Pimp Your Work

I’ve talked about ThinkFree: Now You Can Try It For Yourself

by Tris Hussey on September 19th, 2007

I’ve talked about ThinkFree before, and since then have been using it pretty much exclusively over MS Office.  It rocks.  It’s light, responsive, and really has only the things you need to get the job done.

I’ve been using ThinkFree Premium as an online office organizer, I put all the docs related to a project in there, even if TFP doesn’t open them (like images or music).  Why?  Because they will be synced.  I can jump to another computer and get to them.  And if I don’t have TF or MS Office or eve OpenOffice on that machine…no problem, I have the U3 version for my flash drive.  Before I get to the "good stuff" read these excerpts from TJ Kang CEO of ThinkFree’s post on their blog:

…But it was also a serious wake-up call for all of us in the Office 2.0 realm. The reality is that all of us, even the most well-connected, sometimes find ourselves in a disconnected space, a place where there simply is no network we can access. While there’s great freedom in having your docs in the cloud and being able to access them from anywhere and share them with others, if you can’t get into the cloud you’re sunk. No, it’s worse than that; it’s more like being deprived of air. You expect it to be there; you depend on it; and when that connectivity is not there you’re drowning.

[snip]

So this year, while others were talking about form factors of various hardware devices and whether this size screen or that particular screen orientation was more conducive to the mobile worker, I felt obliged to point out that none of that really matters if you can’t get to your files. You need to make it easy for mobile workers to get to their files at any time ― and that means even when disconnected from the network. That means developing software that can elegantly and effortlessly keep whatever device you’re working on synchronized with the files in the cloud ― so that when you wander into those corridors of disconnectivity, whether it’s a hotel room where the WiFi is down or on a plane or wherever, you’ve still got access to your files. You’ve still got that oxygen with you, and nothing will stop you from getting your work done.

[snip]

In the end, though, you really have to experience the elegance of ThinkFree Premium to appreciate it. Ismael Ghalimi, who runs the O2Con show and is the single greatest evangelist for O2.0 gave me a chance to share that experience towards the conclusion of the conference. I stood up before the audience and started presenting on the big screen. I showed the files I had up on the ThinkFree storage site, showed how easy it was to edit them online.

And then I pulled the plug and disconnected my laptop from the network. This year, though, instead of having another Bill Gates moment, I just opened the synchronized copy of the presentation I had been working on, right there on my laptop, and continued presenting to the audience. You could feel everyone else gulping for air on my behalf, but I had my oxygen right there and I just kept on working. Source: ThinkFree Blog » We have Seen the Future, and it is Moving . . . .

This is my presentation done in ThinkFree Show and embedded here with ThinkFree Docs:

You ready to give it a shot?  I have 100 invites into the private beta of ThinkFree Premium.  TF Premium combines TF Online with a downloaded Java client (Windows, Mac and Linux).  Frankly, it’s awesome.  It is light, use it on battery and it doesn’t drain you flat.  It works, and it syncs the files.  Yes, there are more tweaks and features needs…it’s beta…but it is solid enough for everyday work.

If you want in, and I know you do, just e-mail me at tris AT b5media DOT com subject: ThinkFree Invite and I’ll hook you up.

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