Abandon Office????!!

Firefox OS: Why My Hard Drive & Software are Obsolete – lifehack.org

This short spiel by Leo Babauta explains how at least a small chunk of the expensive software we typically use may be unnecessary given the host of high quality web-based tools out there now. He does disclaim by saying that a big chunk of the replacements are Google products, but I say that’s no real threat to the position. There are other free utilities besides Google’s. Also, there are implications that strengthen the argument. Okay, so I see the point and I’m looking for the most consequential and real world implications. Well, one is that you need a high speed connection (easy for me; I work at a university). Another of the biggest ones I can think of is the expensive Office suite of applications. I already do not use Outlook for Access, so that’s a waste. I don’t care much for PowerPoint. So, I’m using Word and Excel. I’m going to check how much my college spent on it and maybe give up the license to someone who is more committed to Office. I could almost give it up. That money could be spent on more carefully chosen software without guilt, like Camtasia Studio (very useful to me). Caveat: Endnote’s Cite While you Write feature needs Word.

Discussion groups, Blogs, Listservs, etc. etc etc etc

I copied the list of points below out of a more extended blog entry by David Wilcox. I too felt in good company as I notice very few people in my university actually use the groupware built into our course management system. One reason may be that the sytem we are using (Angel) does not allow some of the things Wilcox mentions.

Designing for Civil Society: Charity web managers sceptical about walking the web talk

# Groups aren’t good for substantial pieces – people want to skip through e-mail and respond quickly.
# If you do write something of substance it will be seen by a limited number of people, and can’t be linked for wider discussion, unlike a blog.
# It can be difficult to follow threads of discussion, because other topics crop up.
# You can’t “be yourself” in quite the same way.
# You can’t put what you are saying in the context of other things you have written.
# You can’t add images, audio, video.
# You can’t tag.
# … in short, it is just so frustrating when you have been in the other Web 2.0 place, and so doesn’t feel worth the effort.