Samu and Tony arrive in Oulu, Google Spreadsheets...

Yesterday, at about 11:30 am, after a 14 hour drive right across Sweden and over the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, Tony, Samu and Tony's dad, Seppo, arrived in Oulu. They had earlier made the crossing by the ferry between Newcastle and Gothenburg.



Samu read several books on the way and went to sleep only at around 3 am.

It was really great to see our grandson again and I am looking forward to a wonderful summer with both Samu and Daniel.

I had a circular email from Sarasu Isaac, a Maliyakal located in the US.

Hi all,

I thought I would share a few memories of Thathen with you all. It will be nice if each one of you can share memories and stories of our Maliyakal appachens and ammachies.

I do not have the email addresses of all our cousins and neices and nephews. If each of you can please take the time to get email addresses that are missing from this list, I can create a group in Yahoo and start a Maliyakal news letter.

I think, Sushil (Achayan) Matthen, Finland will be the ideal person to guide us on that .

Roshini, please get Graceykochamma to share some of the wonderful stories of her younger days with all her cousins, uncles and aunts.

Regards,

Sarasu

Yahoo Groips are good, but as we are a small group, it wouldbe much nicer to have a more intimate newsletter and there are several ways of doing it efficiently and effectively.

The blogger web site has been having problems so I was not able to update my blogs as usual.

Now the other great news.

Google has launched an online spreadsheet. You can create, share and store spreadsheets online.

Create a spreadsheet in your browser:



Share your spreadsheet online giving powers to others to view or even edit:



Store the spreadsheet for access from anywhere through any browser:



Access has been given to a limited number of people and I am fortunate to be one of them. I have already imported several spreadsheets from my computer and am sharing them with others whom they concern.

Although the spreadsheet is not operating system sensitive, as I can use it with my Camino Mac Browser, I can only share it presently with those who have a gmail /googlemail email address.

I have no problem with that as I can invite those who do not have one to join gmail.

In addition, Google has released a new feature called Personal Note, where one can save text from any web page as Personal Notes. Technically it is not supposed to work on a the Mac Operating System, but as I use the Firefox Browser, I tried it out - and it worked.

These two takes Google so far ahead of the competition - and it leaves Microsoft and Yahoo trying desperately to catch up. I really wish Google had acquired Skype, as I had advised them, as that would have been the best possible combination. Hopefully Google will acquire GIZMO, which is also a great online Voice Over Internet Program (VOIP).

The whole computing industry is changing, so think carefully before you invest in your next computer. You could save a whole lot of money by buying wisely - and that probably means not buying a WINDOWS enabled computer!