Http://office.google.com

This URL is soon going to be a reality. Google launched its online spreadsheet editing software Google spreadsheets last week.

With reference to my earlier post, I reiterate that google is thinking about waging a war with Microsoft in its very own, dominated market of ‘Office Automation Software’. Think about the scenario where your boss has asked you to give a presentation on ‘Recent Bear Run in Indian Markets’. You go to Google’s search engine http://www.google.com/ and quickly search some statistical data about the recent crash. Next, you prepare your report using Writely, an online document editing software that Google has bought recently. Google provides you with a G-drive of 5 GB capacity. Your report is stored safely online on Google’s powerful servers and you don’t even have to worry about the backups. You also create a small presentation using Google’s online Presentation software (Google Presenter or something?). Then you mail a copy of the report and the presentation to your boss using Google’s Gmail, a web based mailing software. Next day you walk into the office without carrying your presentation. You can easily download it onto your desktop in the office from Google’s G-Drive. After your presentation, some of your colleagues show interest in the topic and tell you that they’ve lost a hell lot of money in the crash. They ask you if you can guide them about investing into a bear market. You decide to start a blog, ‘Baring the Bear’, that allows not only you but also many more people to write about their trading strategies in the bear market.

One thing to notice here is that you have carried all of the above activities without using something you are so used to, the ‘Microsoft Office’. Google has launched a lightly loaded, online alternative for almost all the software in the ‘Microsoft Office’ suite as can be seen in the table below:

Microsoft Office Software	Google’s Online Alternative
Microsoft Office Word	Google Page Creator/ Writely
Microsoft Office Excel	Google Spreadsheets
Microsoft Office PowerPoint	???
Microsoft Office Access	Google base (I’ve heard)
Microsoft Office Outlook	Google Gmail

All these alternatives are not as feature packed as their Microsoft Office counterparts but most of the small businesses can manage their daily office work with these alternatives. For example, most of my work in the office and at home involves creating some documents with basic formatting, creating spreadsheets with embedded formulae, etc and I could almost manage it without ‘Microsoft Office’.

Next in line should be an online alternative to “Microsoft Office PowerPoint’. Google also needs to do a lot of work on adding a few advanced features to their software like ‘Automatic Index Creation’ in Word and so on.

Sometime back I felt that replacing software that resides on your desktop with some web based application is almost impossible. However, Google has already proved me wrong with all its new generation web applications. I have already started countdown to the day when the term ‘Microsoft Office’ will be replaced by the term ‘Google Office’.

My N-Gage

Ever since I got my first smart-phone I wanted to write about "The New Generation Mobile Phones" and especially "My Nokia N-Gage Classic". I had bought it in the month of November year before last to celebrate my so-called good score in the 7th semester engineering exams (So-called because it was good when compared to my entire engineering academic performance till then… ;-)). It is a 3’’ X 7’’ black beauty that made my wallet lighter by around 10K rupees (No, I was not looted… It includes a 256 MB SD MMC). Actually it was the most precious thing I possessed then and it continues to be the most precious thing I possess till date (Yes I am earning these days but again I’ve become too lazy to go to mandi and buy some stuff apart from the fact I don’t like spending my hard earned money ;-)). I had done a lot of research on the Internet before narrowing down to this piece and among the other factors that influenced me to buy this one were its modest cost (other smart-phones where almost twice its price) and the fact that I can use it as a repellent for street dogs to bhagaofy them when I return home late in the night. Poor quadruped creatures really think that it is a stone and run away. :-D.

Going a bit technical it has a 104MHz ARM924 Processor, 3.4 MB System Memory, 3.5 X4.15 cm TFT screen, FM Radio, Hardwired MP3 Player, is enabled with Bluetooth 1.1, J2ME and GPRS and uses Symbian OS.

Going a bit aesthetic some people find its shape really sporty whereas some people think that if aliens use any mobile phone it is N-Gage.

I have increasingly grown dependent on the phone and now a normal life seems impossible without N-Gage. I get up in the morning with N-Gage alarming me at 6:30 sharp. The ‘Talking Clock App’ can play all sorts of monstrous sounds to wake me up. I am seriously thinking of recording my ML’s “Prasad, what are you doing today?” wala dialogue that he says with a “God, what an over smart, idiot you are” expression on his face to use as my wake-up alarm and frighten me up in the early hours. At eight o’clock it reminds me of important events of the day including anniversaries and birthdays. I never send any “Wish you many many happy returns…” SMS though, as ‘SMS-Timer App’ automatically does the job for me at 10 o’clock. While I am traveling to the office, I put on the headphones and listen to Malishka blabbering some useless stuff on 93.5 or at times the loads of Junglee Songs stored on my MMC. N-Gage has stereophonic output giving you an acceptable sound quality (though not as good as an IPod or a sony-ericsson W800i). In the meantime I update my daily expenses using ‘Money Manager App’ by adding an entry for the 11 rupees that I gave to the Rickshawwallah as I was a bit late as usual and was most likely to miss my bus. At this point, my analytical mind demands all sorts of statistical data about my expenses and I watch a tabular representation of all my expenses ranging from food to traveling. I frown after looking at a big 0 against the row having “Expenses on Girlfriend” header. After my bus reaches the office premises, N-Gage automatically switches to “Silent Mode” with ‘MiniGPS App’. It is one of the most intelligent Apps on my cell that actually uses and remembers the cell ids of different cells as I move around them and does anything from “Reminding me about buying a magazine when I pass by local Paperwallah or switch the cell off whenever I enter the office conference room. I immediately head towards the canteen when my ML calls up to know my whereabouts. Damn… I have ‘smartAnswer App’ working for me here… I press a short-cut key that plays traffic sound in the background and I tell my ML about the deadly Mumbai traffic and how I get stuck on road everyday (Probably he will give me a release from the project after listening to my sorrow story everyday ;-)). After making an entry of the lunch expenses in the canteen in the afternoon, I return back to my beloved chair and put the headphones back where they belong. Dhawal drops by in the lazy afternoon hours and challenges me to a one-on-one ‘Virtua Tennis Game’. After beating him badly in the game (He thinks I have better playing conditions as N-Gage's 9-way round cursor joystick allows me some magical shots that his bulky 6600 does not allow him to play) I get back to my work. At around 5:30 or so Yogita sends in a message on ‘Bluetooth Messenger’ to ask if I am going to join in for another half an hour of tea break in the canteen. I lock the PC, message Rohit on the Messenger about the important meeting in the canteen and get going. Late in the evening at around 8:30 Varun calls in from Chennai to update me about the newer problems that he’s introduced in his life on the day. He also uses some very decent language for our ML. I obviously have ‘Call Recorder App’ switched on to save our conversation for re-airing in the canteen at the evening meeting the next day. While coming back in the evening, I use ‘SmartMovie App’ to watch my Friends Collection on my cell. Watching on tiny screen is not very interesting I must say but kills time nonetheless. I go home and switch on my computer. I synchronize my mobile with the computer and also use ‘ProfiMail App’ to download my Gmail Inbox onto the mobile so that I can read mail whenever I have time. There are a hell lot of other things I do with my mobile like looking up meaning of words in the middle of a meeting when someone uses a word outside my limited vocabulary, Browsing from the mobile by sharing my computer’s internet connection over Bluetooth using ‘OperaMini App’and so on…

I wanted this post to be an informative one mentioning latest advances in the world of mobile phones and capabilities of Smart phones but it turned out to be an ode to my “Nokia N-Gage Classic”. I will cover technicalities of S60 phones in some other post.

By the way I still cannot stop myself from appreciating my phone a bit more and the latest news is that someone has recently offered me a resell value of Rs. 6000/- for my phone (Yes this time it is without that 256 MB MMC :-D). I am not going to give it up at any damn cost though.