Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers an email and instant messaging security and archiving service, an online spreadsheet (see article below), and a simple billing program for Mac users. Don't miss the next issue.
Context Is King
By Taeho Lim
Why use an online spreadsheet when you have a perfectly good one in your Office suite? Context, my friends, context. Being online means you can share your spreadsheet with just about anyone or anything.
For example, Team and Concepts' online spreadsheet EditGrid enables you to create a spreadsheet, access it from any Web browser, collaborate with colleagues, send the data to other applications and databases, publish the spreadsheet on your Web site, etc.
Team and Concepts claims that EditGrid has a short learning curve because it looks and feels just like Excel. Familiar features include cut and paste, charts, auto-fill, number and cell formatting, and more than 50 keyboard shortcuts. EditGrid works with all major Web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Netscape. The iPhone Edition, currently in beta, enables you to use it on Apple's popular smartphone.
With EditGrid, you can collaborate on spreadsheets in real-time with anyone else. For example, you might create a firmwide expense report. When someone makes an edit, it flashes in red so you always stay up-to-date on the latest version. You can control access levels and privileges, and prevent others from editing specific parts of the spreadsheet. EditGrid even offers an in-application chat feature for communicating with your co-editors.
In addition to its familiar feel and real-time editing, EditGrid provides an API that connects your spreadsheets to your existing databases and legacy applications. The API is bidirectional so you can both send and receive data. Other spreadsheet features include Web publication, auto-save, revision history on a cell by cell basis, versioning and rollback, and integration with any public data source such as Yahoo! Finance.
EditGrid comes in two versions — Personal and Organization. The Personal edition is free whereas the latter costs $5/user/month and provides SSL security, shared workspaces (which can contain several spreadsheets), technical support, a custom login page, and administrative tools. If you prefer, you can run EditGrid internally on your own server, thus enabling you to integrate LDAP. Learn more about EditGrid.
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