Five free Web apps we can't live without

PBwiki offers ad-supported free wikis as well as paid, ad-free accounts. Wikis can be public or private/shared. You can add widgets (such as basic spreadsheets, chat, Google maps or videos), with additional functionality for paid accounts. All accounts can see revision updates and changes on the site and track changes via e-mail notification. Business accounts also offer different levels of access per user, the ability to make certain pages read-only and page-level RSS feeds.

Of course, there are drawbacks to free-form data as opposed to more structured formats; you can't really query or sort a text blob. There is a basic search box in a PBwiki, but searching for "Machlis" across many wiki pages can't give you the same targeted results as, say, querying a database for "all stories by author Machlis in the last three months."

Still, if you don't expect a wiki to do the job of a spreadsheet or a database, PBwiki can be a useful addition to your information management arsenal.

Google Docs
Yes, yes, I know: "Don't be evil" Google threatens to become the ubiquitous do-exactly-that Web empire, amassing too much information about individuals and too much power over what was supposed to be an egalitarian medium. Do we really want Google taking over our most-used applications, too? Perhaps not, but I can't help but like Google Docs.

Our recent review of four online office suites found that Google's offering lacked some important features such as spreadsheet charts. Unlike some, though, I'm not seeking to replace my desktop word processor or Microsoft Excel (by far my favorite spreadsheet). Instead, I see a good online suite as adding features such as file-sharing or online backup to my existing text editors and spreadsheet app.

Google Docs offers an easy way to work on documents at home, at the office and elsewhere, without having to e-mail files around. I keep some simple documents in Google Docs and download backups to my own PC. When I want the power-user functions of Word or Excel, I can work in those packages, upload the file to Google Docs and then download again to my next system before starting to work again. It's a version control system for documents and spreadsheets.

Google Docs offers basic word processing functions. (Click for larger view.)

I often use Google Docs to keep my own "cheat sheets" for various applications and technologies, so I can remember instructions for coding I'll likely need in the future. It's useful to be able to add something I've suddenly figured out about, say, Ruby on Rails, whether I'm coding at home or at the office, without having to remember to add the information to a document residing on another machine.

In fact, I'm writing this story now in a Google Doc document. I don't need slick formatting, headers and scripts; basic writing, HTML coding and spell-check works just fine. However, when it comes time to turn it in, I'll be downloading it to my own system, saving it as a Word doc and e-mailing the file to my editor, since she's partial to Word's "track changes" function, which I must admit is more elegant than Google Doc's "compare revisions."

Still, comparing revisions is a nice function to have, along with some formatting, quick-link additions and sharing. And I've got a backup copy somewhere I can easily access if I want to make changes at home and then e-mail a new file.

Google's spreadsheet definitely isn't powerful enough for some of my projects. (A personal task analyzing local pedestrian accidents had too much data, for example.) However, it's fine for moderate strength tracking needs and superior when I want multiple users adding fairly simple data to a sheet. It's baffling that Microsoft hasn't jumped into the business of offering a Web platform for easily sharing Excel documents, although others such as eXpresso Corp. are trying to get into that business.

Meanwhile, I'm finding Google Docs a nice backup and version-control server for important and useful but not terribly private or sensitive documents.

Bloglines v3 beta
There are loads of RSS readers out there, including worthy entries like NewsGator and Google Reader, as well as some with Web 2.0 interfaces on steroids, such as Pageflakes.

But over the years, I kept returning to Bloglines, despite its aging Web 1.0 interface, because it did what I wanted done with a minimum of fuss. Finally, though, the new Bloglines v3 beta offers an updated UI with a start page and some drag-and-drop ordering that brings the RSS service into the modern era.

Web apps we can't live without:
The A-list Ta-da List PBwiki Google Docs		Bloglines v3 beta Zoho Creator		Honorable mention Basecamp Google Calendar Carbonite