oregonnerd: differing views

Google apps, a first take (and some other maunderings)

July 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm Leave a comment

I was waiting, to be honest.  I have nothing in particular to link this to other than our friend www.google.com which is by now well known.  I’ve used Gmail since a little run-in with Charter.  I’d been deliberating for about a year on the fact that having an ISP-based web address had implicit vulnerabilities.  Like an unanticipated switch.  Some ISPs will store e-mail, I’ve heard.  If you have web-based business, you can’t afford to have an ISP-based address except as backup.  Even if your business isn’t web-based, having that kind of keying (to a specific ISP) is idiotic in this day and age.  It’s about on the level of accepting a mobile phone usage plan.  Get a pay-as-you-go and accept the limitations, or they’ll eventually get their $200 or whatever.  Or pay the money up front.  Unfortunately business is out there solely to make a dollar, and honesty (like honor) is a rarity in this country even in personal relations.  Pity.  We live in a world where “trust” is a synonym for “stupidity”.

Anyway, the apps have one particular surprise.  It had been hinted.  It looks like this is going to include a (full?) anti-badware suite.  That’s a huge step toward a web-based OS and an entirely different approach to information processing.  There are inherent dangers (the 1984 model) but those dangers have existed since at least the mid-1960s when random wire-tapping for keywords started.  I already had the Open Office suite; I’m finding (using it on my other computer) that I actually like it better than 602Text and my antediluvian Office 97 or whatever.  The “AI” doesn’t even drive me crazy.

If I were buying a new computer and it came with a Windows disk, and Windows were installed with crapware…I think I would put the Windows disk in, re-install Windows, get Internet up and install the Google package.  Risk-free and Internet just don’t mix.  Low risk exists, and this may fill the package at truly minimal expense for the home user.

–Glenn

Entry filed under: computers/tech. Tags: crapware, first take, google apps, new computer, some maundering, windows.