We met once again at the Bayer Center’s office in the Regional Enterprise Tower. Our “starter” topic was Exploring Google Apps.
We created a new Google Apps account (projector and laptop hooked up and displaying onscreen) and went digging around. We determined that most of the programs - word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation – were similar to Microsoft Office, enough so that an existing Office user could generally find his or her way around with too much training. We explored the Google Sites feature to see what it had to offer. One could make a very basic website or intranet with this tool. There didn’t seem to be many possibilities for customization. The link to our faux Bagels & Bytes Google Site is: http://sites.google.com/a/rmu.edu/bagels-bytes/
Other tools discussed (most of the online collaboration type) included:
- Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com)
- Acrobat Connect (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/)
- Webex (http://www.webex.com)
- Skype (http://www.skype.com)
- ReadyTalk (http://www.readytalk.com)
For upcoming months, we decided to do a series of starter topics: April will be New Capabilities in Office 2007 and May will be OpenOffice. The group also discussed the desire for a Bagels & Bytes Facebook group.
Note from editor: I accidentally deleted the February 2009 meeting notes last week and don’t retain the paper copies once I’ve written the blog post. Sorry!!
Next Meeting:
Our next meeting is April 2 at the Bayer Center office on the 26th Floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower. If anyone has any topic suggestions or any issues you’d like to discuss at the meeting, please email them to me at leonard@rmu.edu. The meeting is, as usual, from 8 am – 9:30 am.
