PowerTools for online collaboration

Here we go again with Google

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/03/google_privacy_policy_avoids_home_page/print.html

In a predatory world where trust is wanting, Google must have known what they were doing - so what is going on & why are these guys always trying to pull a 'fast one' ?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080510-security-flaw-turns-gmail-into-open-relay-server.html

It seems like all the tools mentioned so far are not really real-time or "live" collaboration tools (except a posted comment on Adobe's offering).

I use Glance (http://glance.net) for doing live sharing of my desktop. It's kind of like a conference call with your computer's desktop -- my collaborators can see what changes I make to my documents and immediately give me feedback.

There are other offerings out in the "web conferencing" space like Adobe's can't-remember-the-name, Webex and GoTo Meeting. But having used them all before, Glance is what I ended up coming back to time and time again because it doesn't get in the way of my work and the others in my team don't have to install any software. The other offerings took quite a bit of effort to get up and running and they were difficult to drive.

to consider

Adobe Photoshop Express - free, rich Internet version of its flagship image editing application accessible via a Web browser.
http://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

Google Docs - an enhancement that enables users to edit documents offline

Hackers seem to have cracked the captcha used by gmail - presumably applicable to any other form of captcha

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2211675/spammers-sneak-gmail

Perhaps not so secure as the Google Staff referred to in the previous link would have one believe

Depends where you look!!

http://getsatisfaction.com/google/topics/is_it_safe_to_upload_private_documents_on_google_docs

I was just posting about collaboration tools on my blog [http://www.topaccountants.typepad.com] when I spotted this article.

I have a feeling that these services are going to become very popular over the next two to three years. But, as Kevin has discovered, what provider should accountants go for? I am currently testing Office Live Workspace for our practice but was shown a great product [Vestri] yesterday which has been developed by a client company. Decisions, decisions...

For more information see my posting at:
http://topaccountants.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/03/collaboration-t.html

Interesting to note that whilst shortcommings were identified (formatting and Spreadsheet capacity) the whole issue of security seems to have been ignored in favour of functionality

Precisely what measures were undertaken by the firm to ensure security could not be compromised, before advising clients to adopt this product for sensitive information?

What Risk Assessment has been carried out prior to recommending this to clients?

http://blog.arhg.net/2008/01/spamming-with-google-docs.html
http://www.legalandrew.com/2007/09/24/warning-google-docs-is-not-safe/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/01/google_ssl_sidejacking/

Should this article be part of a case study for:

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=180320&d=1032&h=1023&f=1026&dateformat=%25o%20%25B%20%25Y