WATVA Blogs

Cloud based something or other... and you don't even have wireless? No worries!

If you have ever watched an amazon commercial advertising their "cloud" you might be scratching your head as to what that has anything to do with books. Ha. Well, I am going to go over cloud based publishing. More specifically, cloud based publishing as there are various levels of the "cloud."

But, before I do that, let's take a look at Google's cloud based publishing tools to better understand what the "cloud" really is. I will go over in detail what it is after this short non-product placement endorsement video!

Woah! That's pretty slick! But, I still don't get what the "cloud" is!?!?

Ok, let's see if I can tackle this term. Cloud, or cloud based computing, is using a companies server computers (in the videos case, Googles) to do publishing vs. your computer running software to publish documents. In a nut shell, when you hear the "cloud," it really means anything that is done on the internet. It's that simple.

When I was taking my web design classes we spent a good 20 minutes debating the term cloud and came to a group conclusion that it is, in fact, a good term. Our conclusion was the internet is so massive, reaching every corner of the planet (you could argue the solar system), that a broad term such as cloud covers everything easily. That was about eight years ago, before the invention of Google Documents, Microsoft Office Online or content management. 

So, what am I getting at in this blog? 

Let's think of an example together. Say we have a club that is writing a press release about their upcoming trail opening ceremony. It's an important document that is going in a few newspapers. The club secretary, Joe, was tasked with writing the article. He takes a stab at it using Microsoft Word 2000 and sends it to the club officers. One club officer uses a Mac and doesn't have word for mac. She can still open the document, but in the transition something got messed up and she doesn't bother reading it. Meanwhile, the club President opens the document on Word 2011 and makes some changes. He sends it back to Joe, however Joe can't open the document because it was saved in a newer format. Drat! Two other officers make their own changes and send it back to Joe, as to which he can open it but now has two sets of documents to merge into his own. Shortly after spending 20 minutes of cussing out the process, the President finally sends his revisions over saved in an older format. #@!$$@!! is all that comes out of Joe's mouth.

Enter cloud based publishing. Because Google was nice enough to supply us with that video, I am going to endorse use their product as an example (I am not a Google fan boy... *cough*). 

Joe decides to take his press release with the current revisions and open it in Google Docs. He opens his web browser Microsoft Internet Explorer (see, I could have said he opens it in Google Chrome), goes to the web site http://www.google.com/docs and clicks on the upload tool. He selects his word document and a few seconds later his word document is now on his screen in his web browser, fully editable. Not only can he edit, save and print it, he can also invite the other club officers to log into Google Documents and make changes live! That's right, you can be watching the others make changes in front of you. It does have a small amount of creepiness to it, but amazing none the less. At the end of the day, all the revisions are made, everyone signs off on the document and away to the presses.

Sounds like a neat story right? Let's try a real world example, in fact, let's use my personal Google account. I want to share the WATVA Image Team Guidelines for Parades. It's in a word 2010 document. Hold on to your hats, im going to post screen shots!!!

Step 1 - Log into Google Docs. I don't think i need to screen capture me logging into Google documents. You need a Google account, it's free and easy. The screen shot is blurry, as I blurred the actual documents in my list as some of them are personal, so no offense internet. On the left side there is a button called Create, next to it, is the upload button.

Step 2 - Uploading the document is easy. So like I said in step 1, I click the upload tool, a little box folds out where I can click files (I didn't screen capture that, but it also says how much storage space I have left in my account). So I clicked files and this is what I get:

Step 3 - I clicked ok and another box popped up. It's asking me if I want to convert the word document to Google Docs. I do, so I can use the online sharing and such. I can also convert text from a PDF file that I can later edit (pretty nifty). Then I click start upload. To save on my large screen shots, this screen just shows the window after the files been uploaded.

So, from the screen shot above, I can see it was been uploaded, converted and ready to be shared. It also reminds me I am using 84 megs of my 1,024 meg limit of free space. Thanks Google for the friendly reminder!

Step 4 - Let's go ahead and share that beast. After it's uploaded, I clicked the document in the little box that is shown above and it takes me to the document editor. From here, it looks like a word processor. I can change font sizes, alignment, styles, justify yadda, yadda, yadda. What I want to do is share this with the world. Over on the right side, near the top is a share button. I move my mouse over it and it says "Private to only me" meaning that only my Google account can see this document. 

Step 5 - Let's share it, really this time! I clicked the dark box under the share button and this is what comes up. A box that lets me control who can see it. Initially, it's setup as a private document that only I can see. I can invite others to view and / or edit the document, but keep it locked down. A nice feature as well. People can be added via my Gmail contact list or via email. To make this the entire process easier, be sure to have people make a google account first, it's much easier than using email login that confuses people. 

Anyways, I went ahead and clicked the "Change..." link next to private access, as I want the world to be able to view, not edit it. 

Step 6 - Opening the document to the internet (or... cloud.... dun dun dun!). From this screen, I can say the document can be public where anyone can search for it, semi-public where only people with the link can get it to, or private. For this example, it's going to be semi public as you will be able to check it out near the bottom of the blog.

Step 7 - I clicked "Anyone with the link" option, and this is where I can change how it's accessed. For this example, I am going to let people view it and make comments, that's all. I don't want the internet to edit it, that'd be a mistake.

Step... I lost count... Oh yeah, 8! - Once I clicked save, another box popped up with the link to the document. In this case, you can actually view it by visiting https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BQjhtTks9QJ2kYWVO_KEWF91CP2JgR5Wj7OwM6UrwOc/edit, and you can leave me a comment if you wish.

Ok, so that's about it. My document is out on the web for you to view. If I wanted the world to edit it, I could have. Or I could have invited a select few to edit it. How easy is that right?

Google doesn't stop at documents. You can also do spreadsheets (excel), slide shows (powerpoint) or PDF documents. They also don't stop at using computers to access them. I can pull up my documents on my Android phone or tablet.

For me, this tool is really handy for doing work from home and work. I don't need to email myself the document back and forth. I just log into Google Docs.

As for WATVA, we use Google Docs for tracking the TREADY awards (so I can add them into our database at home on the weekends), workshop registrations, document editing and other things I can't think of.

What if you're not a Google fan boy open to using google? You do have some other choices.

• http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ - Microsoft's approach to cloud documents. For a small businesses, this might be a good option if you don't trust Google. We use their email cloud service called Exchange as it was pretty much the same price as Google's but easier to use. Once you start using Outlook it's hard to switch. 
• http://www.apple.com/iwork/iwork-dot-com/ - Ah yes, Apple Fan Boys will be pleased to see they have embraced the document cloud services as well. However, their product is in beta yet. I use the term fan boy loose of course, no offense mac users :P
• http://www.box.com/ - Looks like a nice service. I can't comment on it because I have not used it. Curses Google and your grasp on me!
• https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore - Amazons cloud based services don't actually allow you to edit the files, just store them online for free.
• https://www.dropbox.com/ - Same as Amazon, you can't edit them but you can store them online and access them from almost any device.