collaboration

Throw ideas against a virtual wall with Padlet

Web app Padlet calls itself a "multimedia friendly, free-form, real-time wiki." Which is to say, it's a blank canvas where you can throw ideas around with a virtual group. Each participant can post his or her thoughts, along with any files, photos, videos, and links that pertain to the discussion.

I hosted a Padlet conversation between me, myself, and I using a MacBook, a Windows laptop, and an iPad. Padlet worked flawlessly on each device. Let's take a look at how it works.

To start a Padlet session, head to its Web site and click the … Read more

SkyDrive users can now share Office documents with anyone

People who need to access your shared MS Office documents via a SkyDrive link should now find the process a bit easier.

Using Microsoft's Office Web Apps or Office 2013, you can create a URL of any document that you store online. You can then e-mail that URL to anyone who needs to view or edit your file. Previously, that process required your collaborators to sign in with a Microsoft account before they could tweak your document. Now that restriction is gone.

Users who receive the URL to your document can click on it to view the file in … Read more

Visual collaboration, anywhere with anyone, made even easier

How it works: your virtual workspace is your canvas. Drop photos, videos, and documents anywhere on the Web or upload them from your computer onto your canvas. Create drawings and add text on the fly. Edit and change as you see fit, then share with others. Don't want to do it by yourself? Invite friends to divide and conquer. Multiple users can collaborate on canvases in real time. Office presentations can be created in minutes with the help of co-workers working from different platforms. Create your vacation album and share instantly or present in story form as family and … Read more

Google Drive for Android is a beefier Docs app

If you haven't noticed, Google Docs for Android has just morphed into Google Drive. Or perhaps more accurately, it has been sucked up by the brand-new file-syncing and file-sharing app. This means that not only does it give you access to all of your old Docs, it also lets you access and store any kind of file in your cloud-enabled Google Drive account.

Similar to the experience on the Web, Google Drive for Android opens up to a main navigation panel, from which you can see a list of all your files (My Drive), files that have been shared … Read more

Yammer acquires OneDrum for Google Docs, Office tools

Yammer is expanding its repertoire of file-sharing and collaboration services for businesses with the acquisition of OneDrum.

The U.K.-based startup brings even more social-minded work tools to the enterprise social network. OneDrum has developed a peer-to-peer desktop application that connects Google Docs with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint), enabling users to be able to collaborate, co-edit and share these documents in real time.

Thus, Yammer will be able to boost its own real-time document editor feature, Pages, with desktop sync capabilities, enabling file folders to be shared across multiple users' desktops. Furthermore, new versions and changes to … Read more

Hack a collaborative Google Map to share food reviews with friends

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Services like Yelp and Urbanspoon are helpful when seeking a place to eat, but can sometimes overwhelm you with options. Additionally, you'll probably find comments that are unrealistic (possibly from an owner), and others written by people who simply can't be pleased mixed throughout any solid feedback.

Instead of trying to decode the truth, why not make a map that only you and your friends can edit and comment on? Here's how to get started:

Create the map that you and friends will be editing

Step 1: Head over to Google Maps in your Web … Read more

Do remote music collaboration for real with LOLA

We've seen plenty of apps promise to allow musicians to play with each other in real time across the Internet, as if they were in the same room. However, they generally didn't work perfectly due to the signal taking too long to traverse an Internet already teeming with cat videos and Angelina Jolie's right leg. As for adding video too--it's just not happening.

The answer could be LOLA--not from the eponymous Kinks song, but standing for "LOw LAtency."

Unlike apps that use the Internet, which either tend to include a delay or employ … Read more

YouSendIt debuts on Android, Mac

Popular file-sharing and cloud collaboration service YouSendIt finally brings its services to Android and Mac platforms.

While Android and Mac users have long been able to access YouSendIt through the company's Web site, native apps have only been available on Windows and iOS--until today. With the new Android and Mac apps, you can send files, share folders, and sign documents from outside a browser. YouSendIt for Mac is still in beta, but is publicly available for download now.

If you haven't used YouSendIt, it's an all-in-one suite for managing documents through the cloud. Different from services like … Read more

Track changes to critical enterprise doc with Workshare Professional

Workshare Professional is an enterprise-class solution to the problem of tracking and managing changes to critical documents. Working with Microsoft Word, it can compare, convert, and verify content between documents. It converts PDFs to Word documents, compares PDFs with PDFs or Word docs, identifies confidential information in documents, and creates PDFs from any Office file format without requiring Acrobat or other PDF software. It maintains master copies of e-mailed documents, and its metadata search and removal feature removes entire sets of comments, revisions, and other changes.

During the installation process, Workshare automatically selected the appropriate modules to install and gave … Read more