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So then, my quest to have an online office is moving ahead quite nicely. Here's what I have so far (being used on a daily basis):
EMail: GoogleMail - cos its fast and useable. If it had folders, it would be perfect. It was a toss up between this and Yahoo! Mail! - but something just wasn't right about it.
Calendar: Google Calendar - its pretty damned awesome. Its uncluttered interface is a pleasure to use and its Quick Add function is very handy. Can also email you your calendar entries every morning and can export in XML and iCal.
Tasks: Remember The Milk - its easy to use, can have multiple lists, and its details can be exported in a range of formats.
Word Processing: Writely - full featured, fast, easy to use. Also gives you the facility to email stuff to your id, that then become documents you can work on. Beautifully done.
IM: Meebo - one page for all. It supports AIM/ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo and MSN. Setup an account, loging once and get connected to all your IM networks at once, all cobbled together with a neat interface.
Blog/Wiki/Groupware: JotSpot - an all for one system offering blog, wiki pages, group calendars, file and photo storage, etc - all free for 5 users. Ideal for a small office environment.
And finally, the thing (for me) that holds it all together.
Portal: Netvibes - with the iCal and Gmail modules, a RememberTheMilk RSS feed and my Meebo page - One page that provides me a large chunk of information provided by the other sites. Easily customisable with your own feeds, news feeds, etc, etc
What else is needed?
Contacts: The one within GoogleMail is fine and dandy, but the detail you can assign to a contact is pretty flimsy but more than usable. I will be searching for something more substantial - maybe a CRM type system.
Spreadsheet: I haven't yet started testing spreadsheets - but I will be soon. I am concerned that with Mail, Calendar, WP and Spreadsheets all offered by Google - I will be tempted to keep them together but I am looking for functionality, presentation, ease of use and availability over "keeping it in the family".
Database: Its a bit of an odd thing really. What kind of database do you need? I dont have much of a need for a database these days (I use a spreadsheet for any little ones) so I'm not sure this something I will be able to investigate easily. But I'll try.
I will of course keep you updated with my progress, put some screenshots up as I review each product, etc
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