Review of month in the data cloud

I committed to trying to use online services a bit more than usual last month. My experiment met with some negatives and positives.

First, the negatives.

One of my goals was to use Google Docs & Spreadsheets a lot more for my creative writing and simple spreadsheet needs (which include my todo list). The problem with that is that I got assigned to a client who blocks Google Docs & Spreadsheets. I can get to pretty much anything else Google beside that. Since I do most of my daily planning during breaks at work, that was a major set back.

Google Docs has an annoying “feature” where they convert tabs to spaces when you do a Save as… to convert it to Word/Open Office, etc format. That will probably be a show stopper for my Google Docs use. I’ll have to look at some competitors next month.

Here are some things that went right.

I went back to using gmail’s interface instead of using Thunderbird. I actually prefer the way gmail works for tagging instead of directories. I will still keep Thunderbird for archiving my files for the time being.

I started playing around with Google Calendar and it is perfectly acceptable, but I will probably play with some other options before committing to it for the long run. Google Calendar’s biggest problem is me. I’m bad about using any calendar, online or otherwise, for more than a couple weeks at a time.

Despite the problems I mentioned with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, I still love the way it stores and tags the files. I also love having access online when the firewall actually allows it.

I’ve been a big fan of online RSS feed readers for about a year now. I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader a few months back and like them both about equally. I have stayed with Google Reader mainly because it is tied into my Google account. Recently, it feels a little sluggish and I may be switching back to Bloglines for a while. Rojo seems to have made some improvements since I last tested them, so maybe I’ll give them a little time, too.

I think I’ll try to stick with the experiment next month. I’ll focus on finding a word processor that doesn’t format the tab funny when it exports the file.

I’ll also make sure I want to stay with Google Reader and Google Calendar by retesting a few of the alternatives.

Over the last couple days, I’ve tried both Vitalist and Remember the Milk to handle my todo lists. I’m using Remember the Milk right now but will try some of the others.

I will also look around and explore my online blog editing software. I don’t have a big problem using the Wordpress interface, but I know there are some pretty good Firefox plugins that I should check into.

So, mostly February’s test will involve making sure that of the core online storage services that I use, that I am using the right ones.