Ever Worked In a Cloud Before? City of L.A. Employees Begin Today

I first learned of the term 'computing in the cloud' a few years ago and have always liked the idea... over-simplified, this is where you use the internet to work on documents, email, etc.  The file/s is not stored on your local computer (hard-drive) but is on a server out 'in the cloud'. 

This makes great sense if you bounce around from different locations and need/want to access the same documents or information.  Services like Go To My PC help in this regard - but there are other companies who have really been working on this cloud computing idea and one company who has given it lots of attention is Google. 

Many of us are already using a browser based email service - if you use Yahoo, Gmail, etc. It's the same idea but you use productivity applications like word processing,

I have used it in the last few weeks and find the applications work nicely - there is not (yet) as many features and options as you would have in say a Microsoft Word or Apple Pages application but more than enough tools to handle many 'simple', regular projects.

To access Google Docs, you simply need a Google account (free) and once you log in, go to the pull down menu under 'More' and select 'Documents'.

You see in the menu on the left you can create Documents, Presentations (think PowerPoint or Keynote), Spreadsheet (Excel or Numbers), and forms.


Today, a huge entity began using Google Documents: the City of Los Angeles.

From the Google Blog:  Starting today, Los Angeles will be equipping 34,000 city employees with Google Apps for email and collaboration in the cloud.The story of Los Angeles moving to Google Apps started early this year, when the city's Chief Technology Officer, Randi Levin, and her team at the Information Technology Agency (ITA) looked to replace their aging, on-premise system with more secure, productivity-focused technology.

Employees will have a new avenue for collaboration with Google Apps in the cloud: sharing docs, sites and videos and editing them together in real time as they work on making the city run more smoothly and efficiently and thus better serving Angelenos city-wide. Furthermore, Randi and her team realized that moving to Apps would mean less taxpayer money spent on IT — valuable budget that can be rededicated to other city efforts over the next few years.

You can read more about the city-wide implementation of Google Docs into Los Angeles and view a short 3 minute video on the project on the Official Google Blog.