Although Google creates wonderful, free products that so many of us love and use, from a purely information management viewpoint, we should all be a bit more concerned with data portability. And Google agrees! The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose one goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of various Google products. Learn more at The Data Liberation Front.

Because Google Docs is free, cross-platform, and easy to use, it is an increasingly popular tool for online collaboration. Whether you are an existing Google Docs user, or just thinking about trying it, Daniel Shane has six tips for getting the most out of Google Docs. Tip one introduces the built-in chat client to make collaborating even easier. Read the full article at Six Revisions.

Unlike Windows users who need extra software to create PDFs, Mac users can easily convert any document or web page to PDF with tools built right into the Mac OS. The basic steps are to select Print from the File menu, then click on the PDF button in the lower-left hand side of the dialog box. For illustrated step-by-step help, read Ask Dave Taylor.

When copying files from CD to your hard drive, it’s important to realize that the Windows “Read Only” property will be copied with the file. To enable writing to the file on your local computer, you will need to highlight the file name in Explorer, and right-click to open Properties. Make sure the Read-Only attribute box is unchecked, and then save the modified settings by clicking Apply and OK.

Getting a dreaded “corrupt file” error is very frustrating, but PowerPoint users have a number of
ways of recovering. For example, if the error appeared after a Windows crash during a Save
operation, you can usually find a *.tmp file that contains your uncorrupted PowerPoint. Or
sometimes, part of your presentation can be recovered in Microsoft Word. For more tips on
recovering corrupt Power Point files, read Microsoft Office Online and Echos Voice.

Jing Project is a free tool for both Mac and Windows users, that lets you capture your computer screen as a static image or a screencast, and then share your screen capture as a URL. Which means that not only are they providing the software to create the capture, they are also providing free hosting. How could you use this? It’s up to you. Add your Jing captures to your chats, your social networking, or your websites. Use to for fun, or to demonstrate computer stuff to friends and co-workers.

If you’ve ever wanted to print a text listing of files in a Windows folder, this week’s tip is for you. First, create a simple batch file (you can put it in your Windows folder) called filelisting.bat with a single line in it (without the quotes): “dir /a /b /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt”. Then modify the Folder context menu so that your batch file displays whenever you right-click on a folder in Explorer. For complete instructions, read The Elder Geek.

With the Send To function on the right-click contextual menu, Windows users have one-click access to various destinations such as Mail, Desktop, and My Documents. You can easily add new shortcuts to frequently used folders such as My Pictures or My Music by following these instructions for Windows XP. Vista users will also need this tip to avoid a common error.

The part of a computer filename that starts with a dot and is followed by three characters is called the extension. It usually tells your computer what kind of file it is, and what program is needed to open it. If, however, your computer meets a file extension it doesn’t understand, you’ll need to do some research to figure it out. Here are two sites that will help: FILExt and File Extensions.

By default, Microsoft Office 2007 uses a new file format with the extension “.docx”. If you are trying to share files with users of older versions of Office, this can be a problem. Depending on whether you are the creator or the receiver, there are two ways to solve this problem. To create a more compatible file, users of MS Office 2007 can “Save As” in Office 2003 format. On the receiving side, users of older Office versions can grab a free upgrade from Microsoft that will allow them to read the new format.