Cross-Platform Collaboration Software, preferably lightweight?

[asdir]

Hi all,

at our institute we have many commuters and people who live in other cities and show up only a couple of times per week. Collaborating on projects with them often ends up in countless e-mails sent back and forth every day with literature, drafts, appointments, mindmaps and so on.

Do you know of any more efficient way to distribute information and work collaboratively in a cross-platform environment which is as dispersed as mine? Could the small server we have here maybe be of help?

What are the solutions for this kind of problem at your place? Does anyone use Wave, for example?

[agm.]

Try Dropbox ! It is a very simple format that has a minimal download that people can create shared folders and access from any computer!

I have used it to work with colleagues and have to say that it is probably one of my top 10 applications.

Basically it works well because it creates a folder that is sync'ed to the web and and anyone who is "sharing" that folder can see the information and make changes to the documents (or you can give read-only priveliges as well!).

All in all a great program. It is also free for 2GB per user!

[Megaptera]

Another alternative might be Google docs. Here's their spiel: "Google Docs enables multiple people in different locations to collaborate simultaneously on the same doc from any computer with Internet access. For example, Alice and Meredith are working on a project together, and they need to write a document, keep track of their work in a spreadsheet, and create a presentation and a drawing to share with other people involved in the project. Alice lives in New York, and Meredith, in Los Angeles.

When Alice makes changes to the document, spreadsheet, presentation, or drawing, Meredith can see them in real time and respond to them immediately. Both of them work on the same docs, so there's no need to go back and forth, comparing and consolidating individual files."

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/a...n&answer=44677

[SeijiSensei]

Maybe this would help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ative_software

The PHP-based ones would install easily onto an Ubuntu server with the "LAMP" packages installed (Apache, PHP, and MySQL). You'd presumably want ones with a web client rather than ones that are designed to support proprietary clients like Lotus Notes.

Scalix and Zimbra are the best-supported ones. They have both commercial and open implementations.

[oldsoundguy]

God! I hate to quote Microsoft .. but "cue the cloud"

This is where cloud computing is going to find most of it's usage initially.

Worth investigating (I don't use it so no real clue as to it's functionality)
And several sites now available for usage .. don't quote me, but even think Ubuntu 1 is one of those sites .. but not sure at all. (As I said, don't use it yet as no need.)

[SeijiSensei]

God! I hate to quote Microsoft .. but "cue the cloud"

This is where cloud computing is going to find most of it's usage initially.

Depends a lot on the application. I certainly wouldn't trust confidential business information to a cloud provider, most certainly not Google Docs. Remember the provider now has access to all the information you store in the "cloud." If you're comfortable with that, then it makes sense. If you're concerned about the privacy of your data, you need to maintain it on servers you control.

[Megaptera]

If you're concerned about the privacy of your data, you need to maintain it on servers you control.

+1 to that! Google Docs for non-sensitive stuff only.
(I was going to say WIkiLeaks for everything else) but don't want to go off topic.)

[gunksta]

But, depending on what you are doing -- some of this concern may be badly over blown. If you are working on a secure nuclear installation, I would probably not trust it to Google Docs. Then again, the US government didn't either. They used their own system and a private walked out with everything on a couple of CDs.

When evaluating a cloud provider - ask yourself a couple of sane questions. Is their system as secure as a system I can build myself? Is there any real reason to think the cloud provider would want to snoop on my data? Is the data encrypted on the provider's system?

Security wise -- I really doubt I can build a system that is demonstrably more secure than Google can. I take pride in my networking skills, but I suspect the engineers at Google know a thing or two I don't.

Do you really think Google wants your data? Really? Most of us aren't worth it. We just aren't. If you are dealing with health-care records (in the US) then there are laws regarding how they must be secured and I doubt Google meets the criteria, but otherwise you just have to use your own judgement. Google must host a few million documents at this point and while they may do some mining on them, I doubt they really give two hoots about your business plan.

Finally - on-site encryption. I use Amazon's cloud services for sensitive stuff all the time. This does actually include personally identifying information and records from various systems. I like how Amazon encrypts everything on their storage systems. Thus - I really am the only person who can access my virtual server. Well, me and anyone I share the password with. I get to take advantage of some of Amazon's expertise and their gloriously fast hardware, but I only have to worry about the basic security stuff because as long as my data is encrypted; it is as safe on their system as it would be on mine. I trust encryption more than locked doors. I can pick some locks but encryption always beats me.

Finally - remember the most important security rule in the world. Your security is as reliant on the people you trust as it is on the technology. Technology has it's role. I store some sensitive stuff on the Amazon virtual server (using Ubuntu as the OS) because I don't trust the steaming pile of #%%@ Windows 2000 server we use for everything else. They are too cheap to replace it but I don't trust it -- for good reason. The Amazon system stays within my budget and I KNOW it is secure, from a technology standpoint. But, once you have secured the technology (more or less) you have to worry about the people. That's why I am one of only a handful of company employees with access to that server. The info is sensitive. If I don't let someone in, I know they can't breach the security.

[bubblehead74]

You could use I, Librarian to share the literature.