Google Docs and Microsoft Word

Intro

Hi.  Welcome to episode 12 of this Productivity Matters podcast.

Do you write a lot of documents? Have you thought there maybe an alternative to the tools you use?

I’m Julian, your host for this episode, and I’m going to take a look at online document creation, and two of the main tools available, Google Docs and Microsoft Word.

Coming up right after this...

In the beginning..

35 years ago Microsoft began introducing the world to their software suite of office products - starting with Word (for word processing), followed up with Excel (for spreadsheets) and Powerpoint (for creating presentations).

Suddenly, it became possible to write and save documents, do calculations and present all of it relatively quickly and simply - if you had a computer of course.

Over the years, Word became the defacto application for creating all things related to the written word.  It has grown in functionality and has never, quite, been beaten for what it can do.  Apple created their own version, called Pages, but it's not that intuitive; in my opinion.

Welcome Google

All of that changed in September 2007 (yes, just over 10 years ago) when Google launched their own, online, versions; called Doc, Sheets and Slides.  I’m sure you can guess their equivalents. 

It was quite basic, but the gauntlet had quite clearly been thrown down.  Let's face it; Google shook up the browsing world, with Chrome, and now they were set to do the same for office productivity.

Word

Microsoft Word is a fully-featured word processing application that allows you to write and write and write; and format your text into various fonts (and there are a multitude to choose from), not forgetting setting paragraphs, columns, styles, borders and colours to bring a document to life.  Once created, you can save your work to continue later, or, if ready, it can be printed out or shared via email.

Google Docs, on the other hand, has had 30 years to catch-up on.  After a rudimentary offering, they have built on the functionality each year, and they now offer a very advanced application.

Don't be misled by the bare-bones look and feel.  You won't find it lagging too far behind Microsoft.

One of their biggest selling points was in collaboration.  Whilst Microsoft offered all the bells and whistles to create a beautiful looking document, Google used their cloud presence as a huge advantage.  Share your document, in real-time, with colleagues, and make changes live.  

Suddenly, the Google offering, whilst not as fully-featured, offered something not previously available.  The ability to share and work together, and be able to see the history of all the changes - just in case!  Having said that, the need to be online was also a negative; as you had to be connected to the internet to use it.  That has now changed, with Google having now enabled the ability to create and edit offline.

Integration with Google Drive soon followed, and now any documents (or spreadsheet or presentation) created in Google Drive will not count towards the storage space.

This is a huge advantage for those with buckets of documents.  

Using Google Docs

I use Google Docs and the others, quite extensively.  They're easy to use and easy to export to various formats; whether that be PDF or even to the native Microsoft Word format, so that anyone with Word can open the document.

Google even created a business offering, called G-Suite; giving companies an enterprise version, with the controls they need. Of course, this isn’t free, but it is a fraction of the cost that Microsoft charge for their suite of products. 

Cost

We also need to look at the cost.  It may come as no surprise that Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are free to use.  Totally.  No gotchas.

Although, as we know with free YOU are the product and should expect Google (in this instance) to use your data to further enhance its marketing capabilities.

Microsoft Word is not free - in fact, you will usually buy it as part of a bundle together with their Office suite of software (which allows up to 6 users) 

This is £80 per year.  

If you use all 6 licences, that works out at just over £13 per person, per year. 

That gives you access to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, the email manager, Outlook, OneNote (their alternative to Evernote), Publisher and Access (both of which are only available on PC - and I don't know who uses them anymore, anyway!)

It’s not an unreasonable cost for a family. 

Conclusion

So, how do we summarise this. 

There is no need to buy Microsoft Office if all you need is available from Google.  Their Docs application has everything you need to do what you want; it's less cluttered than it's counterpart (which can seem quite bloated at first) and it’s fairly intuitive to use.  You will need to have a play with it to see how it works for you.

Whilst there are others on the market, but for the purposes of this podcast, to get the familiar looking experience with all the functions you would ever want, then you have no choice but to pay up and get Office.  It's not cheap; but you will never want for anything again, when it comes to writing documents, creating spreadsheets or presentations.

Thank You

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.

If you have any questions about Google Doc, Microsoft Word, or anything else related to office applications, then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to podcasts.

Thank you very much for listening and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

Equipment I use to make my podcasts:
Blue Yeti Microphone - https://amzn.to/2R2am1N
Pop Filter - https://amzn.to/2OVMbQP
Professional Microphone Boom Arm - https://amzn.to/2P4EIio

If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.

Why Don't I Do Video?

Intro

Hi and welcome to this Productivity Matters podcast.

I've been asked why I do a podcast, rather than a video, which is obviously visual and shows what I'm talking about.

I'm Julian, and in this episode, I'll be explaining exactly that; the tools I use and how I go about preparing for my podcasts.

Coming up on Productivity Matters

Apps

It's a fair question.  We interact with our devices and computers, mostly in a visual way.  The apps on our phones are designed to be looked at.  I know there are accessibility apps for the visually impaired; and I've seen a blind person use their iPhone to send messages.

However, this podcast is not designed to be a tutorial, or even a review, of specific apps and software.  The purpose is to inform about various options and to discuss various merits of using certain apps. 

Of course, this inevitably leads to comparisons which could be regarded as a review; but as I’m not discussing the “how to use” aspects of an app, then this works quite well just with the spoken word. 

Hospital Radio

In my younger days, I was involved with presenting programmes on hospital radio.  Hospital radio gave me the freedom to express myself and use my creativity to bring interesting and fun elements to the shows I produced and presented.

I loved doing it and in doing a podcast it is almost a return to that.

I have also found that having edited videos for my sons YouTube channel, it takes up an awful lot of time.  It's much harder to do something quickly; matching sound to pictures, multiple takes to get it right and it's not as flexible.

Lastly, I don’t need to look my best! I can wear my pyjamas if I so desired. I’m sure that’s not a picture your relish; so to be clear, I’m not wearing my pyjamas now!!

Producing the Podcast

So, how do I put this podcast together?

When I first began podcasting, I was using a lavalier, tie-clip style, microphone.  

It did the job, but it wasn't as clear as I wanted; and picked up some unwanted noise.

So, I did some research, and decided to buy a Blue Yeti microphone.  

It's a great piece of equipment; although sound travels up the base from the desk, so I need to take care when recording.  I am looking to get a stand, that will free the desk, and reduce any unwanted noise.

One of the major advantages of the Blue Yeti is that it has a number of settings; firstly for capturing the direction of the sound.  For this podcast, I use Uni-Directional; in other words, only the sound from one point.  

However, for interviews, you can change this to capture from two sides; or even an omni-directional setting, which just captures everything.

The gain settings means I can control the volume of sound going into the mic; reducing any noise or distortion.

The mic also has a headphone socket, so my voice is passed through directly and I can hear myself as I record, without any lag (or latency).

For recording the episodes, I have the mic plugged into a USB socket on my MacBook Pro and I use GarageBand to record the episode and mix in the music.

I run a couple of tests each time, just to make sure the sound is level, and isn't distorted by being too loud; and I rehearse each segment before recording.

Once I have recorded, edited and added the music, I export the file to an MP3 and then upload this to Anchor; the platform I use to host and publish my podcast.

Publishing

Anchor makes it easy to create an account, add specific episode details and then publish to multiple podcast apps; like Apple Podcasts, Pocketcasts, Overcast, Spotify to name but a few.

Thank You

So, there you have it.  Why I podcast instead of produce videos.  Hopefully, you’ve found this episode interesting. 

If you have any questions about recording podcasts, or would like to suggest other subjects for me to talk about then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to podcasts.

Thank you very much for listening and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

The Tools I Use

Blue Yeti Microphone - https://amzn.to/2R2am1N
Pop Filter - https://amzn.to/2OVMbQP
Professional Microphone Boom Arm - https://amzn.to/2P4EIio

If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.

IFTTT and Zapier

Intro

Hi. Welcome to episode 11 of this Productivity Matters Podcast. 

Have you ever wondered how you could make your technical life simpler?  I’m Julian, your host for this episode, and I’m going to take a look at two systems that let you do just that. 

IFTTT and Zapier, are ways to get your services, apps and devices talking to each other to save you time.

But First. The intro music 

Why Automate

Have you ever wanted to save a photo you posted on social media?  Do you want to know if you’ll need an umbrella (without needing to check the weather)? What about using your Amazon Echo device to add to something to you Apple Reminders shopping list?

The possibilities are, almost, endless.  Missed a call? Then set the ringer to high volume so you don’t miss the next one!

Want to turn WiFi on, on your phone, when you leave home?  Set it to automatically switch off when you go out!

Do you listen to Spotify (or other music service) Then add a saved song to a spreadsheet.

Maybe you want to update your Twitter profile picture when you update your Facebook profile pic.  IFTTT will automate that, so you don’t have to go to two different places.

Want to know when the International Space Station is overhead? - run an applet on IFTTT to alert you.

I could spend the next few minutes just reading through all the possible variations of applets, that are available via IFTTT.

IFTTT

Why is it called IFTTT?  This is taken from the way a software developer writes code designed to look at the options and then make a decision.  Quite literally, If This happens Then do That.

With the app, you create an Applet. Or you can use one of a multitude of applets that are already available, and shared by other users.  These applets connect the services you want to run.

Examples

For example; you’re out and about with your Fitbit, increasing your steps and activity, but you want to track this over time.  Simply set up an applet, that’s been created by Fitbit, to upload your daily activity to a Google spreadsheet.  You will then have a line-by-line record.

Maybe you have a shared Reminder on your iPhone, for your shopping list.  And you have an Amazon Echo.  You can ask Alexa to add something to your shopping list, and IFTTT will pick this up and put it on your Apple Reminder.

Another example of the way I use it, is for when I post a picture on Instagram (which I don’t do THAT often), the picture is also posted to my Twitter account.  This might not sound like a big deal, but a few years ago, Twitter stopped that from happening organically - so the IFTTT service means it can still be done.

There are thousands of this applets already available, but you can create your own recipes.

The big beauty about IFTTT is that it’s completely free to download and use.  It’s available on iOS and Android, as well as via the web.

Zapier

Zapier, in contrast, doesn’t have an app.  It’s all on the web; and whilst this is very much geared towards businesses, there is still much it can do to save you time.  You create Zaps that do the work for you.

So, what exactly is a Zap? Well, it’s a connection, or integration, between two or more apps that automates your task. A Zap is made of a "trigger" (ex.: When I receive a new email in Gmail...) and an "action" (ex.: ...send me an SMS message). 

Zaps run automatically to move and manage data without any work on your part.

One of the main uses I have is to add a line to a spreadsheet whenever I buy something from Amazon.  Yep; sounds a little geeky, but whenever a confirmation email is received, I have set up a process (or Zap as they're known) that will look in the email, take the date, order number, item description and price and add to a line on a Google spreadsheet.  Now, I can see at a glance what I’ve bought, and the total I’ve spent.  Although sometimes I’m not sure that I want to know.

How about this one.... I use a Google Sheet to compose tweets.  Zapier is looking for new rows on the sheet, and when it finds one, it picks up the content and sends it to Buffer, to be scheduled to go to Twitter.  It means I can write tweets in advance, and they will automatically post at pre-determined times.  

Examples

Another example is after I’ve uploaded a document to Google Drive, a Zap will pick it up and move it to a specific directory.  It saves me time having to locate the directory at the time of uploading it.

There are tons of integrations that you can explore - it’s worth having a look to see what Zapier could do to help you.

More importantly, the majority of the zaps can be created easily, via a step-by-step process led by the software.  You don't need knowledge of software development; although you can make really complex zaps if you need to.  Zapier has some pretty good documentation and support.

Cost

Zapier is free to use the basic service, which allows only two-step Zaps; anything above that will require a subscription, starting at $20 per month.  However, this is more of a business service and the cost can easily be considered an actual saving, due to the amount of time that could be saved repeating tasks.

Conclusion

So, there you have it.  Two excellent services that enable you to get things done and save you time in the process.  It’s the small things that count.  By automating even the smallest tasks will build up and save you more time in the long run.

Thank You

I hope you’ve found this episode interesting.

I love taking control and saving snippets of time by using these services.  If you have any questions about IFTTT or Zapier, or any ways you can save time, then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to podcasts.

Thank you very much for listening and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

POSTSCRIPT - I got the pronounciation of Zapier wrong! It sounds the same as Happier :)

Equipment I use to make my podcasts:
Blue Yeti Microphone - https://amzn.to/2R2am1N
Pop Filter - https://amzn.to/2OVMbQP
Professional Microphone Boom Arm - https://amzn.to/2P4EIio

If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.

Online Photo Storage

Intro

Hi.  Welcome to episode 9 of my Productivity Matters Podcast.  I’m Julian, you host for this podcast, and on this episode I’m going to take a look at online photo storage, and some of the various options available to you.

Coming up after the intro jingle. 

The Past

If you're over 30, you probably remember taking cartridges of film from the instamatic camera you had, or the 35mm rolls from your SLR camera, to a local chemist, to have the pictures developed.

You'll remember receiving an envelope with a print of each photo, along with the strips of the negatives. Some of the pictures may have had stickers on them, advising low light, or blurry!

You then put the packet of photos in a box, and every now and then, would retrieve them and reminisce. Some of the photos may have made it into an album - particularly when relating to an event, like a wedding or family holiday.

Over time, the advent of digital photography took the place of physical film, and we were using Compact Flash cards, or SD cards to store the pictures.

All that changed in the not too distant pass, with the advent of cameras on mobile phones.

The Current

They say that the best camera you own is the one that you have with you. With a mobile phone, that means you always have a camera with you.

Today, the top-of-the-range mobile phones really do provide quality of images that rivals those captured on traditional cameras.

Since these are then available to post online and share with friends and family, instantly, the camera on the phone is usually a selling point of a device.

Higher density of pixels and the ability to capture in low-light along with cameras on both sides of the phone (yes, the blessed selfie was born!) has led to a whole new industry.

However, there is one downside of all this technology.

The printing of photos is now the exception, rather than the norm.

Taking Pictures

As there is no film to purchase and have developed; the cost of taking photos has diminished, to almost nothing! There are no processing costs to be able to see the pictures, so it means we can take many more photos.

Rather than frame the subject and taking a couple of shots, we now have the ability to take tens of pictures, then choose the favourite. Or do we? Do we choose? Do we delete the photos we don't want? In a lot of cases, we just have lots of the same thing - because memory is cheap.

And because memory is cheap it's now normal for a phone to have a minimum of 64GB of storage. Taking out the amount used by the operating system of the phone, this leaves you with space to store 1000s, literally thousands, of photos!

Where to Store

So; here's the thing. You have all the pictures, but the mobile screen isn't THAT big. Yes, it might have a retina display and stretch from corner to corner; but you want to see your pictures on a bigger screen.

That's where the need to store the photos somewhere else comes in.

I'm not going to talk about downloading photos to a computer hard-drive. This podcast is about online storage. So, what are your options.

Google Photos

The first choice, available across iOS, Android and via the web, is Google Photos.

This is an obvious choice, mainly because you get a whole lot of goodness, for absolutely zero pennies. Some might argue that you're giving up your privacy, but if you use other Google services, then there's nothing else to lose.

Google Photos will let you back up photos with a resolution up to 16 megapixels in size, free. You can also backup videos up to 1080p in resolution.

When I checked, there are over 16,500 photos and videos in my account! Now, I don't normally spend long looking through them.

There is one aspect of the Google service that I love. The fact that, on a given date, Google will show me photos of that day in history.

It's wonderful when suddenly I'm seeing pictures of my children from 8, 9, 10 years ago! Or photos from a holiday or an event.

And, because this is Google, then searching is a breeze.

Look up a date. Search for a place. Find a landmark. Search for photos with the colour blue (or red, green, yellow - you get the idea) and they will be displayed.

You can create albums and you can share these albums, or individually photos with whoever you like. You can also create a shared album, so that other people can add their pictures.

I should also mention that there are basic photo editing capabilites as well; to crop, or add a filter to a photo. Want to create a movie from your photos? No problem.

It's definitely my 'go to app' when I've spent a day taking photos. Then, it's just a case of deleting the pictures on my phone, to free up space.

It should go without saying, that since the photos are attached to my Google account, I can view them wherever I can access Google.

iCloud

For Apple users, there's also iCloud Photos. With this switched on, then any photos or videos you take are automatically backed up to your iCloud account; making them available across all your Apple devices.

However, the big drawback is that these are not free, and count towards your storage quota. Whilst the included, free, storage is 5GB, you'll soon eat into this, and may end up spending 79p (yes, a whole 79p per month) to get an additional 50GB of storage.

It's very simple to use, but the 5GB limit puts me off from using it.

Prime Photos

If you're an Amazon Prime member, then you could use their Amazon Photos app. This also offer unlimited free uploads of full resolution photos and 5GB of videos. They also have a 'This Day' recollection too.

There's a Family Vault for sharing photos.

I use this as a duplicate for Google; although it’s relatively new, so there are only 5300 photos stored here!! This is equivalent to 10.3GB.

Other Options

Other online options include Box, Dropbox and Flickr. Flickr is more reserved for professional photography and offers 1TB of storage space. Whilst I have an account, I rarely use this service.

Conclusion

As you might have concluded yourself; Google Photos is the winner when it comes to online photo storage.

It's easy to use, has a mass of features; with more constantly being developed and most importantly, it's free to use.

Thank You

I hope you’ve found this episode interesting.

If you have any questions about online photo storage or anything else, then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters or via the comments below.

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to podcasts.

Thank you very much for listening and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

Equipment I use to make my podcasts:
Blue Yeti Microphone - https://amzn.to/2R2am1N
Pop Filter - https://amzn.to/2OVMbQP
Professional Microphone Boom Arm - https://amzn.to/2P4EIio

If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.

Notion

Intro

I'm going to take a look at a relatively new app, called Notion. It's like a one-stop shop for all your stuff.

 

Welcome

If you’re a user of Evernote, ToDoIst, Trello, calendars, even wikis, then there’s a app in town that has you pretty much covered.

Notion.so is an all-in-one workspace.
In fact, their own website likens then to a Lego-style building blocks for your information.

Introduction to Notion

Notion is completely free to use on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and via the web. Notion allows you to build workspaces to store and manage information for whatever you like.
A good example to start with is this podcast.
I use Notion to collate and write my scripts. I can upload documents, add images, to be used in the blog transcript, and use a kanban board for my to do list - when I need to complete scripts, when I need to record, etc.
I use Notion to update the blog version, before copying it into my blog.
In fact, Notion has been touted as a replacement for Evernote; although I don’t think it’s quite there yet in terms of some of the functionality.

Notes & Wikis

Notion is great for businesses and individuals alike. So what does Notion claim they can replace?
For notes and documents, then it can replace Google Docs and Evernote - although, as I mentioned before, the full capability of Evernote is not there yet.



The knowledge base style could replace Confluence or GitHubWiki. With code snippets a breeze, it's a great tool for capturing coding standards. You can embed a document stored on Google Drive. Add a link from Google Maps. Do you use Invision for your designs? These can be embedded too. There are 50+ integrations.

Tasks & Projects

For tasks and projects, Notion say they are a good alternative to Trello, Jira and asana. I have to agree that the Trello style boards is really rather good, with plenty of options to add statuses, reminders, tags and the like.
You can create to do lists, and add a reminder.




At the moment you can’t create recurring tasks, so it’s not a replacement for ToDoIst or Reminders just yet. But I’m assured that’s coming.

Finally, spreadsheets and databases. For this, they suggest this can replace Google Sheets and Airtable. Using views, Notion does give you access to your information in a variety of ways.

General

Editing across the application is as simple as drag and drop. You can do font customisations, select colours and add comments; which is ideal for collaboration.
Talking of collaboration, you can also use the Slack integration to push updates to the rest of your team.

Just by highlighting text, you can create bulleted or numbered lists and one of my favourites is the toggle list - which allows you to expand / or hide a section of text at the click of a button.
Notion can also be used offline and will sync with your other devices when reconnected.
I could spend many more hours talking through the various options.

Cost

Earlier on I mentioned that Notion is free to use, and that is true. You can have unlimited members, and you get 1000 blocks of whatever type of content you want to create. A block is any single piece of content you add to your page; like a to-do item, an image, embedded file. It's a lot of information - my entire set of scripts and blogs are created here and I have plenty of room left.

The free version also limits file uploads to 5MB for each file.

Once you reach the limit, you can either delete blocks to free up space, or you can subscribe to the completely unlimited personal version, with no file upload limit, and advanced permissions for $48 per year (which is about £36 at todays rate).

The Team version, which also adds administrative tools is $96 per year, per user (about £74). When you consider the costs of the other tools combined, this is not overly expensive.

Conclusion

Now, whilst I am extolling the virtues of Notion, it must be said that it comes with quite a steep learning curve.

It can do so much, and when you first start to look at it, it can be a little daunting. However; it is definitely worth spending some time getting to know what it can do - and since it's free, then there's nothing lost; except time.

Thank You

I hope you’ve found this post interesting.
If you have any questions about Notion, then please get in touch via the comments below.

Equipment I use to make my podcasts:
Blue Yeti Microphone - https://amzn.to/2R2am1N
Pop Filter - https://amzn.to/2OVMbQP
Professional Microphone Boom Arm - https://amzn.to/2P4EIio

If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.