I am a huge fan of RIAs, Rich Internet Applications. I use Zoho, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Google Apps, Acrobat and others on a frequent basis.
My primary email is still a good old pop3 account off of my server but by and large the majority of my email is handled with a web client. Either Gmail, Live Mail or Yahoo Mail.
Within Microsoft we have SkyDrive for file storage and for as little as 50 bucks a year, another 150GB of backup storage on iDrive.
We now have smart phones that have applications built into them or available for reasonable prices that allow you to do most things in the palm of your hands anywhere.
The latest rage are the netbooks. Mini-laptops. Really mini. I wouldn’t want to be dealing with high end graphics, games or videos on one but for what most people use a computer for, sending photos, email, surfing the web for the next great thing, social media interaction, these machines are awesome. Though I need to break out reading glasses. The one I played with the Acer Aspire One had a 1024×600 screen packed into 9 inches of surface area.
I have a machine at home that has absolutely NO commercial software (read that as Office) on it. At least none I had to pay for. Printer drivers, free. PDF creator, free. Office productivity, free via OpenOffice.org and the use of the aforementioned RIAs. There is no need to buy MS Office for the average user.
The spec on the Acer are:
Acer Aspire One:
- Weighs 2.44 pounds
- Ultra-compact size measuring 9.8″ x 6.7″ x 1.1″ (W x D x H)
- Stylish piano-black finish (other colors are available)
- Built-in 3G capability
- 802.11b/g wireless (Wi-Fi)
- 8.9-inch LCD screen
- Built-in Web cam
- Intel(R) Atom(TM) processor
- Windows XP(R) Home
- 1GB memory
- 160GB hard drive
- Built-in memory card readers (dedicated SD and 5-in-1)
Pretty impressive and pretty solid feeling when you pick it up. And literally about the size of an average sized hardback novel. Only thinner. These retail from $350 – 400 depending on were you get them.
Add to this the following:
The Google drive would shift away from Microsoft Window’s operating system, in favor of “cloud computing,” where storage and processing is done in data centers. Users would no longer have to rely on their computers’ powerful hard drives. -=SOURCE=-
Add to the GDrive all of these applications and the need for a hard drive in your machine is almost negligible. I personally would stick with the 160 GB HDD vice the SDD of 8 GB, simply because of software I would like to load.
On a basic level though lets list some things the average user might use a computer to do.
- Pay bills
- Surf aimlessly
- buy products
- send emails
- receive emails
- create documents, presentations, spreadsheets, databases, write a small script
All of this can be done already using absolutely no hard drive space for the client software or the resultant files.
Here’s and example from ZoHo:
This slide show, similuar to Power Point, was created on Zoho. It’s stored on Zoho. The tools to created it are on Zoho. Simply a web browser interface and you have it up and running.
Click a few buttons and its shared and available for embedding in a web page. Go ahead… scroll through the slide show.
Created using aboslutely no resources from a local machine save for applications to access the internet.
You can collaborate and even create some workflow management functions .
From an instructor, I could narrate this and use it as a lesson, complete with comments and discussion below.
The world of buying 1.5TB hard drives for your computer at home and subjecting it to theft, damage and other catastrophes is on the decline. And they say this is a kick in the groin for Microsoft.
I think I am going to buy one.
