Firefox OS: Why My Hard Drive & Software are Obsolete - lifehack.org
This page linked above reflects what I have been thinking for a while. That more and more of my computer life is just living in a browser and terminal window. What difference does it make what operating system I use?
Unfortunately we are not there yet.
I still need software to deal with my various devices. I need iTunes to manage my ipod. I need to get my address book onto my phone, and addressbook to sms with my computer keyboard when I am at my computer.
Twitterific sure makes twitter pretty, and quicksilver makes accessing and manipulating the data (on my computer, and, to some extent, on the web) easy.
I still use iphoto or the gimp to edit photos, but I use flickr to organize them. I treat my flickr as my photo archive and it is where I go to find and view my photos. The killer feature of flickr that makes up for any issues inherent in the modern web UI is that I don't have to pass through any gate or boundary when going from viewing my photos to viewing those of my contacts. The ability for comments and annotations to live right where the photo lives, not in a separate space, is killer for me as well.
Same thing with Google Docs. I just rather start out any document in there, even if I don't plan on ever sharing it. If it ever do change my mind, the option is right there. And really, if you think about it, almost all documents you produce end up shared at some point, don't they?
In the PSU area - I can access Oracle Calendar via the web interface. I still find the desktop Oracle Calendar app more useful though. I wish the web version had an in-tray like the desktop app.
Of course the one downside of doing everything on the web is that you need to have a decent connection to the web in order to use them. For some people this is just not acceptable. For me, I have access to a connection almost all the time. On the rare occasion that I don't - then that is a chance to unplug for a while, like they did in the old days. Adobe's Apollo promises to allow developers to create web apps that also can work on the desktop without network connection.
One of the upside web apps is that you can access your material on multiple devices. I don't just mean multiple computers, but cell phones and living room devices (wii!).
Anyway this is just some ramblings about how I am using more and more web-based apps instead of desktop apps. What do you think? Do you use many web based apps? Will they start to replace desktop apps more broadly?
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