Web-Based Applications for Daily Use

This post will not be about Butterfly, but rather on the way our team works with different applications. We want to share with you our passion towards Web-based applications.

We love using cloud computing, Web-based applications, SaaS. Call it however you like.

The Internet provides us with some powerful applications and services.

A few years ago, some of the most obvious services were unthinkable. Looking up any music video on YouTube, have two people work on a document at the same time, share calendars, upload photos to the Internet instantly from anywhere, and the list goes on.

The Web offers a unique advantage over desktop applications. The Web allows users to share and collaborate, together or separately on the same item or information. With desktop applications, that would require a lot of setting up to get a connection. The Web, however, makes that as easy as a click. Another advantage is that you always use the newest version of the service, without installing or updating anything.

The idea for Project Butterfly was inspired by services like Google Docs, and as a team that develops a Web-based application for CAD editing – we have a strong belief in Web applications. When we started out we decided that for the first month we would use nothing but a Web browser – no desktop applications what-so-ever. We wanted to see what issues come up when you use nothing but Web-based applications.

Like in any company, we needed to make use of E-Mail, documents, storage and more. The Internet provided us with next-to-free solutions for our needs – and they serve us loyally to this day. We do use some desktop software, though. Apart from the development workspace and vector graphics design there’s still no online tool that can totally replace its desktop equivalent.

I will admit that there are some setbacks for using Web-based applications, mostly the missing features in the application. For example, we are having a hard time creating rich graphs in Google Spreadsheets, and it’s almost impossible to create print-ready documents.

The Web allows people all over the world share their photos, music, videos, blog posts and documents. We hope that with Project Butterfly, professionals around the globe will work and collaborate on CAD drawings within their Web browser.

Here are some of the Web-based applications that we’re making use of:

• Gmail, Google docs, Google calendar – For all our communication needs, meetings and documents in the office.
• Bugzilla – Our software development and bug-tracking tool. While this is not exactly SaaS (because we installed it on a server of our own), it’s still an important tool for us.
• WordPress.com – Running this blog. We could install a WordPress application of our own, but why do that when we can host it on dedicated, stable servers?
• DropBox – Backing up files and synchronizing our home and office computers.
• Remember The Milk – Managing and sharing work tasks as well as personal tasks.
• Grooveshark – Our way of listening to music during the day.
• And more…

How do you use Web-based applications for productivity?