Yea, I know I’m a day late… Whadda you want for nothin’? Rrrrrrrrrubber Biscuit?
This week, it’s not about what I’m doing, but what I might need to do in an emergency. Here we go…
Have you ever heard of Michael Robertson? You might not know him, but you probably know about his business ventures… Ever heard of MP3.com? Linspire? SIPphone.com? MP3tunes? He’s the man behind all of those ventures. He’s also behind today’s tech tip. If you’re not subscribing to his weekly newsletter, you should. Go to michaelrobertson.com and sign up today.
Have you ever been in front of a PC (or a Mac or a Linux box) and wanted to create a quick Word document and discovered that the machine didn’t have Word installed? This has happened to me at a few client sites (in the classroom). What do you do then? Pull out Wordpad or your OpenOffice.org install CDs? Now you don’t have to…
Michael Robertson announced in his weekly newsletter the start of ajaxWrite.com, an alternative for Microsoft Word that will run on Macintosh, Windows or Linux computers. What also makes it cool is how it doesn’t require you to ‘install’ software. Just take a Firefox browser to http://www.ajaxwrite.com/, then within a few seconds, you can create, edit or print .doc files. And this is just the beginning….
From Michael’s newsletter:
But ajaxWrite is just the start. We have a library of applications we have been working on to replace most of the standard PC software titles. Every week we will launch a new sophisticated program on Wednesday at 12:00 PST on ajaxlaunch.com. These programs will push the boundaries of what people believe is possible today with web-delivered software. These programs look and operate much like their traditional software cousins, but are cross-platform, loaded dynamically, and are available to users at no charge. I’m convinced if you try a few of these products you will understand how the software business will fundamentally change.
I tried it out yesterday and it was very slow, but today it’s working a lot better. It’s not a complete replacement for Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org, but it’s a good start, and for over 75% of the people out there, the need to purchase or install these products goes away. What I also like about this is that it’s a ‘work in progress’, which means that as new features are added, I get them. I don’t have to worry about installing upgrades. This is great technology, and I believe that Michael Robertson is just getting warmed up. I’m expecting more great things from him and this venture. Bravo Michael!
So get out there and add this stuff to your Geek arsenal TODAY!!!