Dan (Thoughtfix) has written an article about ‘Internetting’, which is a word he’s using to define the process of migrating applications from the PC to the Internet. Its a process very close to my heart (and funnily enough, something I started and wrote about exactly one year ago.) and I’m down to only two applications that I use locally now. Lets talk about Dan’s article first though. He lists a good selection of popular desktop replacements including Gmail, Reader, PhotoFlexer but the key to his message is portability. There’s nothing nicer, or easier, than picking up any net-connected PC (yes, there’s an issue in the ‘net’ part of that equation I know. See below.) and knowing that you can access your data, email, applications just as you would normally. In the coming years, when swapping between multiple PCs becomes the norm, do you think people, especially consumers, will have the time to install and configure email clients, IM clients, office applications and others on multiple machines? No. If the consumer can pick up a PC and know that if its got a browser, its got their app’s and data on it then it makes the whole process so much nicer. Coupled with the important fact that many of the services are free AND you don’t have to worry about point upgrades and security patches, its a compelling solution. Oh, and on the subject of security, my opinion is that users are pretty poor at security. Before I started blogging, I was an Internet security consultant and I learned a fair bit about user-end security. There’s a more potential for security failures (and backup failures) at the user end than with a company who’s job it is to provide the security and backup. Of course, there are, and always will be, failures but that’s a risk that you have to assess and work out a recovery plan for but in general, for consumers, there are security advantages with storing info online.
There are other issues to consider of course and the main one is..yes, the Internet connection. I, like many other people, am lucky enough to live in an area where WiFi and 3G is freely available. At home I have a 384kbps modem in my pocket (my mobile phone) and I my main handheld PC has 3G built in. I’ve even got a USB stick which will self-install and run HSDPA on any PC. Yes, i’m very lucky. Others aren’t so lucky but what my setup shows is that there are possibilities. At home, WiFi is common and Bluetooth tethering (connecting your PC to the Internet via a Bluetooth connection to your mobile phone) is getting easier. When near-field pairing arrives in the next Bluetooth standard it will be even easier but the better option will be built-in 3G and WiMax. Intel are proposing that all UMPCs built on Menlow will have WiMax or 3G and in a few years we’ll be more connected than ever. This problem of having Internet connectivity is starting to retreat. It does remain a critical issue for many in the meantime though. Projects like Google Gears and Mozilla 3.0 are looking at how to solve this with offline solutions.
The second problem comes with large chunks of data. While interacting with text is fast, when it gets to images and even videos, there are serious time-delay issues to sort out. On a normal broadband connection, images are OK but on a basic 3G connection, working with images on the Internet can be frustrating. This is why one of my remaining desktop app’s is a photo editing app. I’m even having an issue moving my blogging tool online because of image editing so yes, some apps dont work that well but seeing as most operating systems have basic image editing built in now, the problem isn’t a big one. The second application I’m having problems with is video editing. Unfortunately I record in M-JPEG which is a huge fat format and requires compression before uploading. That can’t be done on my mobile PCs. I’m looking for an MPEG-2 recording solution though and hoping that, with some in-cam editing, I can directly produce uploadable cuts that can be sequenced and titled online. In theory, the online editing of video could be a nice solution for low-end mobile PCs because the processing can be done by a powerful machine but this bandwidth issue is a big bottleneck so I think editing is going to have to remain an offline activity for a long time yet. At least video storage and playback from the net is possible.
So, just to close, here’s a couple of other Web2.0 lists. The first is a student-focused one but has a lot of useful info in it. Read the comments for even more tips. The second is the biggest list I could find. Its almost too big!
