2008-8-18  Checking Out iNetWord

Looks pretty good. The editing screen is nice and clean. The control buttons are a bit small, but that's okay, I guess. It works really well with the browser's zoom feature. It also works with Firefox's right click spell check suggestions and other options.

Unlike Google Docs, which saves everything to a folder where things go that haven't been asigned to a folder yet, iNetWord lets you choose the folder and file format when you save your document. Very nice. It's a bit annoying to have to move every single document in Google Docs to get it where you want it.

Also unlike Google Docs, you can create and modify styles in iNetWord. Very handy.

It allows you to publish your documents to your blog site. I'm gonna try that with this document and see how that works. Google allows this, but I'm not sure to what degree. I couldn't get it to work with my blog site. It may be possible, but I didn't know enough technical stuff about my blog site to completely fill in the dialog box. Hopefully, I'll have better luck here.

I haven't been able to make this work. It very well could be my fault. I'm still kinda ignorant about such things.

It'd be really hand to be able to publish directly from a web based word processor to my blog site. Right now, I compose in Word and then copy and paste to my blog. Not so much fun.

iNetWord seems to do all the normal formatting things everything else does. It appears to have a pretty robust tables feature. I rarely use table, so I haven't tried it out.

It has its own spell check, but I tend to rely on Firefox's spell check on th go feature.

You can add backgrounds to your documents similar to how you can in Word. Cute, but hardly necessary. I do it to make the all white screen a little easier to see.

All in all, I'd have to say I like it. Maybe better than Google docs. Since Google Docs is tied in with my e-mail, it is kinda convenient, but again not something that's necessary.

In a previous post, I had mentioned that I'm trying to wean myself off the Microsoft teat. I inadvertently took another step in that direction yesterday.

I had an idea for a new story and started scribing in Google Docs. I was using Internet Explore (IE) from Microsoft. I use both IE and Mozilla's Firefox. Each has its good points and its weaknesses, so sometimes one is better suited for the task at hand than the other.

I also have two Gmail accounts. One is my primary e-mail for personal business and keeping in touch with friends. The other is for "playing". I use it when I sign up on blogging sites, when I want information form one place or another, like NBA.com, etc.

I discovered that sometimes having both Gmail accounts open in the same browser program doesn't always work well. So, in my Virgo brain, I thought I would just use one browser for one account and the other for the other.

This also allowed me to logically separate my documents between the two accounts. I love organization, but this turned out to be overkill, although I learned a very interesting lesson from trying it.

As I got into my new story on IE yesterday, I noticed a couple of things. First as I increased the size of the text on the screen to accommodate my low vision, I would have to scroll horizontally. This never happens in Foxfire regardless of how big I make the screen text.

A little annoying, but not devastating. Later, I noticed I wasn't making any spelling errors. This is highly irregular. My low vision precludes me from seeing every little detail the way I would like and I often miss type-o's as I type.

At the end of the portion of the story I was writing, I searched everywhere in Google docs for an option to turn on, or off the spell check on-the-fly feature. No luck.

I finished the story in Word and moved on with my life. Tonight, I decided to investigate some more. I actually broke down and searched the Google Docs help where I found out the spell check as you type is a feature of Firefox, not a feature of Google Docs.

Needless to say, I've decided to still keep both browsers open to check the two e-mail accounts, but I'll be doing all my Google Docs in Firefox where I have spell check as-you-type and no horizontal scrolling on the screen.

I do have one issue with Firefox I can't seem to figure out. When you float your cursor over icons and other items in a web page, often there is a bubble help, bubble info thingy that pops up. In IE, this works perfectly. In Firefox, I get an empty (or at least it looks empty to me) white box. I have my bubble help set to black background with white text in Windows. This is what I get with IE. If anyone knows why I don't get the same thing in Firefox, can you let me know? I'd really appreciate it.

I suppose I could resort to the Help file my self. Maybe I'll do this and if I find an answer, I'll post it here for all to see.

Have a good Sunday.

Soon after posting this I downloaded the Opera browser. Basically it didn't work for me while using Google Docs. Even outside Google Docs, I found it quirky and inconsistent.

I have since uninstalled it. I have little patience for quirky software that I don't have to use.

I did figure out the tooltips thing in Foxfire. Foxfire was recognizing the font color I had specified in my Windows Display Properties, but it chose to ignore the background color I had specified.

I changed the setting to black text with white background and now I have fully functional tooltips in Firefox. Can we get a hallelujah from the congregation? What a performance.