I had dabbled with Google Docs before, so was happy to have a further look around and see if I'd missed anything that might prove useful - and had a go at creating something within it. I'd previously mostly used it as a handily accessible repository - to store things that I'd downloaded and would have a limited online life (such as further particulars for job applications) and also when swapping between working on my work PC and my home Mac (with different incarnations of Office), to make sure I wasn't using features that would disappear or turn to surprise gobbledegook when the document was reopened elsewhere. I also tried out ThinkFree Office, but didn't take to it in quite the same way - perhaps because my internet connection was playing up at the time and so everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
For now, I'm happier with most things to be creating documents offline and then transporting or sharing them as appropriate. As highlighted in the Office 2.0 overview on the main blog, privacy is an issue I would have with using these applications; I wouldn't be willing to use them for anything confidential. However, they come into their own when collaborative working is the aim. We have been using a service called Huddle at the EFL to share documents initially for our reclassification project; we have an EFL workspace that members of staff can access using individual logins. It is also now being used to store guides, posters and other non-confidential, library-wide documents that it is helpful not to have stored only on one PC. Jen, who introduced Huddle at the EFL, discusses it in more depth in her Office 2.0 post.
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