Google Docs

Between my various different jobs and my old and failing Apple Powerbook G4 12 inch, I'm using a lot of different computers these days. Rather than use flash drives and email to ensure I have access to all the necessary documents, I have switched to using Google Docs. In fact, I haven't opened Word in almost a month. If you haven't used Google Docs (probably you have, but who knows), all you need to do is make sure you're signed into your gmail account and go to docs.google.com.

Though Google Docs isn't perfect, it is pretty great. Here is my review of the program.

Pros: Google docs is easy to use. Really easy in fact. It's possible to set everything up so that it pretty much mimics the folders you have on your computer. Right now, for example, I have three folders; one each for my blog, the Daily Herald, and Rhombus. Obviously if I'd been using Google Docs longer, I'd have more folders.

The best part about using Google Docs, however, has to been that you never have to mess with sending files, saving them somewhere, or transferring them. If needed, you can send them as attachments, but you can also share them and make the available to others through Google Docs itself. This approach to creating and storing files (i.e. cloud computing), is so much better than traditional computing that I can't figure out why it hasn't completely caught on yet. The biggest disadvantage that I see is that I still have store music, video, etc. on my computer.

Cons: Probably the biggest downside to using Google Docs is that you give up some freedom to manipulate your work. For example, I love fonts and have downloaded and installed quite a few on my computer. These fonts didn't come with any program and I had to find them on my own, usually because I was making a particular kind of document. As of right now, I can't really figure out how to get extra fonts into Google Docs. That means that either it can't be done, or that doing it isn't quite as easy as doing anything else in the program.

For me, this is a big disadvantage to Google Docs. Though I rarely use Word any more, I'd be reluctant to get rid of it completely because at some point the basic style settings aren't going to cut it. (On the other hand, I guess I could just buy Photoshop and only use word processing programs for basic writing.)

The other big disadvantage is that Google Docs relies on an internet connection. For most people that's not a big deal, though Laura and I use the neighbor's unprotected wireless network and we thus don't always have a stable connection. The times I've opened Word during the last month or so have been when I couldn't access the internet, and therefore couldn't get into Google Docs. This is extremely frustrating.

Of course that's more my problem than Google's, but it seems that people are going to have unstable internet connections more often than their computers are going to crash, which means that using Google docs will almost always be less reliable than Word.

Conclusion: The world is almost ready for a complete switch to Google Docs (and cloud computing, generally). We're not quite there yet, but once internet access is as stable as, say, landline telephones, there will be no reason to have much storage space on personal computers.