There has been lots of talk online about Writely, iRows and Google Spreadsheet lately that I though I’d take a moment and talk about the Zoho offerings. ZoHo is a company that makes an online word processor , spreadsheet application, polls, to-do lists, chat and more. Most applications are free and are all very good; and not invite only.

ZoHoWriter is basically the same as Writely. It’s a free online word processor that import & export Microsoft Word documents along with many other types of text files, export PDFs and it’s all web based. They deal with documents a little better though with a left hand menu that includes all your documents. All accessible from one screen and they can even open in tabs. Pretty sweet.

Google has announced Google Spreadsheets! It’s currently limited beta but I have high hopes for it. Google has Writely, an online word processing application and now a spreadsheet application. This is one step closer to Google Office.

I have yet to get my Google Spreadsheet invite, but I’ve got on the list. For more information check out this Sneak Peak at Google Spreadsheets.

If you can’t wait for Google Spreadsheets, check out iRows and ZoHo Sheet. They are both online spreadsheet applications that work very well and are available for sign-up today! I have accounts at each and it’s tough to say which is better, but both are excellent alternatives to Microsoft Excel.

You know what a folder is but what is a tag?

For those that are just jumping into the blog world, or the Web 2.0 world for that matter, there is a new idea out there called tagging. Much like folders or categories, it’s a way of keeping things organized.

Lets start out simple with folders.

On your computer you have folders. Maybe a documents folder for paperwork, pictures folder for pictures and so on. You’ve probably even created your own folders. “Christmas 2005″ or “Work Documents” The idea is to keep your files organized on your hard drive. Simple enough.

It’s true, I’m addicted to the Web 2.0. From social bookmarking sites to online word processors and web software that just works, there is no end in site to what I can accomplish online!

What is the Web 2.0? Well, it’s the idea of sharing information and having web sites act more like applications and less like static content. For example, Yahoo Mail is Web 1.0. Every time you click on a link or button, the whole window refreshes. Gmail is Web 2.0 were it acts more like a desktop application. Everything happens much like your Outlook or Thunderbird. Now Yahoo does have a Web 2.0 version coming, but it’s not available yet for us regular folk.

I searched for a web based Microsoft Excel today and I found iRows. All the basics, none of the bloat or cost!!

Today was a snow day and I was told not to come into work but rather work from home. Great idea except I treat my home computer differently than my work computer. For one, I didn’t install Microsoft Office.

I’ve had Writely for Word documents for a while now and it’s just amazing. Upload Word files, make edits, export them again and it’s all good. So, I went looking for a web based Excel. That’s when I found iRows.

One of my favorite Web 2.0 applications is Writely - online word processing. I just find it so useful, simple and wonderful! Completely imports almost any text file with formatting and export them as well. So handy. However, today I found out it got bought by Google!!

What does that mean? Well I’m not sure exactly. They claim it’ll only get better, but I’ve seen some of Googles takeovers lately and there are more outages and issues than before. But, I’m going to be optimistic. I love Writely and I’m sure they’ll be able to do much more now that they have Google behind them.

Recently I’ve been using a free service called Writely. Writely is a web based word processing application that is amazing.

Features include:

• Full WYSIWYG Editing (in browsers that support it)
• Import abilities for Microsoft Word (.doc), Rich Text (.rtf) OpenOffice (.odt, .sxw), HTML, Text (.txt)
• Export abilities for all the above and PDF
• Sharing abilities with anyone.
• Social editing so that more than one can edit the same document.
• Privacy controls.
• Ability to ‘Star’ important documents. (like Gmail)
• Beautiful Interface