The Computer Is Your Friend: Chrome Wasn't Built In A Day

[athelind]

Douglas Rushkoff insists that Google Chrome OS will CHANGE EVERYTHING.

Some of Rushkoff's arguments are less than convincing to a Linux user, I'm afraid. I'm not "locked into Microsoft Office". I use Open Office, and when an MS user simply HAS to see my work, I export -- which I'd have to do with GoogleApps anyway.


I'm simply not comfortable working "in the cloud". The privacy issues Rushkoff so cavalierly dismisses as "false" are still there; if I'm working on a confidential report, I don't want it on a drive whose access I can't control. I don't want to be dependent on the reliability of my Internet connection to access it myself, either. If I'm working on the Great American Novel, can I be sure that Google or whoever winds up running their servers will keep my file safe? Will I see it at Borders with someone else's name on the cover? If their system crashes so catastrophically that my work can't be recovered, will they be liable?

And gods forbid The Authorities should ever decide that I'm a Person of Interest. Shoot, I don't even have to assume they'll single me out; it's no great stretch to think that they'll decide that having the ability to pick through everyone's conveniently-accessible personal files is the same as having both the right and the obligation to do so.

It's not like they haven't before.

GoogleApps are convenient collaboration tools, but I don't think they can our should replace local computing.

This doesn't mean I won't try GoogleChrome if I can ever get a functioning NetBook (I'm about to send the second Eee back due to SSD failure). I can see a lot of uses for the paradigm.

I just don't plan to do anything important with it.

---

Comments

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Wake me when I can play Starcraft II or run Ableton Live in a web browser.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

Ah, my point made with so many fewer words!

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also, every ten years it seems like someone tries to reinvent the mainframe + terminal architecture. And fails. Google should ask Oracle about how their thin client is doing.

Remember "the network is the computer"? Geeks just can't let that go.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I thought it sounded kinda familiar, but Nohamotyo bit me.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

This, pretty much, yes.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I think the best way to understand this is that Google and Microsoft are in a big brawl. Like you, I use OO and I am writing the Great American Novel. My third one, hehe. I wish compatibility was an issue but, y'know, it's not. For most users, it's also not. But what's at the center of all of this is two giant corporations squaring off against each other.

And the real consumers they're fighting over are personal computer users, but business users. This will not be made or broke by me deciding to use it or not. What'll make it or break it is if they convince businesses to use it (which might work because those thin clients might look real attractive to cash strapped businesses). The idea that people for their personal computing buy more powerful machines to run *Office* is absurd. Oh, yeah, I'm going to drop four grand on a new computer because a new version of OFFICE has come out! Laughable. What drives high end computer sales, and everyone knows it, are *games*. People want to see all the pixels in World of Warcraft, which is as much a thin client as humanly possible but such a huge program it still challenges even powerful computers. Business applications' requirements are irrelevant when you play MMOs.

But Google is feeling its strength and is challenging Microsoft on the OS and business software front - that's all this is about. A brawl between two huge corporations aiming at monopoly doesn't interest me because of their products.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Now, see, there's a flip side there -- there IS a market and a use for the thin client/thin hardware machine. That's why netbooks are so successful right now, and ChromeOS may just kick some serious ass on the Netbook platform.

What Ruskoff doesn't get -- and a lot of the industry doesn't get, though the MARKET does -- is that the Netbook is a fundamentally different animal than the desktop. For the last couple of decades, everyone's been talking about "convergence" -- but "convergence" isn't the FUTURE anymore. It's HAPPENED.

What's happening NOW is divergence. Netbooks are splitting off from desktops, and becoming Something Else. An operating system optimized for the Cheap Fast Lightweight Net-Machine is a great idea, and may finally slap the rest of the industry around to realize that Netbooks AREN'T just "desktop lite".

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I dunno, myself. I'm pretty gadget shy, though, if it isn't a kitchen gadget. People keep telling me how convenient their iPhone is and I keep saying, "I find having no cell phone at all is even MORE convenient. I never have to worry about being out and then someone calling me and doing that awkward thing where you tell the people around you you've 'got to take this' and then having everyone looking at you shaking their heads for ten minutes." I kind of feel the same way about netbooks. If I wasn't somewhere that I could sit down in a comfy chair with a good keyboard I couldn't imagine wanting to work real hard on a project. So . . . I DO find myself wondering at the whole logic behind netbooks . . .

Which means that maybe I should shut up, huh? :) But I mostly see this as a brawl between two giant corporations that's about something that doesn't really effect me or, really, anyone I know in a serious way.

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered if some aspects of computing were going to lean back towards the days of the terminal mainframe. But instead of a local mainframe in the building, our systems would all be getting a live broadcast from the internet. No doubt many the software company would drool with the idea of renting us operating systems and software, letting us download them on the go to an otherwise functionally dead terminal.

But yeah, I really think local computing is still the best bet. Worst comes to worst, you've still got all of your files off a network, right there in-front of you. Its just more secure and reliable that way.

On the subject of notebooks, I recently picked myself up one of these little gems: http://news.idealo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/toshiba-nb200-netbook-release-2.jpg

A Toshiba NB200. It suits me just fine so far, and seems to run pretty well. Its a little tiny, but that was the point, so its doing the trick. :3 I'm probably going to dual boot Ubuntu on it because I can. Plus its a nice operating system. I use Open Office on all of my computers, even the Windows machines. I honestly like the software far more than MS Office products.

[wy.livejournal.com]

I'm okay with 'in the cloud'.

Because, nothing most people do is really that 'important'. And if it is, it shouldn't be on your connected machine anyways. :P Just saying.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly.

[drakegrey.livejournal.com]

Yes. The 'hey, let's store it in the cloud/it's totally safe!' crowd seems to not be reading the news. We should forward Rushkoff's IP addresses to some North Korean hackers and see what happens. :P

Elsewhere on LJ, a bunch of folks are already popping open the bottles of bubbly and proclaiming "For I have come not to praise Microsoft, but to bury them." I think that's a little premature.

[cugone.livejournal.com]

*caution, minor profanity use ahead*

There is one major flaw with the mentality that "OH LOOK! WE CAN JUST PUT IT ALL ON THE INTERNET!"

Internet Service Providers.

ISPs run the world. If you can't GET to your stuff because your ISP has decided that you went over your download cap and violated your "Fair Access Policy" you're not just up shit creek without a paddle; your SWIMMING in it.