The following table compares general information for a number of popular document and file sharing/collaboration services.

NOTE: Comparison chart was created based on available information and features are subject to change.

	Google Documents docs.google.com	Dropbox dropbox.com	Zoho zoho.com	Box.net box.net	ThinkFree Online Office thinkfree.com
Document Editor Included		No
Types of Files Supported	doc, xls, ppt, pdf rtf, html, txt, odt, csv, ods and sxw	All file types	doc,docx,LaTeX,wpd, xls,xlsx,sxc,tsv, ppt, pptx, pdf rtf, html, txt, odt, csv, ods,pps,odp, sxi and sxw	doc, docx, wpd, xls,xlsx, ppt, pptx, pdf rtf, txt, odt, ods, odp, ai, psd,csv, html, jpeg, png, gif, swf, flv, mp3, tiff, bmp, css, java, php, sql, xml	Write, calc, show, html, note, doc, html, xml, text, rtf.
Pricing	Free w/ options to purchase Apps & Extra storage	Free Pro 50: $9.99/Mo Pro 100: $19.99/Mo Teams: $795/year	Free: Personal Use Standard: $3/user/mo Premium: $5/user/mo	Free: Personal Use Business: $15/user/mo Enterprise: Customizable	30-day free trial
Upload Limit per Account	Free: 1GB 20GB – $5/year up to 16TB – $4,096/year	Free: 2GB Pro 50: 50GB Pro 100: 100GB Teams: 350+ GB	1GB 500MB Add-Ons available for $10/mo	5GB More options with paid accounts	1GB
File Size Limit	Up to 10 GB	Desktop App: no limit Website: 300MB	5MB	25MB More options with paid accounts	10MB
Single / Multiple Document Uploading	Single, Multiple and Folder uploads	Single, Multiple and Folder uploads	Up to 5 documents per upload	Single file upload	Single, Multiple and Folder uploads
File Organization and Sorting Features	List & detail panes. Sort by collections, sharing, groups and filters.	Use folders to organize and sort files.	Use folders to organize and sort files.	Use folders to organize and sort files. Search by keywords.	Use folders to organize and sort files. Search by filters and tags
File Sharing Features	Private, By Invitation, Permission Based and Public viewing	Private, By Invitation, Permission Based and Public viewing	Private and Invitation Only	Private, By Invitation and Permission Based	Private, Permission Based and Public Viewing
Document History Features	Viewable history & roll back to any version	View and restore files from online account	Viewable history & revert to previous version	Version History only available with paid accounts	View and restore files from online account

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

If you struggle with the post/page editor in WordPress and you find yourself missing the comfort of your desktop document software, then desktop blog publishing tools may just be the answer to all your dreams.  (okay, maybe not ALL your dreams)

One such tool for Windows is Windows Live Writer 2011. I’ve been hearing about this tool for several years and, until just today, I’ve not explored using it. A quick and simple free download from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer and I was set up. Easy to connect to my blog with the url and login credentials and I was on my way to a life of familiarity and comfortable content creating.

It’s not just for creating and publishing blog posts either. You can create and publish pages, too. You can also edit existing posts and pages. Interesting. This is ideal when using WordPress for both your website and your blog. Pages = website pages, Posts = blog posts.

Simpler table creation

One of the things I find most annoying is utilizing tables in WordPress efficiently. Even with WordPress plugins, like TinyMCE Advanced, I find the lack of ease of use and functionality slightly aggravating.  The beauty of desktop blog publishing tools is that it blends the ease of use that you’ve become accustomed to, with the ability to post content to your online location painlessly. Being able to create your content while offline is ever-so-convenient. Adding categories, tags, setting a publishing date are all at your fingertips in the menu ribbon (now very familiar to Microsoft Office users). Once completed, publishing it live, or as a draft, online is as easy as pressing a toolbar button.

Creating a table for your WordPress blog post using Windows Live Writer 2011 is a breeze. However, while you can easily align an image on your page, I couldn’t find page alignment settings for the table. What? Oh wait, I just selected everything in the table and used the paragraph alignment toolbar button. OK. I guess that works.

this is text in my table cell 1	this is text in my table cell 2
added picture from my computer	added picture from my computer

Even better table options with a plugin

After posting this post the first time as a draft, I noticed the table layout still lacking what I wanted. Quick research revealed a free table plugin for Windows Live Writer to provide better tools and options for my tables. Here is another table after I installed this plugin.

The new plugin insert window. You actually have to click on the Table Plugin in the plugin window to get the right insert window to display:

The new table:

text in my table cell 1	text in my table cell 2

Breezy image tools

Adding screenshots is as simple as using your PrintScreen keyboard key to capture the image and using your Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut to paste it into your post in Windows Live Writer. It’s just like doing this in a Microsoft Word document. When you publish it to your blog, the images get uploaded automatically to your blog’s image folder location. Yay! I’m happy.

Double-clicking on the image opens the Picture Tools Editing toolbar in Windows Live Writer 2011, which allows you to easily crop, resize, stylize, align, set hyperlinks, set alt text, and edit the image on the spot.

Posting videos within your blog post is also a snap.

Choices are: from the web, from the computer, from a video service.

And here is the YouTube video embedded into the post.

Need a little reminder about setting your categories and tags? No problem.

There is a setting in the Windows Live Writer options to remind you about such important things when you go to publish your content. I like that.

Watch the publishing magic happen…

Plugins for those extras.

There are even plugins for Windows Live Writer for added features and functionality, located at http://plugins.live.com/writer/browse?orderby=featured&page=1.

While I’m thrilled with the various built-in options that come with this free tool, there are some features lacking. I wanted to be able to draw an arrow on my image and circle something on it, but there’s no way to do this. At least I can’t find a way.  If you know how, I would love to hear from you. Not sure if any of the available plugins can do this. Guess I’ll need to try some of them out. Ahem. Another day perhaps.

All in all, I believe I’ll be using Windows Live Writer from now on to create and publish my blog posts and pages on my various WordPress blogs.  I know many clients that might enjoy the extra ease of use and familarity.

Kind of a bummer…

It’s kind of a drag that you don’t have any control where the drafts are stored on your computer. However, I did find an article that talks about a registry change. Here’s hoping this is something that is available in the next version, don’t you agree?

http://www.lehsys.com/2011/04/how-to-change-the-drafts-and-recent-posts-folder-in-windows-live-writer-2011/

They are currently located under your My Documents folder in a subfolder called My Weblog Posts.

Features:

Get blogging with easy setup

Set up multiple blogs in Writer. Writer works with many popular blog services such as WordPress, Blogger, and more.

Add photos and videos to tell your story

Make your story come to life by adding photos and videos to your blog posts.

Create stunning blog posts in minutes

Create stunning blog posts in just a few moments using the ribbon to format text, photos, videos, and more.

Add a Bing Map

Insert a Bing Map in your blog post to display a location.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

The good: it allows users to browse, view and share backed up files on the move at anytime.

The bad: you cannot edit anything. I can live with that. But what I could do was email the file to myself and edit it on the iPhone with the document editing app I have (DocsToGo), then email the edited file to someone, so at least that’s something.

It doesn’t support viewing all file types, so while I was able to listen to an MP3 audio, I wasn’t able to watch a video of any type or size. Not even a MOV video, even though I read somewhere that you can. Again, not a deal breaker for me.

So far that I see, it supports viewing of image files, all Office docs such as .doc, .docx, etc., txt files, pdf’s, presentations, spreadsheets, and probably several others. I was able to view a php file even after the app said it might not be able to display the file. I told it to “Try anyway” and it opened.

The ability to easily email any one of those files right from this app is AWESOME and makes this app completely worth downloading. Even if it could not open a file, the ability to email it was still available. I tried this with a zipped file and with a small video and it worked like a charm. A very cool feature!

Did I mention it’s free?

This could be the deciding factor for those who are trying to decide between Carbonite and other similar online backup solutions.

As long as you have one or more computers being backed up by Carbonite, you’ll be able to access the majority of those files. It keeps the folder structure in place, too. So if you’re like me (someone with a bazillion files in a multiple folders for organization), you’ll see your file folders all nice and orderly via the Carbonite iPhone app. This makes it easy to locate the file.

The Carbonite blog mentions the ability to access cached files offline or even without Wi-Fi or 3G connection, but I didn’t try that out. Sound nifty, though.

I don’t do much traveling, but I imagine this would be a crazy-awesome tool for people on the go.

See? I told you it was cool.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

Amazon advertises that most books on the New York Times best sellers list are priced at $9.99 for the electronic Kindle version. Compared to the price of a newly released hardcover, the Kindle version is usually significantly cheaper. The economic benefit of owning a Kindle does not stop there. Amazon has made literally thousands of public domain titles available for free. Classics such as The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are completely free to download and enjoy.

Besides the classics, there are many other free or amazingly cheap books available for the Kindle. Amazon allows independent authors to self-publish books on the Kindle. Many of these authors either give their books away or charge as little as $0.99 in order to gain a following. Also, books of some well known and mainstream authors are available for free. Many publishers will give away older titles when one of their authors is about to come out with a new book. Although the publishers are doing this for promotional reasons, the Kindle owners benefit. Many Kindle owners find that they are expanding their reading horizons and trying new authors as a result of the plethora of free and cheap books. Kindle owners have a risk free opportunity to give a fledgling independent author a try.

The Kindle has another great feature that is often not talked about. Users can download the first chapter of any book for free. Like reading a few pages of the book in the bookstore, Kindle users can sample a book without risking their hard earned money. If the user likes the first chapter and he wants to buy the book he can do so with one click and the entire book will be downloaded within sixty seconds. The ability to read the first chapter for free is especially useful when deciding whether or not to buy a work of an unknown independent author.

Recently, Amazon began offering a free app for iPhones. The app allows iPhone owners to buy Kindle books and read them on their phones. Although reading on a backlit phone is not ideal and will drain the phone’s battery fairly quickly, this iPhone app actually makes the Kindle a better device. If a reader has both a Kindle and an iPhone, Amazon will automatically synch the two devices. So, if you are reading a novel on your Kindle and then you want to continue it on your iPhone, Amazon will open the iPhone version of the novel to the last page you read on your Kindle. Now, even if you forget to bring your Kindle with you, you will always have your latest novel at your fingertips. Do not despair if you do not have an iPhone. There are rumors that Amazon is developing Kindle apps for the Blackberry and Palm smart phones.

The Amazon Kindle is truly a life-changing device. It changes the way we read and how we obtain our literature. Eventually it will change the entire publishing industry. While we wait for this to happen we can enjoy the amazing benefits that the Kindle offers.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

Backups are essentially copies of important information. There are a few ways that you can back up your data as well as a few things to consider when doing a pc backup of your information. The ways you can backup data are: hard disc, server for LAN (Local Area Network), a partition and a database. There are a few products on the market that can help you with your backup plan.

Three of the best crucial memory backups are actually generic memory backups that you can find at many discount computer hardware stores and websites. One website in particular rates the top ten backup systems available on the market. This website is http://data-backup-software-reviewtopten reviews.com. Three of their top rated back up plans for generic memory backups are: the Genie Background Manager (ranked the best overall), the Aconis True Image and the NTI Backup Tool. The Genie is sold for around $49.95 but does not have the backup capabilities that the NTI does. The NTI is $74.99 so you will pay less for the Genie.

Other options would include online backup services, such as Carbonite and Mozy. Similar in price and features, these run in the backgound while you’re working on your computer. I spent under $50 for 1 year with Carbonite. The initial backup usually takes a few days to a week, depending on the amount of data you have. Mine took nearly a week using Carbonite. The one thing that disappoints me is that Carbonite does not automatically backup video files, which is something I have a LOT of, due to the fact that I’m always creating video tutorials for my E-Learning Center. I have to remember to tag each new folder I have that has video in them. I decided it was easier to have an local external backup drive that I use just for my videos.

You need to know the difference between a backup and an archive. The archive is the primary copy and backups are the secondary copy of your vital information. Before you make that purchase you will need to address: the RPO (Recovery Point Objective), the RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and the generic memory data security. You will also need to consider the system impacts, the bandwidth speed and the cost for initial installation and maintenance.

Once you have an understanding about how a pc backup works, you will be able to perform crucial memory backups that are absolutely essential if you do not want a system crash to leave you stranded. If you are unclear as to what is vital and what is not, then you can always ask someone that is computer savvy to help you out. Just make sure you do a backup as soon as possible.

Andrea

Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC

Your certified internet marketing VA!

www.virtualassist.net

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant