully they’ll quickly add printing and footnotes to their otherwise excellent product.

Here’s a short Google Apps video that shows how useful real time collaboration on a document can be… no more emailing a document back and forth between collaborators:

In short, yes.  If you quickly want to see how much information on Facebook you are making public, go to the ReclaimPrivacy.org website, and follow the easy instructions there, and you’ll know in less than a minute how much of your information on Facebook is now available for the general public to view.

We should be concerned about how Facebook is handling information that we assumed would be private when we signed up.  The problem isn’t so much that some of the information we put on Facebook is available to the public, it is that Facebook has repeatedly changed the default rules on what it makes public.  When I signed up on Facebook 2 or 3 years ago, virtually all the information I posted there was private by default.  That was one of the big selling points of the site: Connect with friends and share information in a private fourm.

If I signed up today, virtually all the information I post would be public by default.  Not only that, but if I clicked “OK” on the different “information dialog boxes” that appeared over the past year telling me how the Facebook’s default privacy setting were changing, virtually all my information would be public now as well.  That is very concerning.

To find out what you’re exposing to the public internet, go to: http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/

Introduction to the Survey Results

In addition to the technology questions we’ve been asking UVic law students over the past seven years, we decided to ask some extra questions about the increasing important mobile technology that students are arriving at Law School equipped with.  One major change to the methodology of this survey compared to past years is that we sent the survey to all students at the law school, not just first year students.  The response rate was 25% this year rather than close to 100% in previous years.

[Note: if you have problems seeing any graphs on this page, please look at the underlying Google Doc's page for this blog post]

Executive Summary:

• 30% of students own “Smart Phones” that can browse the internet.
• 97% of students own laptops, and over 60% own both a laptop and a desktop computer.
• 39% of student laptops are Mac’s.
• The average laptop price dropped to $1,200 from $1400 in 2007, and from $2,100 in 2004.
• All students now report having high speed internet in their homes.
• 82% of students bring their laptops to school almost every day.
• 86% of students own MP3 players capable of listening to recorded lectures.
• 54% of students use Gmail as their primary email account, 18% use UVic email and 15% Hotmail.
• 58% of students identified MS Word as their favorite tool for collaborative document editing.  27% chose Google Docs, 5% OpenOffice Writer & 10% “Other”.
• 100% of students now have access to high speed internet at their homes.
• 86% of students use Facebook and 65% of those students would like to see law school events and activities published on Facebook as well as through the online faculty calendar of events.

Read more…

Prezi.com is a web application that allows you to create a map of your presentation in a mind map like style, and then when you present, you zoom around the map with ease.  For those who do not like the linear strait jacket that Power Point forces their presentation into, Prezi will be a breath of fresh air.

Converting an existing presentation, or creating a new one from scratch is not difficult after watching Prezi’s tutorial for new users.  I ended up converting a presentation I am giving next week on “Backing Up for Disaster” from PowerPoint to Prezi, and the results I think are impressive.

Not only is the navigation engaging, but it also allows the presenter to give the audience a better overview of the presentation up front (if he or she wants to), and allows the presenter to skip to different parts of the presentation with ease.  No more paging between slides to find the right one, you just have to zoom out, find the area you want to speak to, and then zoom in to it.

Here is a Google Apps version of my “Backup” presentation, and here is the Prezi version.  You be the judge of which one you’d rather sit through.

Twice in the past two weeks, I’ve gone to stores in order to purchase specific items, but was been shocked at how high the in store prices were.  Both times I quickly pulled out my iPhone and checked the price of the item I needed to purchase at Amazon.ca, and then purchased it online while still in the store.

On my first shopping trip I was looking for toner for my Lexmark 250DN.  At Staples, the toner I needed cost $150!  Can you believe that!  I only paid $250 for the printer, and now they want to charge me $150 for the toner.  A quick check at Amazon.ca showed the exact same toner costing $105.  I ended up saving $45 dollars. If I had just purchased it directly from Amazon in the first place, I would have saved  another $5 or more in gas for the trip to the store.

The second “in store, online purchase” incident took place last night.  Our son had asked us to purchase Assassin’s Creed 2 for the xBox 360 for him.  At EB Games in our local shopping mall, they were asking $70 for the game.  My iPhone informed me that Amazon.ca was selling the game for $57.  The kicker was that they didn’t even have the game in stock, so I simply purchased it from Amazon.ca as we walked away from the store.  I later learned that if you purchased the game from the EB Games online store you would only have to pay $60 (plus shipping… no shipping charges with the Amazon purchase).

New iPhone programs are making this type of comparison shopping easier and easier. RedLaser for example lets you scan bar codes and look up pricing (american pricing only for the time being).  SnapTell is another program that allows you to take pictures of products and get Amazon.com pricing for them, along with product reviews.  The product review can be very helpful, especially if you are not very familiar with the product you are trying to purchase.

There is real value in being able to go to a store and consult with someone about the purchase you are going to make.  There is also real value in being able to take something home right a way, if you need it in a hurry.  If I’m not in a hurry, and I feel that the price difference is too great, I for one am not afraid to walk away from a store and make my purchase online.

If you’d like to create some fun graphics or animations for your next presentation, or would simply like a distraction as you ease back into work after the Holidays, why not give GoAnimate a try.  From their website:

GoAnimate.com is an entertainment website that enables the simple creation of unique computer animated stories, satires and sentiments that can be shared with the entire online community.

Historically, the creation of animation required specific skills, limiting those who can express their creativity. We designed the Go!Animate application to allow users to create animations without drawing talent or a technical understanding of advanced software such as Flash. The site provides users with a library of interesting characters, backgrounds, props, sound effects and music for use in creating their own unique animations. Creators can customize their animations with a number of tools and features that allow them to create truly unique works of expression.

Enjoy!

At the last conference I attended, at least 20% of the people with laptops were using NetBooks this year.  The reason why I took notice, is because at the same conference the previous year there was not a single NetBook in sight.  So what is a NetBook? How do Netbooks coompare to Laptop comptuers?

1. NetBooks typically have a small screen than a laptop: typically 10″ diagonally rather than 13″ or 15″.
2. Netbooks also usually have slightly smaller keyboards, although the Dell Netbook I have been using has a keyboard almost the same size as my MacBook Air keyboard.
3. Netbooks typically have slower processors and less memory than laptops (Photo Shop and video editing won’t work well on them).
4. On the plus side, Netbooks usualy weigh less than laptops, and in some cases (as is with my Dell NetBook) have a longer battery life than most Laptops.
5. Netbooks also cost a lot less than light weight laptops, but are close in price to lower end bulky laptops. My Dell Mini 10 cost $329 CDN.

Admittedly the CALI conference attracts a pretty geeky crowd of law school technical staff, law librarians and law professors, even so, going from 0% to 20% in one year is impressive.

So what do I think?  I agree with Michael Dell’s assessment that for most people a NetBook makes an excellent companion to a desktop computer.  If you need to travel, or take a laptop to a meeting, a Netbook will do an excellent job.  After a couple days of use, I started to get claustrophobic in the very small screen space that the NetBook provides (in my case 1024 x 600 as opposed to 1200 x 800 on my laptop, and 1920 x 1200 on my desktop computer).

My recommendation for students, staff and faculty would be to get a full size desktop computer for your home or office, and then use a NetBook for classes, travelling and meetings.  If you use Google Documents, or DropBox for synchronizing files, you’ll have everything you need to work on no matter which machine you are using.

Drop Box synchronizes files between computers across the room or across the internet.  The service is free if you have 2GB of data or less.  For $10 a month you get 50GB of data storage.  I’ve used DropBox for several months now, and have to say that it works great.  It makes it much easier for me to quickly share documents between my Laptop (mac), my Work Computer (windows), and my Home Computer (mac).

Not only does it facilitate file sharing, but it also serves as an excellent backup system. While more expensive than Mozy’s $5 a month backup service, you do get a lot of extra functionality that Mozy does not give you.  DropBox works great on Mac, Windows and Linux computers, which means that it can be used on virtually any computer you own or can currently buy, including one of those cute little Net Books.

Another feature that some might find useful, is the ability to share sub folders with other people for collaboration purposes. As files are modified, previous version are kept so that if necessary you can revert back to a previous version of the document.  Files that are accidentally deleted can also be recovered, unless you manually purge deleted files.

I highly recommend DropBox for people who use multiple computers and need to share files between them.  Good luck!

Very cool!  The ability to detect the language of text in the cell of a spreadsheet, and then translate it into the language of your choice.  I’m not sure how I would use it in my daily job, but it certainly would come in handy when translating labels on a web site into multiple languages.  So how does it work?  Here’s an example of the two key functions:

• =GoogleTranslate(“Oi, como está?”,”pt”,”en”) gives “Hi, how are you”
• =DetectLanguage(“Oi, como está?”) gives “pt”

I saw this in a Google Docs blog post.