13 Things@Coe: Cloud Computing

Prompt: Can you see yourself using Google Docs and calendars? Have you used this function already? For what?


While I can see the benefits of the concept of cloud computing, particularly Google Docs, at the moment I think it needs a few more tweaks before I could see realistically using it in my professional career. Two important things that I think are missing (at least by my cursory glances at the available options, menus, etc.):


1) More formatting. At the moment the formatting abilities seem a bit elementary. This would become all the more important if collaborating on a document that needs to adhere to specific style guidelines (e.g. Chicago, MLA). At the moment I foresee a mess of tweaking necessary if a group were to be working on something for publication (in print or online) that needed to fit a style. For example, at the moment footnotes are (imho) distracting comment call outs in the margins - they are quite disruptive to reading process (and I realize that I am old-fashioned in my reading processes). Furthermore, if you remove the 'show footnotes' option, you have no idea that they even exist. So the options are distracting or absent. This will not fly in my (albeit small) world. Also, the options for working with images are limited as well - another important issue in the universe of Art History. (Of course Word is sorely lacking in this realm too - so if anyone has any suggestions of other programs that effectively allow one to work/write/think with images and text, email me.) Finally, it is quite chaotic (formatting-wise) if one needs to re-download the document into a program such as Word. Again, there would be a mess of formatting work that would be necessary at the end. 


2) Ability to keep track of editing changes. This would be particularity important (again, imho) in the process of collaborative writing. In my own collaborative efforts, it has been of the utmost importance (for the editor(s), as well as the collaborators) to see who changed what, when. Again, in my cursory glances, I did not see this as an option. 


...but all of these criticisms, lie in the fact that 'cloud computing' is in its beginning stages, and I suspect that all (and more that I have not yet even begun to think of) will be remedied as it finds its footing. 


Google Calendar, on the other hand, is quite handy. Although it did scare me some months back when Hal (...er, I mean Google) read an email in my inbox, recognized in the text that it was a request for a meeting, and asked me if I wanted to add it to my Calendar.