iHCPL: Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

Beware: symptoms of malignant bad attitude below, tune in next time for a more positive report.

I like Helene Blowers’s document about its features, the welcome document from Zoho looks swell, but I can’t get the @#$%^& thing to work for me.

I signed up for Zoho. But, at first I couldn’t figure out how to create a new document. Then I saw the New button in the upper left hand corner of my screen.

I clicked on it, but nothing happened.

Then I tried to import a document, but when I tried to open it, this is what I got:

So, I @#$%^&* some more and poked about, and then five minutes or so later the title of the document showed up as well as something called “Untitled,” which I took to be my new blank document. So I opened my imported document and the title was there --- but none of the rest of it!

So I tried to paste what I’d done on Word to the blank document. The text made it but none of the pictures. So I used the Zoho tool to import the picture. Then I tried to format it, but was unable to discover if this was possible or not. I went back to Microsoft on my desktop and did the modification and imported it. That worked. Then I added another picture. Then I tried to reposition some text. Big mistake – everything went away.

I clicked on the other document, and once again got the “Sorry, the page you requested was not found…” message again. So, I clicked on the “Untitled document” and then back on the titled document it had reappeared with my most recent editing deleted.

At this point I decided to go back to Microsoft on my desktop, Zoho, no matter how swell its hype may be, is too slow and too unreliable. I expect the speed, and perhaps the unreliability is because it has to travel the web and back before it can perform, which are just about the last things you need when typing or editing.