Google Docs–Most users are familiar with Google Docs. Multiple-users can easily create and simultaneously edit on a single document and save it in real time. It’s superior in the speed of starting, running and real-time saving. Recently,  a  new feature has been added to Google Docs that you can upload all your files without converting them to Google Docs and then open and share them  anywhere using Google Docs.

Zoho Writer – With a clear interface, Zoho Writer has many practical features such as sharing and collaborating with others, supporting offline edition on existing documents, importing documents from your desktop and anywhere on the web and exporting them to your computer. Like Google Docs, it offers simultaneous collaboration among multiple users.

ThinkFree– The editing mode is based on Java which is powerful with numerous spreadsheet templates, but at the same time means low speed in starting and running. Users can get free 1GB online storage space for saving documents.

EtherPad – EtherPad claims to be really real-time. Indeed, it instantly reflects any changes on everyone’s screen when multiple users are editing the same document simultaneously. Thus it is very useful for works requiring simultaneous collaboration.

Buzzword – Buzzword is a part of Acrobat.com now. It allows users to create and collaborate on documents with such formats as doc, docx, txt, xml, rtf, odt and also export to PDF and HTML files. Its greatest feature is its excellent visual performance ability which is completely based on Flash technology architecture.

AjaxWrite – AjaxWrite is the most similar to Microsoft Word of all online word processors and let you easily save your work directly to your hard drive when you finish your work in the way we are accustomed to, so you don’t need to take time to get used of it. But it requires Firefox browser 1.5 or higher. We hope IE support can come in the future.

Zcubes – Zcube can make your documents dynamic by including different media such as pictures, video, rss feeds and so on. You can drag-drop text from desktop or the web to ZSpace and then use ZEditor to edit it. DHTML based platform, directly editing HTML files, and hyperlinks opened in an internal browser with browsing history, all of these let you construct web documents when browsing the web.

WriteOnline –Designed for schools and colleges, WriteOnline includes work prediction, software speech and unique wordbar to help students in developing their writing.

Nevrocode Docs – Nevrocode Docs combines two features, web-based and desktop-based. Thus it provides not only speed and ease-of-use but also a dedicated web-service that saves the documents to Nevrocode servers. However, the documents created within this application can not be saved to the user’s computer.

Oracle Bought Sun

On April 20 2009, Oracle bought Sun at about $7.4 billion. This was a heavyweight enterprise merger case in the global IT industry of 2009.

Now, this event is still in development and there are continual trace and observation for this news event. Although the American authority has approved this merger case which was expected to be finished in August 2009, this merger is still blocked in the EU.

The main worry the EU has with this case is from the open source database software MySQL which will be acquired together with Sun by Oracle. The open source community is worried about Oracle will affect the development of MySQL after Oracle owns MySQL in the future and impair the competition in database software market.

Although this event happened in 2009, its real impact on the IT industry I’m afraid will begin in 2010. As the result of this merger case clearer in 2010, it will be a great IT event that deserve much attention in 2010.

Some reading for you:

Oracle Acquisition of Sun Makes Perfect Sense

What does the Oracle-Sun News Mean for Enterprise CTOs?

Oracle Sun: Good News, Bad News for Google and Microsoft

Microsoft’s Search Made a Leap Forward

On June 4 2009, Microsoft’s search engine Bing was launched.

In 2009, Microsoft invested much in search engine market embodied in:

1. Launching the search engine Bing

2. Signing the search ads cooperative agreement with Yahoo

The two pieces of news looks like unrelated but in fact both served for Microsoft’s search business.

Bing is a great substitute in the field of search engine core and the ads cooperation with Yahoo is to promote the market share and ads revenue of Bing, which are two strategies prepared for each other.

Indeed, Microsoft’s Bing deserves Google’s fear. Firstly, the performance of Bing is not bad compared with Google; even some innovated features of Bing like image search also worth Google’s tension judging from our observation in the past half year. Secondly, it was showed in a market investigation report that after Bing was launched, Yahoo got converging attack from Google and Bing though Google’s market share was not affected, so Yahoo had to cooperate with Microsoft for the long run.

Some reading for you:

Microsoft Search Marketing Vs Google Search Marketing

It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal

Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing could be regarded as the most loudly slogan in 2009. As the march of time and the development of IT, there are more content to talk about for cloud, but in terms of the basic concept, I really can not find any difference it has from the ASP (Application Service Provider) in ten years ago and the Web services popular a few years ago.

Perhaps, cloud computing is just a buzzword of IT industry and there will be other slogans as time passes by just like the Web 2.0 in a few years ago which is not talked about now but the content which referred to at that time is still evolving.

No matter the past Web 2.0 or the current cloud computing, after trace to the source, what we need to understand are theses questions: What changes does the Internet bring to the personal consumer and the enterprise? How many daily things will we do on Internet (including mobile Internet) in the future? How will the paradigm of IT change from the PC terminal to the Internet? We had these questions when the Internet came in more than a decade ago and so are us now and in the future no matter what the popular slogan is.

Some reading for you:

What is Cloud Computing?

Smaller firms take a shine to cloud computing

Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud

Google Revealed Chrome OS

In November 2009, Google revealed Chrome OS and will directly confront Microsoft in 2010.

It was definite a great event for the global IT industry that Google released Chrome OS, since it is widely believed that besides Apple, Google is the most capable company in the world to compete with Microsoft, especially in software field.

Certainly, it has brought big anticipation for the IT industry that Google is entering the PC OS market, so there have been constant analyses and rumors for Google. It is reported that the Chrome OS netbook would come into the market in the middle of 2010. However, I would like to forecast that Chrome OS is incapable to compete with Microsoft in terms of a short time for I’m afraid the real product challenge will just begin in 2010 and we should consider the influence of Chrome OS in the long run.

Some reading for you：

What the Hell’s Google Chrome OS

Will Chrome Netbooks Really Be Competitive?

Windows 7 Was Launched

In October 2009, Windows was launched with the help of hundred computer manufacturers.

Two years after the launch of Windows Vista which has been fed up with criticisms, users finally got a decent new choice. From the subsequent report and investigation data, we know Windows 7 do get more popularity than Vista, but there were critics who deemed the good of Win 7 not really very good but just built on the lousy Vista.

According to what Microsoft and PC manufacturers said, the native support for multi-touch of windows 7 will bring innovation for the PC design and application. In 2010 the year for Windows 7 to get into market mainstream, let’s watch to see whether Windows 7 will really be the motivity of the industry innovation.

Some reading for you:

Windows 7 Review

Microsoft Pushes Tablet PCs Windows 7 at CES But Not Mobile

62 Windows 7 Tips, Tricks and Secrets

1、Firefox

Firefox is my favorite browser among the browsers I have ever used. Although the speed of Google Chrome is much quicker, I won’t switch to use it since it doesn’t have so many plugins and extensions as Firefox. Why to use Firefox? In a word here, you can browse webpage more efficient with it.

Relevant resources:

· Firefox extensions & add-ons recommended

· Top 10 Firefox greasemonkey script

· Download Firefox

2、Notepad++

Notepad++ is an application similar to Windows Notepad but it is much more powerful with support for tab, word count, closing tab by double click, line number mark, Macro and batch replacement.

It can identify most programming languages, distinguish different codes in different colors and fold the subfunctions for you to look over the program structure conveniently.

Download Notepad++

3、Fence

Fence can divide your desktop into different parts and you can allocate icons to different parts. The following is the screenshot of my present desktop:

The two black and semitransparent parts on the upper right are created by Fence.

One main reason for me to use Fence is I want to put the icons on the right (not by manually dragging) and Fence lets me realize it indirectly.

Download Fence

4、ClipX

I like ClipX very much, for Windows clipboard can only store the last copy which is inconvenient, while ClipX is the software allowing you to store the copies of recent many times in the clipboard and the copies won’t vanish after you turn off the computer. ClipX also supports operations with Unicode and shortcut keys. One feature of ClipX I like best is I can see the images in the clipboard list which is very convenient for me to choose the item to use.

Download ClipX

Detail tips for ClipX

5、Process Explorer

This is an enhanced edition of official Process Explorer of Microsoft. Besides providing rich data, it also provides process contents in tree form. The two features of it I like best are:

1) Users can look up the process of a certain window by dragging and dropping the icon of the Process Explorer to the window.

2) Different states of processes are distinguished in different colors.

Download Process Explorer

6、7zip

7zip is the best free substitute of commercial software WinRAR for compression or decompression. It not only supports the 7z format of itself but also supports almost all compressing formats including WinRAR’s exclusive format rar.

The icon of 7zip official version is a bit ugly and you can search for its beautifying version to install.

Download 7zip

More review on 7zip

7、Launchy

Launchy is the software for you to open a program quickly by a shortcut key. After installing Launchy, click Alt+Space (or you can customize it as other shortcut keys) to call out it, then input a segment of a program and you can find the program immediately through Launchy, which largely improves the operating efficiency.

Apart from quickly opening the program, Launchy also supports shortcut search. Input the keyword in Launchy and then click Enter and the system will open the browser to search this keyword.

Download Launchy

More Launchy usage

8、NetSetMan

NetSetMan is for rapidly switching the Network Parameters. You can preset the frequently used IP, Gateway and DNS into NetSetMan and when you need to change the parameter, you can choose the designated tab and enable it. If you need to often switch DNS, NetSetMan is good for you.

Download NetSetMan

9、Everything

Everything is a powerful app for file search with not only high indexing speed but also high searching speed. Also it provides support for regular expression. Meanwhile, its index database is very small. With it, you absolutely don’t need to use the self-containing search tool of Windows.

It’s a pity that Everthing only supports NTFS file system and can only search filename but this is enough for general search. If you want more powerful local search you can try Google Desktop. However, the database of Google Desktop for desktop search may surpass 1G at any time, while the maximum database of Everything is only more than 10MB.

Download Everything