Cloud computing is all the rage these days. But while the idea of using your browser to access your applications and documents sounds like a great idea on paper, in practice there are all kinds of reasons to stick to your desktop software. Take OpenOffice.org, for example. None of the available Web-based word processors can compete with Writer when it comes to features and flexibility. But even if you don’t subscribe to the idea of ditching OpenOffice.org in favor of a Web-based productivity suite like Google Docs or Zoho Docs, you can still put some useful Web-based services to some practical use.

One of the key issues when working with documents on your machine is to keep them safe and accessible from any machine. That’s why services like Dropbox are becoming increasingly popular: using them, you can store your documents off-site and access them from any machine. Another solution is to use the SMEStorage service which provides access to a variety of back-end storage solutions such as Amazon S3, Box.net, and even your own FTP server. The beauty of this approach is that it provides a transparent connection to one or several services of your choice and adds a few clever features of its own. The best part, however, is that the service provides the MultiCloud File Manager extension for OpenOffice.org, which you can use to save and access documents stored in the cloud directly from within the productivity suite.

SMEStorage offers a number of free packages, so you can take the service for a spin without paying a dime. For example, you can get the SMEStorage S3 package based on the Amazon S3 service which includes 250MB storage space, which is plenty for storing OpenOffice.org documents. Before you download and install the MultiCloud File Manager extension, you can select the package you like and create an account with SMEStorage. Once you’ve done that grab the latest version of the MultiCloud File Manager extension. Launch OpenOffice.org, choose Tools -> Extension Manager, press the Add button, select the downloaded .oxt file and press Open.

Restart OpenOffice.org, and you should see the SMEStorage toolbar containing two buttons: Open and Save. To save the currently opened OpenOffice.org document on SMEStorage, click on the Save button, provide your user name and password and make sure that the http://www.smetube.com/smestorage/api path is selected in the API Host drop-down list. Press Login to open the file manager. Select then the destination (or create a new one) and press Save. You’ll then be prompted to encrypt the document by specifying a password. You can skip this step by pressing the Do not encrypt button.

If you plan to store a large number of documents and you want to be able to quickly locate them, you should provide a short description and assign tags to the document before you hit Save. You can then use the MultiCloud file manager’s filtering feature to quickly locate the documents you want. For example, if you want to find documents containing the article tag, click on the Filter icon, select Files from the Filter On drop-down list, select String in the name or tag from Filter Type, enter the tag in the Filter Data field, and press the Set Filter button. To disable the filter, use the No Filter button.

SMEStorage also offers a Web-based interface that lets you manage and share stored documents and do other clever things with your stuff.

By Dmitri Popov