Google Presentations Coming This Summer
April 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Google announced today that presentations are coming to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. This was of course rumored a couple months ago, and certainly expected (or eagerly awaited…) by the tech industry.
From the blog:
we want to welcome the team from Tonic Systems to Google. Tonic, which we’ve just acquired, is based in San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia. They have some great technology for presentation creation and document conversion, and it will be a great addition as we add presentation sharing and collaboration capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
Looking into Tonic a bit more deeply lead to the FAQ on tonicsystems.com:
“Tonic Systems is a San Francisco-based company that provides Java presentation automation products and solutions for document management - Tonic Systems Builder, Tonic Systems Filter, Tonic Systems Transformer, Tonic Systems Viewer, and JarJar Links. Features of their products included text extraction for indexing documents, presentation creation capabilities and document conversion tools.”
My only fear is that the technology they are buying as part of the Tonic acquisition is Java based. Docs and Spreadsheets is much lighter as pure javascript and xhtml. I trust Google will strike the appropriate balance and get this new application integrated and working nicely. As soon as screenshots begin to emerge, I’ll be sure to post those.
Tags: docs, docs & spreadsheets, docs and spreadsheets, documents, google, google presently, java, javascript, office, powerpoint, presentation, presentations, spreadsheets, tonic, tonic systems, writely
Best Super Bowl XLI Ads
February 5, 2007 | 2 Comments
As always the Super Bowl ads are an equal draw for viewers. I’m torn because I truly love both the game and the ads, which makes a DVR a necessity for bathroom breaks…
Anyway, here are my favorite commercials from this year, basically these are my top five sponsors, multiple ads for each in some cases, followed by two ads that get special mention.
Bud Light - Rock/Paper/Scissors
Bud Light - Fist Bump
CareerBuilder - Jungle Office Warfare Series Unfortunately these are not embed-able. Damn CareerBuilder!
Darts & Jungle, Inc
Promotion Pit
Performance Evaluation
Siera Mist - Beard Combover
Doritos - Live the Flavor
Coke - Video Game (GTA)
Special Mention for Most Disturbing: Chevy HHR Car Wash 2007 Super Bowl Spot
Special Mention for Saddest: GM robot suicide dream
Tags: ads, advertisement, advertisements, beard combover, bud, bud light, budweiser, builder, career, careerbuilder, cheesy, chevy, coke, combover, crunchy, doritos, fist bump, GM, gta, hhr, jungle, office, paper, robot, rock, sad, scissors, sierra mist, smooth, spicy, suicide, video game, warfare, youtube
Google’s Next Big Thing!
March 12, 2006 | Leave a Comment
It was announced this week that Google bought Writely! Clearly this is their first step in building a fully web based office sweet of applications that will hopefully rival Microsoft.
I’ve had some limited email correspondence with Jen Mazzon who is part of the Writely team. As we’ve started using Writely in small groups at Plymouth State University, we’ve discoverer some great power in it’s collaboration abilities. With some APIs and similar integration opportunities, we could see using Writely on a much larger scale. She has always been very responsive and willing to consider our suggestions for improvements and new features. I wish her the best of luck in this exciting new endeavor.
Calendar appears to be around the corner, this gives them word processing… I’d like a spreadsheet application, maybe iRows? Or how about an presentation solution, maybe build an application on top of S5? That would only leave Access and Visio without competition in this space.
For more on this, read Matt’s article on Borkweb.
Tags: google, microsoft, office, web20, word, writely
Swamp Donkey
December 1, 2005 | 20 Comments
While watching an episode of the British version of The Office, Dawn and Keith are having a discussion about “bum bags” and he explains to her that in the states they are called fanny packs. He then explains this is because “fanny” in the states means your arse and not your “minge.”
At this point I needed to know what the heck “minge” was. Turns out “minge” is a synonym in Britain for vagina. On the site where I found that, they also list “minjer” as a term meaning “really ugly woman” also synonymous with “swamp donkey”.
I love it. I’ve never heard anyone be called a swamp donkey but that’s the funniest sounding insult I’ve heard in a long time.
As a side note, while Google image searching for swamp donkey, I turned up a label for Swamp Donkey Cider. If I follow the synonyms backwards, I’m truly frightened about the secret ingredient…
Tags: britain, british, donkey, humor, insult, minge, minger, office, swamp, swamp donkey, the office
Overheard at work…
July 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment
“I got in trouble last time I did something.”
I guess doing nothing is safest then…