For the past few weeks, I have been exploring some of the popular web-based apps that have popped up recently. As the world population becomes evermore connected, the internet has become not only a place for information and communication, but a viable platform for applications. What used to take two steps; working on our home PC and then going online to send files to friends, can now be done entirely online. With this week’s column, I’m looking at Thinkfree, a way to edit and share files without ever leaving your browser.
Thinkfree is a mobile office, web based app. It is currently in beta, but very functional. All you need is an email address and a password to receive a full 1GB of storage space with a 10MB per file upload limit. Small Word documents only take a few seconds to upload, but anyone with large files, such as image rich PowerPoint presentations will benefit from a high-speed connection.
The basic idea behind Thinkfree is to upload your Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint files so you can work on them from any computer with a net connection. While there are numerous ways to store files online, the key to Thinkfree is the ability to edit the files on the web. Sure, you could email the files to yourself when you are traveling, or carry a USB drive, but what if the computer you have access to does not have Microsoft Office? Thinkfree uses a Java environment to let you work with your files almost as well as a fully featured office suite.
If you like things private, or you simply to like work on your own, you are all set at this point. But Thinkfree also includes community features. You can allow other people to access your files to work on them collectively. So while you are out of the office, your colleagues can edit your work and save it as a revision which you can view later. Each person can leave comments about the changes they made. Further, you can use your bulletin board to post messages for others to read. Doc Exchange at the top of the Thinkfree site lets you browse all public files from other Thinkfree users. Thinkfree is also connected to some of the other popular web apps such as del.icio.us and importing photos into PowerPoint from Flickr.
Within your account you can tweak a number of options and settings. You can edit personal information, check your storage, maintain a list of contacts, exchange messages with other Thinkfree users, invite your friends, work with your points (more on this) and send files to your blog. You can also set your licensing preference. This applies only to your published files for the public, not shared files for friends or personal, private files. You choose which of the six versions of the Creative Commons licenses you want to apply to your files. You cannot apply a different license to individual files however.
The point system is a work in progress (Thinkfree is a beta after all) , but you will gain points as both an active Thinkfree user, such as leaving comments and editing documents and in some kind of purchase system to be developed. You can then exchange your points for more storage space, templates, etc. As a new user, Thinkfree gives you 100 points. While you can only edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, you can upload any type of file you like for storage and retrieval. The support pages are well made with lots of FAQs to explain how to use all of the Thinkfree’s features.
Thinkfree is useful if you are frequently away from home but need a quick way to use your files because the computer you are using is not equipped with Office. It could also be handy for school kids working on projects at school and at home. On the whole, Thinkfree is a well made app, and is easy to use. The in browser editors are very robust for an online environment. Check out Thinkfree at www.thinkfree.com
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