Living in the cloud - and loving it

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 03 June 2008 09:14

Opinion and Analysis

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.