It might work for some people, and in some places. But a server-based app strikes me as a potential disaster on a portable device that's not necessarily going to be connected. How would you compose an email or a blog post on an airplane, to be sent later?
You're also very much at the mercy of the provider. I still vividly remember a coworker's anger at discovering that Yahoo had decided to get out of the calendar business without telling any of their users or giving them a chance to back up their data. Not to mention all the trouble people have had with LJ and their changing ownership and terms of service. Maybe Google's different; don't know. Don't trust them. Wouldn't advise anyone else to trust them.
There's also the matter of privacy. No thanks.
Finally, a problem I've noticed with web applications is that it's impractical to have multiple accounts. For example, I'd like to have one gmail account for work and one for home, but if I'm working from home, for example, I can't have both of them open in the same browser at the same time. Not even using X on different machines -- they coordinate using the screen to make sure there's only one instance running. Even on multiple screens, with browsers running as separate users, it's difficult. Running two instances of Firefox under two different users is the only way I've found to reliably crash MacOS X.
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Date: 2008-04-22 02:47 pm (UTC)You're also very much at the mercy of the provider. I still vividly remember a coworker's anger at discovering that Yahoo had decided to get out of the calendar business without telling any of their users or giving them a chance to back up their data. Not to mention all the trouble people have had with LJ and their changing ownership and terms of service. Maybe Google's different; don't know. Don't trust them. Wouldn't advise anyone else to trust them.
There's also the matter of privacy. No thanks.
Finally, a problem I've noticed with web applications is that it's impractical to have multiple accounts. For example, I'd like to have one gmail account for work and one for home, but if I'm working from home, for example, I can't have both of them open in the same browser at the same time. Not even using X on different machines -- they coordinate using the screen to make sure there's only one instance running. Even on multiple screens, with browsers running as separate users, it's difficult. Running two instances of Firefox under two different users is the only way I've found to reliably crash MacOS X.