Thanks to Scrybe for showing us how powerful and easy offline modes can be for web-applications (AJAX, flash, anything else).
I just started using Google Spreadsheets a week ago to collaborate with a friend who moved out of the office and back to Bombay … and without Google Spreadsheets, life was hell. Sure there are the jotspot’s and wiki.com’s of the world. But there is something basically “great” about grids (remember those primary school notebooks) that makes sense.
About 2 hours of total time on Google Spreadsheets and I can pass judgement … the next 10 years of computing are going to rock for remote teams … if the application developers get the hang of offline-mode data handling right!!!
Single-handedly, this is the make it or break it piece of the puzzle. How to allow for post-event synchronization of data (might be Google should invest in the guys at SVN while their stock price is still over $450!!!)
29 Nov 2006 at 6:53 am
What was “collaboration” in M$ office supposed to do?
30 Nov 2006 at 9:52 am
M$ Office’s collaboration was supposed to do the same thing. But it was never designed/meant for small ad-hoc teams. I tried working with sharepoint/etc and it was a pain in the neck unless I had dedicated tech teams administring the servers/configuring/etc. That amount of time/effort is good for large corporations where they want some really “exacting” things. For example, google spreadsheets do not let me quickly upload images/screenshots/etc. But large corporations would not “make do”.
Also, 2 days of using google spreadsheets, and my programmers are already finding other, better uses … had those “requirements” come from the management, it would be set aside … but now i’m just reaping the benefits!