Use Google Documents for Surveys

Google is always creating new products and new features for existing products. It has just released a new feature for Google Documents that allows you to create a form, using Google spreadsheet, and send it by email to your chosen target group. They won’t need to sign in, and they can respond directly from the email message or from an automatically generated web page.

All responses are then added to to your spreadsheet and you can manipulate the responses as you would any spreadsheet.

Google has even created a Google Docs forms gadget, which you can add to your iGoogle homepage, that allows you to create forms quickly and also helps you keep a close eye on your responses.

This might save you some time if you are surveying a large group of people by email and it is free as well.

Diarmuid

Google Software Pack

Google is no longer happy just to find the answers to any question that you might have. It now has interests in video, photos, blogging, 3d Modelling, geography and email. To help people it also offers a free software pack which in their words is to help you ‘Get the most out of your PC’.

The pack gathers some of the usual suspects in free software, such as Adobe Reader, Google Earth and skype, but also includes a fully functional Microsoft Office alternative in StarOffice.

Most of these you can find freely available on the web, but its nice to have them all collected together in one place. Google recommends that you have broadband if you are going to install starOffice.

Diarmuid

Do you wiki?

Wikis are becoming increasingly popular on the web, with Wikipedia being the most famous example. People are using them for a variety of different purposes, such as creating a user updated document that defines procedures and policies or a space for collaborating on a document in real-time or near real-time. The key feature of maintaining a full archive of all content change means that you have a full record of all content created and the contribution of participants.

More and more web based wiki hosting services are being made available. In common with many other web 2.0 services they are being made available for free.

pbwiki offers a very friendly and intuitive interface that allows you to quickly and easily create a wiki. There’s no need to have any code as it has a WYSIWYG interface.

 

Atwiki also offers WYSIWYG interface, but also allows you access to the code if you want it. It also allows you to create RSS Feeds.

On-wiki, in addition to features mentioned before also allows you to create a calendar, write math using LaTex and create graphs.

These are only a tiny sample of the range of wiki services available. If you use one that we haven’t mentioned why not let us know and we’ll feature it.

Diarmuid

 

Free ‘office’ from your computer

Tired of being tied to one computer in order to write your documents or create your spreadsheets? Keep losing your USB key with all your files on them as you move from computer to computer? These days you can do quite a lot of the basic word processing and spreadsheet work using web based services.

Zoho is a comprehensive online service that offers web based alternatives to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, with a variety of other services offered as well. Most of these servcies are offered free, but some of the more advanced services may have a cost associated with them.

Google Documents is another alternative which offers you access to a spreadsheet and word processing service. This has the resources of Google behind it and the development of Google Gears means that it is only a matter of time before this will be a service that you will be able to use when you are not connected to the web as well.

Thinkfree also offers a range of web based office alternative services. Word, Excel and PowerPoint clones are all available free for use.

While none of these products offer the same functionality as Microsoft Office, they are are more than capable of doing the basic jobs that most people do everyday. They all allow you to keep your documents in one place online, so it doesn’t really matter what computer you use, as long as it is connected to the web, and with Google Gears just after being introduced, even that will not be a prerequisite in the future. Their documents are usually Microsoft Office compatible. Considering that these are very new services, they can only get more powerful and sophisticated.

Diarmuid

Swiss Army web tool

Recently released is the Hyperwords extension for Firefox. This extension is one of the most versatile I’ve seen and allows you to search, translate, map, email, print, post to your blog, and copy any text on a web page. It has a lot of power built into it and may have a few tools that you don’t need, but it is very customizable and you can quickly turn off any features you don’t require.

Currently it is only available for Firefox, but the developers are working on implementing it for other browsers and plan to have a desktop version available soon as well.

Diarmuid

surveys online

Need to get feedback from people or need survey people as part of your research? Now you can think about doing the easy way - online.

Once again web 2.0 has seen the development of services that simplify the whole process.

Wuffoo allows you to create forms for collecting data, without having to write a line of code. It will also send you results by email, as an RSS feed or as an Excel document.

SurveyMonkey is another service that allows you to quickly an powerful surveys. You can create online you can download a summary of your results in multiple formats and can download all of the raw data you’ve collected either as a spreadsheet, or in database format.

Icebrrg also allows you to do much the same as the other services. It also allows you to embed your survey into your existing website or blog. It will also host it for you if you want on its own website.

All these 3 services offer a basic service that is free. If your needs are ongoing or heavy duty, you might need to pay a little more for the service.

Diarmuid

Snippy your cut and paste friend

Ever needed to quickly cut and paste from your screen to a document or e-mail? If so then you may find Snippy useful. This freeware utility allows cutting and pasting by freehand or in squares or rectangles and is dead easy to use. Try it and see

Stewart

Take control of your Image

Thanks to the power of the web, you don’t always need access to graphic programs installed on your computer to manipulate your images.

These days you can find services on the web that offer increasingly sophisticated tools and interesting hookups to other web 2.0 products.

Interested? Why not try out some of the following.

Fauxto, which mimics photoshops layout.

Picnik, which offers Flickr integration.

Pixenate, also offers Flickr and allyoucanupload.com integration.

Control is in your hands.

Diarmuid

Manage your bookmarks the deli.icio.us way

Having trouble keeping track of all the websites you found on the web? Why not try del.icio.us?

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that allows you bookmark any webpage that interests you. You can add you own tags or subject headings to each site and add a comment if you want.

Login to Del.icio.us from any computer and you can check up on your bookmarked sites. You can also see who else has bookmarked your sites and in turn see what sites they have bookmarked. You never know, they may have found something you missed.

Diarmuid