As a writer who has a day job, I’m often looking for ways to make my life easier. Particularly in being able to use lunch hours and breaks to squeeze in a little work on the ol’ ms, or at least be able to jot down those “ah-ha” moments when they pass through the brain cells. Sticky note tend to get lost and I do wash my hands in the bathroom, so inking a note on my palm isn’t a good method.
I’m also not a fan of lugging my laptop around, just so I can haul it out for twenty minutes of writing while noshing my PB&J. (Besides, strawberry jelly makes the keys stick.) A USB thumb drive is a partial solution, but if there’s a choice between digging in my bag for the thumb drive, popping it in the computer, and firing it up to add a note, I’ll probably opt for the note on the palm method.
Many mobile professionals are trying to “work in the cloud”, which is the concept of using web applications and/or storage to manage their work. Given that we generally have good internet access in my part of the world, this idea appeals to me. Web apps such as Zoho for example, are free web software designed to do everything from word processing to spreadsheets to complicated databases and more. I was quickly becoming enamored with their web word processor which can be used offline (after installing a Google Gears component). When you reestablish web access, you can sync the two files back up.
Google Docs was a long-time favorite of mine. Offline editing access is being rolled out in the next few weeks as they meet Zoho’s challenge.
Both of those solutions are ideal for a writer to store manuscripts in a secure, online environment. I’ve had one too many thumb drives fail to completely trust a hardware solution for backing up important documents. In the cloud of the world wide web, at least you’ll be able to retrieve your documents if your house burns down with everything in it.
The problem with both of those solutions is, however, that I can’t reach them from the current office I perform the day job at due to firewall restraints. I can’t fault the restriction, even though I chafe at it.
So recently I signed up with Microsoft Office Live workspace, which is not quite the same, yet does the necessary functions quite well. With Office Live, I store documents in my online storage space. I can then read a view-only version of the document and share it with whomever I like, but if I want to edit it (and share the editing function with someone else), then the document opens using the computer’s already installed Word software. When I save the document, it saves it right back to the Office Live workspace location. If I should lose connectivity, at worst all I have to do is save the document to my local computer.
I like their user interface and the ease of use. I can make quick notes directly in the workspace by adding a document called (duh) Note and entered some information. There are also templates to make contact lists, task listsand other useful tools, including entire templates of workspaces for the home, event management and more.
The enjoyment comes in that I can sit down at any one of my computers at home or work and pull up a document out of my Office Live workspace and work on it, knowing that I can safely store it back in the cloud when I’m done.
And, OK, so I won some free software for signing up for an account. But that doesn’t make using the site any less enjoyable.
