by Joel T. Fagsao

So amazing! The plethora of services now available on the Internet is for the taking. Whether you are an entrepreneur, an office worker, a farmer, student, teaching or one running an academic institution, technologies available online are just simply great. You also don’t have to break a bank to get these services because some are free and could rival expensive commercial software. One service is Google Docs. Google continues to provide applications that could help you save a penny. In Google Docs you can do applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and even drawing. This service is free and you can open, edit files you created in Microsoft Word and other related MS Office software. The time has come when you no longer have to load your computers with software/applications. As long as you have online connection, you can always make use of readily available applications. This is called Software as a Service (SaS). With this system, you can work using applications or software available on demand. These applications are no longer limited by time and geographical boundaries. You can collaborate on a document with a co-worker wherever is the latter’s location. With Google Docs you can work on a document together. The Google Company has yet added another service called Google Cloud Connect. If you have MS Office (Word, Excel, etc.) in your computer, you can now save your work directly to your Google account at the docs section. This ends the worry of having to save on a flash drive and losing it to virus infection. While you work on your computer, you can set to synch your files to your Google account and on your hard drive in one click. Now when you lose your file on your computer’s storage device, you can still retrieve your file on Google Docs by logging on to your Google Account. Commercial software provider, Microsoft is no taking this sitting down, it also has offered a similar service called Windows Live (integrates Skydrive which gives you a whooping 25GB storage capacity online).

A free application called Picasa enables you to concentrate color on one aspect of an image.

If you have a business and would want to have a free website, you can check out Google Site. Google site provides a 100 MB free account for individuals, organizations who want to have their own websites. This semester, we integrated lessons on how to create a website with Google Site in our web design and development class at Xijen College of Mountain Province. This will prepare students in our province to explore and get exposure to as many website creation platforms. Students at Xijen College are alos exposed to WordPress and Joomla- website development applications which are in the open source category. By open source, we mean, anyone with knowledge of programming can help in the improvement, testing, adding new features of a software or application. The application is then available for download and use by anyone.

Already, Charlene Fadchal-Lidua, alumnae of Xijen College developed the official website of Bauko Local Government unit with the use of the WordPress platform. Had Charlene used a commercial web design software like Adobe Creative Suite, the Bauko Local Government has to shell out P89,052.00 to buy the software, another commercial web design software like Dreamweaver costs P15,934.00.

These things may sound unfamiliar to some readers especially in some of the municipalities that do not yet have access to the Internet. Education and the right information will solve this in time. Xijen College is doing its share of exploring, testing and finally integrating non commercial applications into the curriculum of the college’s Information Technology students

Finally, here’s one that can help you save a few pesos of load on your mobile phone. If you have a G-mail account under Google, you can send up text messages to your contact’s mobile phones for free. The text message recipients can also reply at no cost (read: no deduction from your load or your contact’s current load). To use this feature, log on to your G-mail account look for the Send SMS feature at the left side. Enter your contact’s mobile number, type in your text message and press the enter key to send the message.