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Engaging Commentary on Online Office Suites

With the rise of Google Apps and several other online productivity applications like Picnik (online photo editing software), you can now be more efficient with your work since more often than not, this generation is online most of the time.

But you know what?

I just had a bright idea.

Bear with me here and tell me if you follow what I’m about to say.

Wouldn’t it be really cool if these online applications could be translated into a package where you could use them even if you are NOT connected to the Internet? This “offline office suite” would be really handy in places where there is no Internet connection. You’d be able to write documents, do spreadsheets and edit photos without the need to go online. Isn’t that cool? I wonder why no one ever thought of that in the first place.

Now that’s a revolution!

*sarcasm mode off*

EDIT: For those who don’t get my sarcasm …

I’ve been using Web based applications since the launch of Meebo, Protopage and Writely (which was eventually bought out). Free apps such as this one serve as an alternative to Open Office but with the way the Internet works here in the Philippines, you’d be in for a lot more inconvenience than anything as consumer DSL can go down like an unexpected bowel movement. And as Veronica Belmont said in the last episode of TWiT, it is just so hard to re-learn another Office Suite when MS Office is just so engraved into our system already.

I steer away from Open Office for one traumatic reason. It saves files by default using a proprietary format which renders them harder to open in a non-techie environment. I had many scares as articles were submitted for editing using the Open Office extension and none of the editors had Open Office. The poor editorial assistant had to resave the file in a MS Word document format and resend, thus wasting everyone’s time. So there. No biggie in truth, but when you’re surrounded by people who are most familiar with MS Word (a microcosm example of why Microsoft still wins in the corporate environment), I don’t want to take risks.

By Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast and sitting Techbology Editor for The Philippine STAR.

He is also an EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.

7 replies on “Engaging Commentary on Online Office Suites”

Meron po kaming apps na maaari mong gamitin offline and then i-upload na lang kapag ikaw ay online na… Check po http://pack.google.com. Yung spreadsheet and document apps namin, maaari mong i-edit kasabay ang ibang users ng doc na iyon in real time (online), so hindi mo na kailangan mag-merge pa ng docs. O dibah, cool 🙂

(You’d be able to write documents, do spreadsheets and edit photos without the need to go online. Isn’t that cool? I wonder why no one ever thought of that in the first place.

Now that’s a revolution!…)

you NITWIT, thats what Open Office can do. you should try to view the internet site much farther away than your own blog so that you will learn new things.

ahh CatPack I was thinking of the best way to reply to your comment but then it dawned on me that maybe .. just maybe, you’re too gullible for this post.

didn’t you see my last line?

ive tried using web based office apps and online suites since writely, meebo and protopage and have truly found that they dont suite my needs.

okay fine. the post was a personal commentary on why online office suites don’t work for me. of course i could have said that in my post, but by doing that, it would make the post rather boring.

erwin, im aware of this but its quite hard to remind people to keep on doing this as articles come from all over the place.

actually we just decided to save everything in *.rtf for layout purposes.but thanks for the tip 🙂

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