Here is a list of some more popular applications. If
you aware of others, please contact me and I will let you know if I
think it would be a good one to review (within the groups that say
"suite", you do not need to review each app in the suite - just two
apps total):
ONE
I chose to review the Zoho Sheet as my first application. The first thing I noticed about Zoho Sheet is how similar its interface is to Microsoft's Excel. The layout of tool bars and the content of those tools are also very similar to Excel. One nice little feature that stumbled on was language tool. With one click the of the mouse you can chose from 20 different languages for your document. As the world becomes more and more connected, this is a simple yet important tool making Zoho extremely versatile, especially if you are working with a language barrier. Also, another great feature of this software is that it is web based. No downloading needed. All you need is a Zoho account, which can be associated with your existing google or yahoo account. Zoho is easily accessible, as long as you have a internet connect. Another great feature of Zoho is its compatibility with other file formats. Zoho Sheet can import a variety of spread sheet documents including, xls, sxc, ods, csv and tsv. Zoho Sheet can also export your documents in the following formats: xls, ods, sxc, gnumerica, csv, tsv, xml, xhtml, html, and pdf. As I said before, Zoho Sheet is very similar to Excel. Zoho Sheet provides all the same key features, such as the "equation" tool, and the rows are set by letters, while the columns are set numbers just as they are in Excel. You can also create marcos and pivots for file, and publish the document to your website. If you are looking for a cost effective alternative to Excel and you have an internet connection, look no further than Zoho Spread. It is simply to use, loads fast, lots of features, and the best part is it is free. I strongly recommend Zoho Spread.
TWO
As a digital multimedia teacher, who only deals with Photoshop and other Adobe products, I thought I would good to check out Phixr. Phixr is a web based, meaning you need a internet connect, image manipulating software. The first thing, I noticed and was not impressed by was the amount of time it took Phixr to upload my image. Now this could be a attribute a variety of things, such as a slow internet connect and a bandwidth issue. It took roughly 3 minutes to upload a 1.49 MB photo. 1.49 MB, from my experience, is not that big for a photo file. Given the average class time is around 50 minutes some student may be spend up to 10 minutes of the time just loading up one photo. To complicate matters further, if you had 30 kids upload files at the same time, this might bog down the website as well as eat up the bandwidth and bog down the school servers, thus making the time even longer. Once I did get my photo uploaded, I noticed that there are not many told to choose from. Some key tools that are not there, include the brush, pencil, clone, and lasso tools. The brush and pencil tools are just simply drawings tools, that I believe are a must. The clone tool, which can duplicate other part of the photo, is a must for fixing up or reconstructing photo, and editing certain objects out of an image. Finally and most importantly, the lasso tool allows the user to only select a part of the photo for editing. Phixer does have some neat effects, including "pop art," "swirl," and, "emboss" but you must apply these effects to the entire drawing. Some other features include, rotating the drawing, scaling the drawing, convert it to black and white, adding speech bubbles and text. Phixer does allow you to save your file as a jpg, png, pdf, gif, and ocr format. Also, Phixer does have a feature that allows you to upload your photos direct to facebook, flickr, picasa, imageshack and some other photo sharing sites.
While Phixer does offer the basics of photo editing I would not recommend this software for 9-12 classes. I think there are better softwares out there that are comparable to Photoshop, like GIMP. I think Phixer would be an "ok" application at the higher elementary levels for computer introduction and small photo editing activities. Yet, due to the fact it is a web based software and the limited tools it offers, this software would not be suitable for a class, such as digital photography. Fun easy program, just not meant higher applications.
