Zoho had three major goals when they designed the user interface for Writer 2.0:.

• More user productivity
• More consistency of interface with other Zoho apps
• More attention to detail in refining the app

They believe they have achieved their goals and have a “fresh and elegant user interface & significant improvements.  This important upgrade comes with hundreds of improvements, mostly on the user interface.”

They completely redid the toolbar and introduced a new interface called the ‘MenuTab’ interface.  The tabs can be used as menus, which should be familiar to you if you are used to either menus or a tabbed interface elsewhere.  When you open the new version of Zoho Writer, do a SHIFT+Refresh to make sure the app works well.

Zoho Writer also has an improved sidebar, consistent with the sidebar of Zoho Sheet.  “The new sidebar has features to multi-select documents and perform actions. The icons beside the document name shows if the document is shared or public.  We also included Search in the side bar and enhanced the overall functionality.”

All applications using Zoho Writer will reflect the new changes, including Zoho Notebook, Zoho Business or external partner applications.  All the documents you create in Zoho Writer will also available in Zoho Docs as well, if you prefer managing all your documents in folders.

I had need of Google Notebook this morning, but of course, it has gone away.   I had not been a big user of Google Notebook, so when I first heard of its demise I didn’t bother to make any changes.

But I remembered today that I had seen information about using Zoho Notebook, including instructions from Digital Inspiration on how to transfer your Google stuff to Zoho.

I decided to get the Zoho plug-in for Firefox.  It was a quick and easy install and I’m ready to go now.  Check out this information from Zoho that tells you how to get and use the plug-in.  It also has instructions for importing your Google Notebook content.

Windows 7
Microsoft revealed some features of the next version of its operating system, called Windows 7, which the company said will make it easier for PC owners to use their computers, reported the Seattle P-I.

Independent analyst Peter O’Kelly said that with Windows 7, Microsoft has “leap-frogged” rival Apple in some ways.

Some of the features in Microsoft’s upcoming operating system include:

• A customizable taskbar
• Added search features
• A feature that allows users to quickly set up home networks
• Device Stage, which manages external devices, such as printers and music players
• Gadgets, such as the clock, can be moved anywhere on the desktop
• An Action Center that allows users to control alerts
• Support for multitouch

Web-based Office apps
Lightweight versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be available online from Microsoft in a bid to compete with online office sources such as Google Apps and Zoho.

Janice Kapner, Microsoft’s senior director of information worker group communications, said, “I think you will find our experience is a very rich experience compared to that [Google Apps].”

The company does not believe that Web-based programs would cannibalize sales of its existing software, noting that there were one billion PC users but 500 million users of Office.  Microsoft did not reveal how much it will charge for the Web-based versions of its Office programs, but Kapner said the company was considering ad-based or subscription-based models or both.

The Web-based programs will go on the market along with the next release of Office. They will run on Internet Explorer, Safari and FireFox.  A release date has not been set.

See Microsoft’s press release about Windows 7 and online Office apps and other news from PDC 2008.

If you’ve been watching the development of free online office suites but haven’t left your desk-top based product (e.g., Microsoft Office) yet, you’ll find Computerworld’s reviews of three popular online office suites instructive.  Office suites typically include at least word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps.

Three major competitors in the field — Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho — have all made major moves in recent months, significantly improving the products by adding more applications, features, and functionality.

But how do they shape up against desktop suites like Microsoft Office, known primarily for Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications?

“While Google Docs, ThinkFree and Zoho vary in the breadth of the applications they offer, their features and their usability, they are all capable of doing real, useful work. They do what you expect of productivity apps — create documents, spreadsheets and presentations — in sophisticated fashion,” says reviewer David DeJean.  Developments in open source, AJAX, and browsers have helped online suites to compete.

A really big advantage is that all three are free and offer free storage space, as well. Since they work in a Web browser, they also work across different platforms.  It doesn’t matter whether you create, view, or use them with PCs, Mac’s, or a Linux box. Since they are designed with collaboration and sharing in mind, that is especially important.

Computerworld reviews the three online suites’ capabilities as word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, and how they “leverage the web.”  Each product has its strengths, although they have developed from different points of view.

There is no clear winner here, but the reviewer concludes, “Web-based productivity suites have made a transition. While at first they simply imitated desktop applications in a Web browser, the current versions add features that begin to integrate the social computing features of the Web. At the same time, they’ve begun to grow away from simply imitating Microsoft Office to developing personalities of their own.”  Check out the article for details.  [via Slashdot]

Listaculous to-do list
Listaculous is a free, tabbed to-do list manager that you can add to your web page or iGoogle start page.

Keep track of all your tasks and lists in one place — accessible from anywhere on the Web. 

I was happy to add this to my iGoogle page since it seems to be simple and intuitive, as advertised, and I particularly like the tabbed presentation. 

It’s quick and easy to register, log-in, and use from any computer at any location via the web.

Logon to Zoho with your Yahoo or Google ID
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with login account so I was glad to see that popular office productivity suite, Zoho, has removed the need to create a separate account to use their services.  Now you can now log in to any of their products using a Google or Yahoo account. 

Zoho plans to adopt OpenID eventually, but in the meantime they wanted to integrate directly with the most requested third parties.  Their goal is to get users to try Zoho with as little hassle as possible.  They may integrate with others such as Microsoft and Facebook in the future.

Powerset search engine with Wikipedia
Is Powerset  a “natural language” search engine?  Maybe not exactly, but Search Engine Land says it is at least an “understanding engine.”  “Because it actually understands what pages are about, it can extract facts from those pages plus comprehend how those facts — as well as those pages — relate to each other.”

You can use Powerset to search Wikipedia now.  It claims to give you better results than Wikipedia’s or Google’s search because Powerset’s technology has read and understood what every word within Wikipedia actually means. 

I don’t know what your experience will be like, but I read about Powerset a couple of days ago when I was also trying to dig some information out of Wikipedia. 

I had limited knowledge of what terminology the subject might use so was finding it difficult to come up with relevant search terms.  I had already explored using both Google and Wikipedia search engines, and then tried Powerset.  Better results!  Once I found a relevant article, I was able to identify good key words that improved my search results outside of Wikipedia, too.

Last December, Google Gears was named one of the most innovative tech products of the year by PC World.  Google Gears makes online apps available to you when you are offline, with the added benefit of allowing you to synchronize changes when you are back online.  Maybe, like me, you downloaded Gears when it became available and used it for a few well-known applications such as Google Reader and Google Docs. 

You might also have discovered Gears makes online apps more useful to you – by making them available to you offline – if you use Zoho Writer or task manager Remeber the Milk.

Google Operating System Blog lists some other lesser known applications.

PassPack is an online password manager whose offline version allows you to download data from your PassPack account and access and manage it whenever you wish.  You can make changes and save them locally, then synchronize the online and offline accounts using the backup and restore functions.

Similarly, Autodesk Labs Project Draw lets you create diagrams online, run them offline and later sync your files.

MindMeister, an online mind mapping system we have mentioned here before, can be used offline with Google Gears, then synched later.

Buxfer is a personal finance manager previously unknown to me.  It added Gears support in January 2008.  The application has the option to store authentication information offline.  “You will have the convenience of not needing to login into your financial institution repeatedly, as well as the peace of mind that your private information is secure and completely under your control!”

Picasa Web Albums Mobile (photo sharing) recently got Gears support for Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen devices.  You can view photo albums offline.

The new update to Zoho Writer includes DocX support, thesaurus (in 10 languages), sharing with groups, enhanced endnotes/footnotes, and enhanced headers/footers.

Previous updates include pagination, headers & footers, headnotes & footnores, and offline support.   Check the Zoho Writer blog for more information.

TechCrunch reports that Writer users have increased 30 percent since last November, with 2 million user sessions per month although usage still trails Google Docs, and of course, Microsoft Word.

In a recent survey, points out Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Watch, the NPD Group asked nearly 600 PC users: “Have you heard about online, browser-based office productivity applications like Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, gOffice, etc.?”  NPD also asked, “If so, how often do you use them?”

Ninety-four percent of U.S. consumers have never heard of Web-based productivity suite alternatives, and only 0.5 percent have substituted Web-based productivity suites for desktop software such as Microsoft Office.

“The survey results show not only that SAAS [Software as a Service] firms have a long way to go to build brand awareness and trust among PC users. but it points to how powerful the Office brand still is, and how difficult it will probably be for most of these firms to dislodge huge swaths of Office users from the grips of Microsoft,” said Chris Swenson at NPD.

Ars Technica offers some reasons for the so far limited success of online office suites including their lack of visibility, the newness of the industry with not quite fully matured products, and the fact that they mostly target business and education, not the type of consumer that was surveyed.

I would also mention habit and familiarity for the individual consumer who may long have had a Microsoft desktop office suite available at home and/or at work.  I tend to keep on using my desktop products even though I am very aware of the online alternatives and have played around with them.  However, when I find that the online alternatives can offer me desirable features only available to me if I upgraded my Microsoft Office, I would make a switch.  If I often needed to collaborate on documents right now, I would also be ready to move to an online suite.

As we have mentioned here before Google Docs, Google Apps, Zoho, and ThinkFree, are among the web-based services available, while OpenOffice.org  and IBM Lotus Symphony are free downloads.

 In August, Zoho made its Writer software available offline.  At the time the documents were available in read-only mode when offline.  Now Zoho has announced, you’ll be able to both view and edit your documents offline, using Google’s open source project Google Gears.

You’ll need to have Google Gears plug-in installed on your browser (quick and easy).  It works on Firefox 1.5+ and IE 6+.

“Click on ‘Go Offline’ to access your documents offline.  By default, we download 15 documents each from ‘My Docs’ and ‘Shared Docs’ section.  You can change the default setting by clicking on the down arrow beside ‘Go Offline’ link.  The documents are downloaded based on the ‘Sort Order’ in your ‘My Docs’ section,” advises Raju Vegesna at Zoho.

When you are not connected to the internet, there is a link where you can access and edit your documents offline.  When you are back online, clicking on ‘Go Online’ will let you to synchronize the modified documents with the online versions.

Not all online functionalities are available in offline mode because some are online specific, while others will make their way into the offline mode in the future.

Take a look at the video to see how it works. 

Check out the slideshow from eWeek, 10 things you should know about Microsoft Office alternatives, that will help you think through alternatives to moving to Microsoft Office’s next release.  You may be able to cut costs with alternatives such as StarOffice 8, or freebies like OpenOffice.org 2.3 or Google Docs, but you should be aware of the issues. 

Some of the considerations explored are document conversion, email clients, macro tools, the cross-platform support offered by online programs, and a huge one for organizations:  training on a new software suite.

Want some reviews?
PC Magazine on OpenOffice.org 2.3, (Dec. 4, p.52)
3 1/2 stars.  Free download. 
Pros:  High compatibility with MS Office formats and interface, full-featured, exports PDF.
Cons: Dreary, overcomplicated interface, can’t open Office 2007 docs, can slow down some Windows systems. 
See a full review here.

PC Magazine on ThinkFree (Dec. 4, p.52)
ThinkFree Online.  Free.
3 stars.
Pros: Effortlessly opens almost any MS Office document. 1GB free storage online. 
Cons: Can be confusing, limited features, slightly buggy. 
See a full review here.

Others:
Google Docs 
Zoho
IBM Lotus Symphony (online)
and a comparison of Google Docs with Zoho.