Web Tools Review

The first site that I visited was ajaxWindows. I was going to try the demo, but the demo account came back as an invalid account so I watched the introductory video. I failed to see any usefulness in that application based on the video. It looked like a watered down version of Windows hosted in a web browser. Why would I want that? Am I missing something? Unfortunately, right now I’m bogged down with the beginning of the school year in my district. As a result, I did not bother to create an account since I figured I would get more out of looking at some of the other applications.

The second one I visited was Picnik. I did not realize it before going to the website, but I had actually used it before in editing my photos in Picasa earlier in the photo sharing lesson. I found it to be very user friendly. I had used the cropping, resizing, rotation, and auto-fix tools back when I was creating my album slideshow. These features are great for reducing file size and for quickly enhancing the picture’s color. I was able to use them features without reading any instructions due to its ease of use. It also has some great fonts for adding text, better than the default fonts that are a part of Windows (though you can always download new Windows fonts for free). Additionally, it has many photo filters that are comparable to Photoshop’s filters.

I took a quick peek at Zoho, not intending for it to be one of the sites that I was going write about and it looks like it may be worth at least trying it out. It has 23 applications and two plugins for Microsoft Sharepoint and Office. I’m not sure about the depth of the applications but I plan to experiment with them when I have more time. The wiki tool looked interesting until I saw that it has a limit of 250 MB. The free PBworks wiki has eight times that amount of file space (2 GB). It also has an upgrade at a reasonable price ($99/year) that will hold up to 40 GB of data and offers extra security and access controls. Nevertheless, I still plan on at least experimenting with all of Zoho’s features later on when I have more time.

I toured FotoFlexer and Phixr and did not find enough features in either one that made me want to switch from Picnik. Though I would consider FotoFlexer to be on about the same level of quality and feature selection as Picnik, since Picnik automatically is integrated with Picasa, I will probably stick with Picasa for now. Phixr, while it looks like it has a nice set of features, does not seem to be on the same level of quality as FotoFlexer and Picnik.

Finally, there is Google Docs. My favorite part of it is it’s ability to share editing permissions with other users; in fact, it can even be used for simultaneously editing a document. I have used its collaborative function for tasks such as reviewing and making changes to a friend’s resume, working on a joint professional development presentation, and planning activities for my school’s field day with a fellow teacher. This is much easier and quicker than emailing the document back and forth. The only drawback of Google Docs is that its formatting tools and other features are very limited. This is understandable though since it web-based and free. To get around this limitation, I frequently use Google Docs for writing rough drafts and then export it to Word where I can spruce up the formatting. Being able to access Google Docs documents from any Internet-connected computer is also a perk since I have a laptop and three computers at home (not to mention the computers at work that I use) that I am switching between. The presentation creator and spreadsheet tools serve the same purpose for me as the document tool: as a means for working on rough drafts from multiple locations. Like the document tool, these two tools allow for collaboration but at the sacrifice of lacking the robust feature set that Microsoft Office contains. Most notably, the presentation tool lacks the ability to create animated slides and incorporate a variety of slide transitions.

For information about even more office suites that are available, check out the comparison of the features, costs, and capabilities in this Wikipedia article:

Comparison of General and Technical Information