[binary visions]

Interesting article on MIT's Technology Review websites:

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16697&ch=infotech

It starts off as being about Google's new Calendar service (which is great, by the way, I recommend anyone who needs a calendar give it a shot).

I like the way these new web tools are heading. They're simple, streamlined, and easily accessible. I fully expect more utilities to be available as time goes on - why not a word processor? Documents saved online, easily accessible from any machine, and a word processor that stops trying to think for you. Advanced processing tasks could still be done in a program like Word, but simple things like papers and letters and such could all be stored in an accessible online format.

I think places are finally starting to realize that less is more. Gmail is such a simple mail interface, and I love that - that's all I want, is my emails. I don't want advanced buddy list functions, smilie faces, or stationary, or links to a million other sites in my face. I want email.

So, anyone else have any thoughts on this? Good or bad? Does anyone care? Should this go in the tech forum instead? Is my fly zipped?

 

[Tenchiro]

I like the fact that you can import your Outlook calendar, that said I have very little use for it personally but I did play with it and for a free web app it is very nice.

 

[antimony]

Unzipped.

 

[binary visions]

Unzipped.

Thanks, I'll take care of that

 

[SkaredShtles]

Looks kind of like Yahoo! calendar.............

 

[narlus]

uh, gmail added IM capability recently.

 

[binary visions]

uh, gmail added IM capability recently.

Yes, but the presentation is clean and tucked away, just like the calandar. Your email is straight email, no clicking through front pages to get to your inbox, etc. You login, and it's there.

If you want your calandar, you can access it. If you want your IM, you can access it.

 

[manhattanprjkt83]

all the google stuff right now is just straight sexy...

Good clean functional interface design is an art, and they totally get it.

 

[skinny mike]

all the google stuff right now is just straight sexy...

Good clean functional interface design is an art, and they totally get it.

kind of like a mac aint it?

 

[LordOpie]

Looks kind of like Yahoo! calendar.............

until Yahoo fvcks things up, I'll stick with them

 

[manhattanprjkt83]

kind of like a mac aint it?

i dont have a mac, it will be my next computer though...

Anyone that argue's with google's design/functionality is openly stating that they dont have any understanding of interface design...They are good at what they do.

 

[SkaredShtles]

until Yahoo fvcks things up, I'll stick with them

Yep. Yahoo! has been good.

 

[dante]

Yep. Yahoo! has been good.

gmail has free POP mail forwarding... Yahoo doesn't.

 

[Toshi]

I fully expect more utilities to be available as time goes on - why not a word processor? Documents saved online, easily accessible from any machine, and a word processor that stops trying to think for you. Advanced processing tasks could still be done in a program like Word, but simple things like papers and letters and such could all be stored in an accessible online format.

i was recently stuck at school for a few hours between an appointment and class, and had to write up a paper. given that i wasn't on my computer i chose to write it using gmail (emailing it to myself), as it had decent editing capabilities, a good autosave, and no hassles with transferring a word document after the fact.

 

[binary visions]

i was recently stuck at school for a few hours between an appointment and class, and had to write up a paper. given that i wasn't on my computer i chose to write it using gmail (emailing it to myself), as it had decent editing capabilities, a good autosave, and no hassles with transferring a word document after the fact.

Yep, Gmail has decent capabilities, so a real word processor with a bunch of saved items, downloadable in, say, RTF format would be pretty easy to do and I'd use it when I'm not at home. It'd be really convenient for things like resumes, too, where you have a single document that is changing a lot - edit it from any computer and access it from any computer.

You can, of course, use Gmail to do this but it's a little bit more inconvenient and it doesn't have the dedicated editing capabilities that could easily be added.

 

[SkaredShtles]

gmail has free POP mail forwarding... Yahoo doesn't.

Good Lord! Why on earth would I want to do *that*?

 

[PatBranch]

kind of like a mac aint it?

Some mac stuff, just makes no sense to me.

 

[Jay Gatz]

i like the way this head is stuffed...