Share your files with colleagues and students, keep track of your work from at home or in college. No more Word, Excel or PowerPoint attachments needed - just save it on-line! Create new files or edit them on-line using familiar toolbars. So much more useful than Office - you can even save as pdf files and create web pages!

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour1.html

Probably too well known now to mention but what the heck! A superb, fast browser that renders standards-based web pages very accurately, and which can be extended in it’s functionality by a massive number of plugins. IE7 now has some of the features Firefox had ages ago, like tabs but with about 20% of the browser share now this is a well established and respected alternative.

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

Create diagrams in your web browser without downloading additional software. Similar to Visio but simply there, wherever you are. Add collaborators to your work and watch it grow, link to published Gliffy drawings from your blog or wiki. Create many types of diagrams: flowcharts, UI wireframes, floor plans, network diagrams etc. Google Sketchup was to be featured here too but is now only available free for a limited trial. Shame, it is quite brilliant!

http://www.gliffy.com/

Now this is impressive. If you're publishing documents then this will convert your Word docs or pdfs into iPaper. These can then be stored on-line so that you link to them instead of to bulky and annoying formats. Better still you can embed the document on a web page and I just love the page turning effects. Worked a treat first time trial with huge course guide!

http://www.scribd.com

Box.net offers a free 1Gb online storage area (with full security for sharing files with others). Keeping your files online means you need never miss having the right file when needed. It’s a great tool for giving groups of students access to course content, and for files too large to send via email, (as well as giving 24x7 access to your materials.

http://www.box.net/

Google's interface leaves a lot to be desired but with over 2Gb of space and a really, really fast delivery and a bundle of other facilities that come with a Google account, it is probably the best e-mail application. You can now use Gmail but have your organisation or alternative personal address shown in the From box, incl .ac.uk addresses. A notifier add-on is also available which tells you when mail arrives.

http://mail.google.com

This is a complete Office package and may well be what your children use at school - it's become the officially recommended software for schools in Scotland. Included here because you ought to know about it! Opens MS Office documents and has simple save as pdf feature unlike the expensive but still ubiquitous Microsoft pack. Use it to transfer Word documents to web format for easier use in VLEs too.

http://openoffice.org

With Thumbstacks.com, you can make presentations - like slideshows, or outlines - right in your web browser. When you're done, you can share your presentations with anyone, anywhere, just by sending them a link. The link isn't working so it may be that Google Presentations have been too much competition. Pity. It was so clean and simple. The Google product is excellent, though. Get that via Google documents. I'll leave the links until I'm sure Thumbstacks has died.

http://thumbstacks.com/

It can be very useful to have an on-line calendar, especially one you can share and access anywehere. A well-designed Google product that can also be added to your own web site.

http://calendar.google.com

Microsoft's nicely designed 1GB on-line storage space - almost My Documents on-line. Make folders, store images, documents etc. and decide who to share them with, no-one, certain people or anyone. Integrated with their new Spaces and, unfortunately, MSN and Hotmail but you can ignore them.

http://skydrive.live.com

LOOP is a free web-based application that allows you to upload and combine multiple documents into one secure PDF document. You do not need to install software or be working from your desktop computer. LOOP is delivered on-demand and available for use 24/7 through any web browser. It works with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files as well as pdfs and you can even change the order of pages.

http://www.drawloop.com/

Delightfully simple file storage and sharing site. just upload and make a note of the url.

http://www.wikifortio.com/

Zoho Projects is a project management tool that lets you define and manage tasks, milestones, status reports (including Gantt charts), time tracking, and file sharing. Tasks and subtasks can be structured in nested form, with duration, start date, due date, and task owner easily defined. Task owners can even be notified by e-mail of a task assignment (by the project manager). Amongst other features, team meetings can also be scheduled.

http://projects.zoho.com/

Want to take notes about a particular Web page? MyStickes are like sticky notes for the Web. Once you've registered (free), you can add sticky notes wherever you like. When you come back to a page, the sticky will be there.

http://www.mystickies.com/

Empressr is a presentation/slideshow tool that lets you use a variety of audiovisual content (video, audio, pictures, Flash, charts, and graphs). Presentations can be shared.

http://www.empressr.com/

Campire is a group communication tool. With it, you can share content and graphics. Just set up access lists and send out invites by e-mail. Configure what each person can see in the private chat room. Chat history is available.

http://www.campfirenow.com/

ZCubes claims to be 'the world's first website that seamlessly integrates browsing, searching, editing, painting, freehand drawing, cursive hand-writing, audio-video media management, publishing, and much more into a pure browser-based platform'.

ZCubes handles over 30 file-formats. Work, play, research, create, think, browse, organise, and have fun with this. Loaded with an incredible 300+ features, your creativity may be your only limitation!

http://home.zcubes.com/AboutZCubes.htm

Recently launched project management tool that seems to do what you'd like to have done in Outlook but got confused. More in the planning section, or just see for yourself now.

http://www.hitask.com/

only just found this but with 5GB of free space for anything and facilities similar to box.net above it had to be included on first glance.

http://www.esnips.com

A free e-mail tool with no ads but plenty of extras and a clean interface. Includes an IM facility to communicate with your buddies from aol, msn, yahoo and icq and 1Gb of free space to manage and share files on-line + 2Gb of e-mail, contacts and calendar space. The two features that will appeal to many, though, are the customisable start page and free games included!

http://www.goowy.com

An excellent revised web based email client with reasonable storage capacity (presently 1Gb) that can act as your main email client, or can receive email forwarded from your current POP email account as an email backup tool. Integrates very well with Yahoo Calendar, Contacts and Notepad (all similar to their Google counterparts). Also has Intellisync software to actively synchronise your home/college Outlook with Yahoo.

http://uk.my.yahoo.com/

Nearly forgot this important and great little tool and hope they don't mind me quoting from their site: "This "TechDis User Preferences Toolbar" has been designed to provide students and teachers with a simple way of imposing their accessibility preferences onto potentially any web page. A section of high contrast and pale colour schemes have been provided along with a choice of serif and non-serif font. The toolbar also offer a handy zoom function that magnifies the page." Brilliant.

http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=1_20051905100544