Remedial Technology Update

Or, If I know this, you should, too

Google is reinventing computing. Coming from the world of AOL, Gmail was like a gift from the gods. Almost 3 gigs of storage... If you open a couple of accounts, and have the patience, you can back up all your data files, all your photo files and all your music files. That's assumng you're not my sons, with their total of 95 gigs of downloaded songs. They do love BT. I don't even know what BT stands for, but they do love it. Gmail is free... Free!

My first computer was an Osborne 1. Then I got an Osborne Executive. Then a KayPro. There was software that allowed me to interchange a floppy disk I created on one of the Osbornes with the KayPro, and vice-versa. Then came the PC. I never did buy an actual IBM PC, just the clones. Then came the costliest computer purchase I ever made, $2,800 for a PC AT. It was 10 megahertz of blazing speed. We were cutting edge! I was drunk on the power!

But I expect that I'm getting the same look from you right now that I get from our two youngest boys. They could care less. BFD... Or as Yoda would say, Impressed they are not.

Anyway, back to Google. Sitting just under the top tool bar, at the left, on the Gmail main page it says Docs & Spreadsheets. It's a hyperlink. Click on that and after you confirm your name, you see this:

Welcome to Google Docs & Spreadsheets!

With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, you can:

• Use our online editor to format documents, spell-check and more.
• Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, PDF and more.
• View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.

Plus, since its online, you can:

• Invite others to share your documents by e-mail address.
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
• Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose.
• Post your documents to your blog.

This blog is also now part of my Gmail account package. I no longer log in via blogger.com, but through Gmail.

Anyway, if you have EVER wanted to write and keep your writing handy (and current) Google has now offered you something not to be missed. What you write is stored online, not on your computer. You can access your documents from any internet-connected computer. I suppose that in theory you could access it via a web-browser enabled phone, but don't quote me on that.

The shared editing thing is astounding. My wife and I share a spreadsheet where we keep a monthly track of income and spending. We can even access it at the same time, me from the office, or on the road at a Kinko's, and her at home. And we can be on our cell phones (family plan, of course) and discuss the budget. (Okay, discuss might not be the right word. More, me weeping uncontrollably as she enters expenditures...)

When you're inputting data to any file, it makes saves like every ten seconds. You can't lose data! Your Sony laptop could burst into flames, and then explode, as you sit there at the airport and you wn't have lost any data! Your crotchital hair maybe, but not your data.

So that's my technological update. If you don't have Gmail, you're really missing something pretty slick, because it's a gateway (but not a Gateway) into a world that I've watched develop and am very happy to be part of. If only I'd bought the stock. But of coure had I bought Google, it would have immediately gone into the tank. So in a sense, Google owes me, big time. Or they used to. Now they've paid me back.