I have written several times about Google Documents, an online word processor and spreadsheet service. However, Google has a very powerful competitor at Zoho. Zoho offers essentially the same features as Google Documents plus a lot more.
Zoho is a free online office suite that is able to host Adobe PDF files and presentation documents, in addition to word processor and spreadsheet docs. Writing about Zoho in PC Magazine, Natali Del Conte stated, "It is a wonder Google hasn't acquired the company yet."
Zoho recently introduced new features that may be of interest to genealogists who want to share documents.
Zoho has introduced the Zoho Viewer, a one-click way to share your documents. It is a bit like Flickr, where each photo (or document in this case) gets its own hyperlink. You can upload a Word document, PDF file, or even a PowerPoint slide show, and Zoho will return a URL. You can publish that URL on your web site or in e-mail. Anyone who clicks on the URL will then see your document displayed in their web browser. Zoho works well with Windows, Macintosh, and Linux systems. In fact, it is a good method of sharing documents among people using different operating systems. I can see Zoho Viewer being used in personal genealogy web sites, in multi-person research efforts, and for other uses as well.
Zoho is also useful for sending large documents via email. Many e-mail programs now block large files that are attached to e-mail messages because of security concerns. You can easily include a URL in a short message, with that URL pointing to a large document stored on Zoho's web site (There is a five-megabyte file size restriction today although Zoho has announced that the limit will soon be increased to ten megabytes.)
Zoho has a long list of other services available. Best of all, Zoho is available free of charge.
You can learn more and even create a free account at http://www.zoho.com. While there, you will want to check out Zoho's many other services.
For a video demonstration of Zoho Viewer, visit http://www.viddler.com/explore/raju/videos/2/.
