Google Docs, wikis and Dropbox #cpd23

I've written about Google Docs here a few months ago, and have to admit I haven't actually used it since, although I still love its potential for embedding forms such as book recommendations onto library websites.

With nothing really to add to my previous post about wikis, I will skip over that and get straight on to exploring Dropbox.

Dropbox is such a useful application for sharing documents between computers, and acts as a great back up for those documents you are currently working on. What I love about it is that you have a Dropbox folder on your computer where the files are stored, so that you don't have to log in to the website every time you want to access a file. And when you want to access the file from a different computer, you can login to the Dropbox website to see whatever is in your Dropbox folder. A friend gave me a handy tip about using Synctoy to synchronise folders for Dropbox. For example, if you are working on multiple documents for a project that are saved in the same folder, you can use Synctoy to synchronise that folder with your Dropbox folder. You can either set it up to synchronise automatically, or click 'run' every time you want it to synchronise. This saves having to remember exactly which files you want to update to Dropbox. You can control whether it synchronises both ways, or just the one way, and whether or not deleted files are included in this.

Wikis #cam23

Of course I love wikipedia, but I've never really used any other wikis. It was interesting to read about how wikis have been used for managing project information, and even staff intranets and staff manuals. I wonder if Google Documents would work as well for managing project information? The documents would be all in one place and could be edited by anyone working on the project. My library already has an intranet with manuals, procedures etc on there, so I don't currently need to use a wiki for this. The advantage of wikis when creating staff manuals and procedure documents is that they are collaborative and many people can edit them (useful if more than one person has a great tip that they want to add, or a section to update).

Having compared the BizWiki and the Business Blog,  I think the Business Blog has a nicer and clearer look to it. In terms of engaging with users, I know I am more likely to comment on a blog post than to do so on a wiki. The other advantage of blogs is that people can subscribe to an RSS feed to be notified whenever a new post has been added. I'm not sure if this is possible with wikis?

Overall then, wikipedia aside, I think I prefer blogs!