Stan Beer
Tuesday, 03 June 2008 10:14
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
For the third time in the past year I have been the unhappy recipient of a catastrophic hardware failure. For the first time, I don't really care all that much because this time I'm living in the cloud and loving it!
To give you an idea of what I mean, even though
I've temporarily lost my desktop for a couple of days, I'm happily
writing and posting this story on my notebook computer. Yet I don't
even have a word processor installed.
I'm writing this on Google Docs. It's easy to use and works fine for
the relatively simple tasks I need to do and it's only a beta! What's
more, I don't have to be concerned with all the unnecessary clutter and
sluggishness of Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org.
I know there are plenty who will argue that Google Docs just doesn't
have the power or functions of the desktop Office systems yet but hey,
all I want to do is write an article - Google Docs is fine and has
everything I need. It also has a record of all my documents that I can
access anywhere there's an Internet connection no matter which computer
or operating system I use.
I'm also happily accessing and responding to the numerous emails I
receive every day. For the past three months all my emails have been
forwarded to my Gmail account. Now I can access them from anywhere in
the world, from just about any device that has access to the Internet.
Yes I know the Gmail interface isn't as nice or feature rich as
Outlook. However, unlike Outlook, Gmail is fast. I don't have to wait
for minutes on end while hundreds of emails, 90% of them spam,
download. Gmail doesn't slow down my computer while it performs
maintenance tasks in the background. Sorry Outlook, I no longer need
your sluggish, clumsy desktop email client.
