Google’s document hosting service Google Docs was recently upgraded with an option to export all selected documents in the compressed zip format. This document backup solution can be used to backup all documents that are hosted at Google Docs regularly to be prepared if data gets damaged, deleted or inaccessible there.

The easiest way to backup all Google Docs documents is to switch to the All Items view in the left sidebar. This will display all documents hosted at Google Docs. A click in the checkmark button and the selection of “select all visible” from the sub-menu will mark all documents that are currently displayed. Another click on More Actions and the selection of Export will open a new window that looks similar to the one above.

Google Docs users can now convert, zip and download all the selected documents at once. The window will list the number of selected documents and display the conversion option for the different document types. Spreadsheets can for instance be converted to Microsoft Excel, Open Office or Adobe PDF formats before they are downloaded. It seems that the selection of a default document type is mandatory. Documents are then zipped and a download dialog window is displayed in the end. Users with many large documents can make use of the email notification option to be informed when the files are available for download.

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Now IBM sees a developing market for more cost-effective solutions to the Microsoft Windows/Office combination. This solution (for which I hope they find a better name than “IBM Client for Smart Work”) will consist of:

• Lotus Symphony
• Lotus Live
• Lotus Notes

The difference between the Red Hat and Ubuntu versions is quite interesting. On the Ubuntu side the Lotus tools will be doled out via cloud. On the Red Hat side all tools will be on the desktop. To me this is smart marketing because it brings both Linux distributions together to work on a single project, but doesn’t pit each distribution against one another.

I believe that both of these solutions seems sound as well as outstanding alternatives to the current Windows environment. But what about the meat of the issue – the office suite? Does it work? Can it stand up to all the competition? This is where you decided. I will show you how this office suite is installed/used and you can kick those tires and see if it is a worthy opponent.

Installing

The first thing you need to do is go to the Symphony download page and download the version of the suite for your distribution. You will have to agree to a license as well as enter your name, email address, etc.

You can download for Windows, OS X, or Linux (Ubuntu, Red Hat, SuSE). The Ubuntu file will be a .deb file and both the Red Hat and SuSE files will be .rpm files.

Once you have downloaded the file you will open a terminal window, change into the directory containing the file, and issue one of these commands:

• sudo dpkg -i symphony*
• rpm install -ivh symphony*

The former command for Ubuntu and the latter command for either Red Hat or SuSE.

You will have to agree to a license during the install, but other than that the installation is a piece of cake.

Post installation

Once Symphony is installed, you can start the suite from the command line by issuing the command:

symphony

Or you will find a menu entry in the Office sub-menu of the Applications menu.

Symphony consists of three parts:

• Word processor
• Spreadsheet
• Presentations

Figure 1

You can not start the tools separately (reminiscent of the old Star Office suite) so when Symphony starts you will be presented with the Symphony desktop (see Figure 1).

From this desktop you can pretty much do anything you need. From creating a new file (click the icon associated with the type of file you want to work with) or open an existing file from the File menu.

I’m fairly confident that anyone reading this site can work their way around the basics of an office suite, so I won’t go into the details of how to use Symphony. In later articles I will discuss some of the “power features” of Lotus Symphony.

Final thoughts

If IBM plays their cards right they can take the Smart Work desktop and turn it into something that could seriously compete with Windows. This of course would be more in line with enterprise usage and not home/personal usage. I look forward to seeing how IBM continues their presence on the Linux desktop.

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Thanks to the Mozilla Labs there is Prism. Prism is unlike other proprietary solutions like Silverlight. Prism is basically a way to split web apps from the browser and run them directly on the desktop. Although not always as small as, say, a Google Gadget, Prism tools are far more functional and do not strip features from the tools you use. For example, if you are using the Prism Google Document tool, you will have a fully functioned instance of whatever app you are using. In this tutorial you will learn how to install Prism and some of the apps as well as configure shortcuts for your menu.

Installing

As you would expect, Prism can be found in your distributions’ repository. So to install, follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “prism” (no quotes).
3. Select Prism (and any apps you will want installed) for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

Once installed you have a number of options available to you for starting applications. If you look in your Internet sub-menu in your Application menu you will most like find a number of Prism-enabled applications already there. You will also find an entry for the Prism tool itself. This tool is really the best place to start if your app isn’t found in the menu.

If, however, the app you want to use is found in the Internet menu go ahead and fire it up. You will notice that the Prism-enabled apps look and feel exactly as if they were in your browser – minus the browser menus, toolbars, address bars, etc.

But if you do not find the app you want to use worry not, most likely you will be able to get it working through Prism. Let’s use an Apple Web app as an example. If you take a visit to the Apple web application site you will find numerous applications you can use. Let’s use the DataCalc app as an example. When you visit the DataCalc page you will find the app URL – this is the URL you are going to use for the Prism app.

Figure 1

Now, go to the Internet sub-menu and click on the Prism entry. This will open up a blank Prism window with a smaller configuration window (see Figure 1). Enter the DataCalc URL in the URL text area and enter

Figure 2

DataCalc for the Name. Finally click the checkbox next to Desktop to add a clickable icon to your desktop. Click the OK button and the icon will appear on your desktop and a Prism window will appear with your web app running (see Figure 2). NOTE: You may have to set the icon as Trusted when you double click it. This will not only enable the icon to be clickable, it will also change the icon appearance. When you close out this Prism App, all you have to do to restart it is to double click the icon.

I have yet to find a means to add a Prism app menu entry when the app is installed in this manner. All Prism apps that are installed via Synaptic will have menu entries.

Final thoughts

We all know the desktop is trying desperately to evolve into a web app-based cloud. If you’re interested in getting a feel for what this is like, give Prism a try.

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Yes we got things like global search, hi-def support, cool animations and visual effects, but where are the revolutionary ideas that should be popping up. While our hardware is getting more and more powerful, our software seems to lag in support for such features. Operating systems do a pretty good job of the basics, intermediate and advanced, but I think it’s about time we see some better integration between our electronic devices.

No doubt you’ve probably heard of “Microsoft’s Home,” Redmond’s idea of how our homes will look if 2012 proves to be incorrect. While the ideas are great, it’s clear to see that many of them will be, to say the least, expensive. More importantly these technologies require much more then a simple computer to operate.

Reinventing an OS however, while radical, could render it useful. Let me give an example, the “Desktop” is a wonderful place and without it most of us wouldn’t have our bearings in our OS. But it limits what we can do in many ways. For example, retrieving a file from a remote computer is one that can involve a lot of pain and headache especially if both systems are operating two different OS’s.

The Fix? Cloud computing! Yes, we’ve heard the term mentioned hundreds of time, but it’s not been until recent years that the necessity of cloud computing has become evident. For instance, I have changed smartphones and carriers three times in the past year (I know what you’re thinking). Although switching from the original MotoQ to the Blackberry Curve was a painless process, not so when I decided to get the Pre. While numbers and most emails as well as websites were transferred, this was not the case for birthdays, notes and such. More importantly, it failed to synchronize my email contacts with my phone.

If I happened to have all my contacts “in the cloud” it would cut out the need to find a way to synchronize my messenger, email, and phone contact lists between different models and manufacturers. All I would have to do is sync any new phone, computer or PMP with the cloud and all data would remain intact. Plus I could cancel the risk of those horrible duplicates that always seem to arise when switching platforms. Yes, I know Microsoft, Apple, Google and Palm among others have programs that sync contact and calendar information among multiple platforms. But I’m still looking for a solution that allows me to run Adobe Photoshop, Google Sketch-Up or Microsoft Office remotely.

This of course could give users the ability to run graphical, CPU and memory intense programs from netbooks, nettops and other bargain PC’s thus reducing the need to buy multiple licenses for the same product. More importantly data lost would be less common as the event of a hard drive failing or a virus taking over a system would not affect data stored remotely.

Small businesses would be able to cut IT costs as most employees would only need a small computer, one that is capable of Internet access, and of course the required security details to log in. Speaking of security, “the cloud” could not be accessed unless a security key (USB dive) were plugged into the computer accessing the data. Other security measures such as facial recognition, and fingerprint readers could also be utilized in these security keys. Best of all these keys would keep a record of the who, what, when and where.

The USB key could also double as a USB modem thus the ability to bring access to “the cloud” anywhere service is provided. In an event that the user would be traveling to an area that internet access is unavailable, information, programs and other data could be downloaded onto the USB key and used on any computer through a dedicated virtual environment.

I know what you’re thinking, this would be impossible to implement in a short amount of time. But quite the contrary. All of what I have mentioned are technologies used everyday. Many Mac users run Windows virtually, Linux users do the same for Windows and vise versa. USB keys have been used for quite some time from providing network security IT professionals to high end software of the likes of AutoDesk and Houdini. Best of all, Microsoft, Linux and Apple support a basic amount of virtualization. All that is left is to port the OS’s to “the cloud.”

It’s a wild idea, but it’s plausible and something that could break barriers as information could be easily shared across different environments as well as mobile devices, vehicles and other electronical equipment.

Your thoughts?

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If you look at the source code of the web page you get two additional hints. The first is located in the metatags which reads “The Web is your browser. Discover how fast and fun the Web can be” while the second is located as a comment in the html “We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer. Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was …”.

Taken those two hints into account it is pretty safe to say that Opera will reveal a web browser in the cloud. It is not entirely clear how users are going to access that web browser, could be by using some sort of launcher that the Opera team is providing. Could also be a hybrid web browser that is being launched locally but gets most of its data online.

I could be completely off though but the cloud image seems to hint at this direction as well. Anyone got another interpretation for what Opera is going to announce on June 16?

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While a resource reduction and automatic updates might appeal to many users it should be noted that an Internet connection is required to make use of the cloud antivirus service. Users without an Internet connection will not be able to test programs and files on their local computer system for malicious code. This can be problematic even for broadband users who are usually online 24/7 if the Internet connection dies because of technical problems.

The real question therefor is if users want to (or can) rely solely on the cloud antivirus concept. The answer should be in most cases “no”. What good is an antivirus software that might stop working during usage because of a dead network card or Internet provider network difficulties.

Would you rely on a cloud antivirus solution?

Update:

Panda Cloud Antivirus stores the signatures and detection information in a local cache as well which means that the computer system is protected even if no Internet connection is available. (thanks Rain for clarifying this)

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A letter that has been send out by the Google Docs team seems to have made the worst case scenario true for some users of the online service. According to Techcrunch who received a copy of a letter that has been send out the following happened: The Google Docs team identified a bug in their online service that may have caused the sharing of documents without the knowledge or permission of the user.

“This inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document. The issue only occurred if you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. This issue affected documents and presentations, but not spreadsheets.”

While it is unclear as to how many users have actually been affected by the bug it does outline the problems of storing documents, files and information on the Internet. There is always a chance that the documents will fall into hands that they are not intended for.

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