OOdesk (pronounced as voo-desk) is a virtual desktop application offering free email, storage space, file sharing etc. OOdesk users can view and save documents, spreadsheets, presentations directly online without downloading. And this is done using Zoho's Remote API.
[Click to enlarge image]If you are an ISV requiring such a functionality, do have a look at our APIs. We have a good many vendors who have successfully implemented our APIs (recently Central Desktop integrated Zoho Sheet). And it's not just for ISVs, any enterprise can make use of our APIs too.
Chandoo writes a very interesting blog offering tips about how to make the best use of Microsoft Excel and to chart data in general. And he announced a data visualization contest
yesterday. Contestants have to map the sales data of a
fictional company using any software. The charts or dashboards created should
help a senior manager understand how the sales people have done in the
past 24 months. The winner gets an iPod Touch 8 GB. Cool, right?
Since Chandoo announced the contest is open for sponsors, we asked him if Zoho can be the sponsor. He immediately accepted. So, Zoho Reports is sponsoring this contest and we encourage all Zoho users and readers of this blog to participate in it.
Here's the details about the contest. If you are comfortable
using spreadsheets, this should be easy for you. Try using Zoho Reports
for the task and see how different/easy the charting experience is when
compared to using Microsoft Excel. You can also try using our online
spreadsheet tool, Zoho Sheet.
Your comments welcome on how you charted the data, the approaches you followed, the software you used etc.
New Trial Version
If you are a Zoho Wiki user subscribed to the free plan, you can now test drive the more feature-rich Basic plan for free. All you have to do is log on to your Zoho Wiki account and click on Help -> Pricing at the top-right.
You'll be taken to the pricing page with the prominent 'Let me try the 1 month trial version of Basic plan' at the top.
We are offering this one month free trial of the $12 Basic plan without you furnishing details of your credit card. And taking this trial plan will allow you to test the Custom Domain feature. That is, allow you map your domain to your Zoho wiki. And of course you have other options like creating 5 wikis and having 250 MB of attachment space.
Export/Import Wiki
Click on Wiki -> Settings and you will see the Export/Import option.
The export option allows you to take all your wiki contents (including embedded images, file attachments and comments) as a zip file whenever you need. And you can import the contents back (say copying it all to another Zoho Wiki) if need be. Going forward, we would be giving import function from other Wikis.
Newer Themes
In the menu Wiki -> Settings -> Wiki Themes, you have a variety of readymade themes to choose from. Recently added to the mix are two new themes in the Nature category - Green Valley and Penguins. The specialty of these two themes is that they are of fixed width (960px).
Give Zoho Wiki a try.
Amit Agarwal has a nice blog post explaining how to download all your documents from Google Docs as a zip. If you want to have a back up of your Google Docs online, you can do so using Zoho Docs. Zoho Docs allows uploading of zip files and you can upload the zip file downloaded from Google to Zoho Docs. The slide show below shows the steps involved in backing up your Google Docs in Zoho Docs.
Recently we announced the integration between Google Apps and Zoho Projects. That integration allows you to attach a Google Docs file to the Documents module of Zoho Projects. We are coming up with more such exciting integrations soon. Stay tuned.
Related Posts
Sridhar took part in NBC's Sunday morning business show, Press:Here. This week's episode was hosted by reporter Scott McGrew and Sridhar was accompanied by CEOs of Immersion Corp (Clent Richardson) and Extreme Networks (Mark Canepa). The invited CEOs and the show's host discuss a host of topics from technology in the Valley to the American economy to international markets to H1Bs - Press:Here Episode 31 "CEO Show" Part 1 and Part 2.
Thanks to Scott McGrew, the NBC and the CEOs of Extreme Networks & Immersion Corp for the nice discussion.
InfoLogic's MathMagic is a desktop based equation editor software. Its latest version 6.8 for Mac users has introduced a special menu item for Zoho Writer. MathMagic can now be used as a front-end equation editor by Zoho Writer users (Zoho Writer has allowed writing of LaTeX equations since May 2008). Whether or not you are fluent in LaTeX, you can now write mathematical equations and symbols using MathMagic
easily and fast, then simply copy-paste it into Zoho Writer's Equation
Editor window. LaTeX expressions from Zoho Writer's Equation Editor can also be copy-pasted into MathMagic window to edit the equation on a WYSIWYG interface.
InfoLogic says MathMagic's Windows version will also support "Copy as Zoho equation" in the near future. We believe this new menu will help both MathMagic & Zoho Writer users.
At Zoho, we provide APIs for a good many of our products and they have all been well received. A sample list of our API partners here. The latest one to join the list is Elementool.
Elementool provides web based project management tools for help desk, bug and defect tracking and time tracking tools. Elementool has implemented Zoho's API in their Docs module. All uploaded documents, spreadsheets and presentations to the Elementool's Docs module can now be viewed using Zoho. Not just viewing, you can edit the file too and when you save the file again, all changes get reflected in your uploaded file in the Elementool account.
Such a functionality is useful if you are uploading a lot of your project/work-related documents, spreadsheets & presentations online and want them viewed or edited then and there in the browser itself (instead of downloading each of them and editing them using a desktop application). Try Elementool out and see if it fits your needs.
We have a couple of other API collaborations happening too which we will blog about in the days to come. Stay tuned.
The first Interop show at Mumbai happened from Oct 7 to 9. We had a booth there representing Zoho and ManageEngine. For a show's first edition, all the arrangements were real good. The show had a good number of exhibitors and there were a lot of sessions going on simultaneously. We were a little apprehensive of the traffic that the show might attract but we were happy when we started having a lot of visitors to our booth from day one. The traffic continued on days two and three as well.
It was my first tradeshow/conference representing Zoho and my business card had my designation as Market Analyst / Blogger. The blogger tag was a bit intriguing to many and it acted as a good conversation starter :)
Cloud computing and SAAS were a big draw. Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) aka RIM also invoked good interest. A lot of our visitors knew Zoho, ManageEngine or our former name AdventNet. We got good feedback from our Indian users on many of our products/services. Other than the photos above, I posted a few photos of the other exhibitors' stalls in my twitpic account. Overall, it was a good show to remember and makes me look forward to the next edition.
Let's see the niceties that the latest Zoho Wiki update has brought in.
Tag Cloud
Tagging of pages is there in Zoho Wiki for quite a long time now. But having all tags as a tag cloud has been the missing part. This has now been included. Under Wiki -> Settings -> Customization, you will find the tag cloud as one of the side panel elements.
You can click on a tag or search by tag and get all the pages matching that tag listed.
New Widgets
Zoho Wiki allows embedding of quite a few widgets. New ones for blip.tv and W3Counter have been added. The tag cloud described above can be added as an embeddable widget in a page, and there is a widget for breadcrumbs too.
Other Usability Improvements
The drop-down menus at the top-right have now been improved. Sub-menus under Wiki -> Settings and My Menu -> My Settings have been added.
Hope you like the new changes in Zoho Wiki.
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