newly ancient

As Windows Vista is rolled out onto shelves, all the bees are buzzing around Microsoft. Microsoft deserves all the credit it gets - Vista is a great Operating System which is filled with lots of great features. I myself have been running Windows Vista beta for months now and have not been disappointed once. However, I don’t plan to shell out my hard earned cash to buy Vista. The fact is, I no longer have a need for a great operating system since 99% of the time I live within the web browser. I could live without Windows but I couldn’t live without Google. Sure, Microsoft might have a monopoly on the desktop market but Google has a monopoly on the internet. Don’t believe me? Check out my browsing history:

• Google Start Page
• Google News
• Google Reader
• Google Docs
• Google Search
• Newly Ancient
• GMail

That’s a lot of Google. Of all Google’s superb services (-search), I believe Google Docs has the greatest potential in the education market. I myself use it for all of my productivity needs. The best part, of course, is that it is web based. With this comes automatic saving, idiot-proof sharing and publishing, and access from anywhere. Of all of these, the biggest boon that I have found is the automatic saving feature. Every document is automatically saved to Google’s servers as you type. This means that even if your entire computer is fried, you will still be able to turn in that big essay without almost no extra trouble. Another great feature is how you can access it from anywhere - perfect for students who use many different computers over a single day. Finally, there is the easy sharing. Peer edits are effortless and group projects can be done effortlessly. In a couple of years, teachers might even fully adopt this technology so that you can simply share it with them to turn it in - just think of all the trees that would be saved. Google has a service to accomplish almost anything in your digital life - now all we need is a slick web-based Operating System which rolls them all together. (possibly a web-centered Linux distribution from Google)