On(line) and Off Again

What with recent distractions in my life lately, I’ve had little time to keep up with my Google Reader feeds. You know it’s bad when the unread item number just says “1000+” and stops counting. Yikes. However, this afternoon while I was separating some of the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, a little sum’in-sum’in caught my attenton.

This weekend, Google Docs became offline-ready. “Offline-ready?!”, you ask in eager bewilderment, “But how can an online service be used offline, Jarred?!” Lucky for you, I have the answers.

Google has developed a feature called “Google Gears” that it is slowly implementing into an ever increasing number of its products. What the feature — which is actually an extension for the Firefox browser — does is download your data from Google’s servers (”the cloud”) into a cache on your computer. The cache is synced with the cloud when you’re online so that they always match. Now if you are sitting on an airplane, you can simply navigate to Google Docs — even though you’re not online — and browse, edit, and save your work as if you were. When you get back to a web connection, your cache will send all the changes back into the cloud, and you’re golden.

Interesting how, to continue being relevent and useful, productivity apps have had to go first online and then back offline.

So here’s where I turn it to you: have you made the switch, whether completely or partially, from a desktop productivity app to a web/cloud app? I think the only ones I’ve personally fully switched to are my e-mail and calendar. I use Google Docs sporadically when I want to collaboratively edit, but otherwise I still stick with Word. You? And if not, would you ever? Do you trust the cloud?

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user Nathan Rein.

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Myriam 9 months ago 1 point
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I'm not sure I understood all the process... The computer world is close to the jungle for me! Anyway, if I'm not completely wrong the system you described here enables you to save and work on web documents even though you're not online: sounds very interesting and useful for people like me who don't have an easy access to the Internet but I don't think I would trust the cloud. I already don't really trust any computer-linked thing... and Word is almost the only program I master but I have a little problem with it here: in the computer rooms of the university of Tours there isn't Microsoft Office and I just can't read any of the things I have done at home... There is only Open Office, which is very similar but doesn't completely offer all the possibilities of Word, which is thus required for my thesis. I wish there were more compatibility in this huge computer world!

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Jarred 9 months ago 1 point
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Myriam, you understood quite well: this indeed allows you to work on and save documents without having to be online! Google Docs is not as powerful as Word, though I hear it approaches OpenOffice (I've never used it). It's interesting to hear that the university in Tours opts for OpenOffice over MS Word... they don't really like Microsoft over in Europe. :)

Google Docs, in my opinion, is best for rough documents that you will not be publishing or turning in to someone else. It's great for taking notes or brainstorming, but not real great for writing reports or theses! But especially if you want to work on document with someone who lives far away, it's a good choice in my book.

I'm interested in people don't or wouldn't trust the cloud... is it because you don't like the idea of your data being stored by someone else, or because you're afraid you'll need your data when you're not able to connect to the web, or another reason?

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