Zoho online productivity and collaboration suite

Online productivity applications are a great breakthrough. They're cheap, easy-to-use, and they're compatible with many platforms. Google Docs is a widely used platform for word processing and spreadsheets. But there are others out there.

Zoho is a suite of tools that includes productivity and collaboration applications, Along with the word processor and spreadsheet apps you would expect, they've also got email, a presentation tool, a wiki, online organizer, and more. Along with these unlimited tools, they're got more business tools that do carry some limitations: a CRM system that supports 3 users, a project management tool that can help you oversee one project at a time, and others.

You can create documents online, or you can upload files from your local system—browse your hard drive, or even email them as attachments. If you're without Internet access, you can still work on your docs and sync them up later. And of course, you can share documents to collaborate with friends or co-workers.

Zoho is a free service. It should work with most systems running a modern web browser.

Download Zoho

Vyew My PC easy online desktop sharing for anyone

Vyew My PC is a flash-based instant desktop sharing product with a lot of fun features.

Basically, go to the Vyew My PC web page and click start sharing my desktop. You will be given a unique, unguessable URL. You can then share that URL with anyone you'd like to share your desktop with. There are some features you need an account to use, but the basics are usable by anyone.

You can upload files to be shown on the Vyew My PC desktop, use the whiteboard features, chat and with registration, use audio/video features. You cannot however, view anything outside the Vyew My PC desktop area. So, if you want to switch to a new window and show a web page you are viewing, it's not going to show up unless you take screenshots and present those.

It moves smoothly and all the features seem to work. Now, I didn't go in and have a full-fledged sales presentation to a CEO or anything but I did show a powerpoint to two of my friends who logged in from two seperate locations.

My main concern was about security. Showing a powerpoint to my friends is quite a bit different than important company information. So, this is what I found out; the packet data for your session is not encrypted but the URLs seem to be unique enough that someone wouldn't just stumble into your meeting without being invited. SSL encryption is not offered publicly but could be a possibility for some clients.


The privacy policy is similar to one you would find on Google Docs as far as information shared during meetings.

The application is not open source but it can be used for free and enterprises can can license the technology and run it on their own infrastructure.

The only negative? Other users could manipulate the information I was presenting by using some of the whiteboard tools. I suppose if you were sharing with more mature people that could be a positive because they could add information if needed.