Google Chrome browser: still super-fast

I’ve been getting deep into Google’s many services, and today is no exception. First I discovered a bunch of features in Gmail (Web version, print version) that are turning out to be really helpful.

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I’m using the Google Chrome browser again on my XP box today, since I’m working on our Google fire map and feeding it data from a Google Spreadsheet.

I’m also going to be looking into creating a private Web page for company use at Google Sites, which is targeted as an easy-to-use alternative to corporate Intranets. It’s also a place where you can set up a site just for your family, friends or whoever. If you wish, you can control who gets access to the pages, a feature I will be tapping for this project.

Back to Google Chrome. It’s still incredibly fast, and I can’t wait until it’s ported to OS X and Linux. As I’ve said, it doesn’t have quite the feature set of, say, Firefox, but for the most part I don’t need any of those features and will easily give them up for increased speed on the 99.9 percent of stuff that Chrome does so well.

The hidden power of Gmail, the increasing reach of everything Google and the inevitability of cloud computing

I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I’ve never really delved into Google’s Gmail, even though I automatically have an account due to my much heavier use of Google Docs and previous use of Google Groups.

All that changed in recent weeks due to my ISP DSL Extreme‘s decision to transfer all of its mail accounts from its own servers to Gmail.

I mainly use my DSL Extreme e-mail address for mailing lists. I have my OpenBSD and Debian mailing list traffic — which can be considerable — on that e-mail address just to keep it separate from the rest of my mail.

I never did like the DSL Extreme Web mail interface, and the fact that it’s going away in a week doesn’t bother me one bit.

But since DSL Extreme allowed users appropriately extreme flexibility in handling their mail, I’ve used it consistently, just not in a Web interface.

Instead I’ve used external mail clients — particularly Thunderbird in Windows — to process the mail, accessing it via IMAP and filtering it into folders that live on the server.

Since the connection to the mail servers can be fully encrypted and of the IMAP or POP variety, I’ve used my account fairly regularly.

My “lifestyle,” whatever that means, makes IMAP work way better for me than POP, which downloads mail to a single computer, and since I’m in front of a half-dozen different computers in different places, POP doesn’t work for me at all.

I was worried that the transition to Gmail for my DSL Extreme account would mean that POP and IMAP access would be gone, and I would be limited to the unfamiliar Gmail Web interface only.

But that is not the case. I can read the mail via POP or IMAP with any mail client software, and now I have a lot more space — about 7 GB, even though I can’t ever see needing that much.

And I’ve discovered a few rudimentary things about the Gmail interface that just might have me using it more and more — and dumping traditional mail clients entirely.

Right now, the reason is organization. I’ve relied on the folders and filters of Thunderbird to bring some semblance of order to the heavy volume of mailing-list traffic I receive.

I’m limited only by the folders themselves. A message can only be in a single folder at a time, and that makes finding things difficult in some instances.

But Gmail uses labels instead of folders, and an individual e-mail message can have as many or as few labels as I wish. So I can, for instance have a message from the debian-user mailing list begin its life with the labels INBOX and Debian. I can delete it if I don’t need it, and that’s what happens most of the time. But if I want to save that e-mail, I can remove the INBOX and Debian labels and effectively archive the conversation by giving it a Debian Saved label.

The other way Gmail helps me with mailing-list messages in specific, and the rest of my e-mail in general, is by grouping messages that are replies to each other together when I read one of the messages in that particular group. I think this is what Gmail refers to as “conversations,” but again, I’m so new at this that I’m unsure of the terminology.

What I am sure of is that this labeling and grouping, which at first looks more than a bit forbidding, is in fact quite useful.

Another thing Google does with Gmail is bring together all of the Google services I use (and many I don’t but just might try).

I’m already using the Google Chrome browser to access Gmail, and when I click a link called Sites, I have the option to create secure Web pages, gather information on them and control who has access to them. In short, it’s a great, free tool for collaboration over the Web. In that way, it’s a valuable extension to Google Docs (also easily navigable to from the Gmail interface), which is already performing very well as a collaborative tool used by many of us at the Daily News.

I’m trying to use Google Docs to bring some kind of order to my own documents. I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I finally do have offline access to Docs (via the Google Gears API), and I’m less than impressed with its reliability and speed on my Gateway 1.3 GHz/1 GB RAM laptop. Gears and offline Docs are both still relatively young, so there’s plenty of room for improvement.

One more thing: Chat.

Since I’ve been guesting in the Op-Ed department for the past week and a couple days, I’m not on my own PC, and as a result all my usual apps, from Pidgin to Thunderbird to Notepad++ and Filezilla are not installed.

I did add Google Chrome after Firefox 2 started acting up on me. And on this PC, Internet Explorer 7 has actually been less of a dog than I remember. I did get the installer for FF 3, but I’ve yet to do the install.

I said I was going to get to chat … and I am.

Since I didn’t have Pidgin, which I use to bring my Yahoo!, AOL/AIM and Google chat accounts under one app, I switched from the “Classic” Yahoo Mail Web interface to the “All-New” version of Yahoo Mail, which is designed to look and act like a traditional local mail client, with drag-and-drop capability.

The reason I haven’t been using the “new” interface until now is that its relatively large graphical load doesn’t play well with some of my, ahem, older hardware, and the speed of the “old” Yahoo Mail is very much needed on those creaky laptops and desktops.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, I opted for the “new” Yahoo Mail so I could use the integrated Yahoo Messengher client. When you want to chat with one of your Yahoo contacts, all you do is click on their name, and a chat window opens in your mail interface. That way, you can use Yahoo Messenger without needing to have the application installed on your computer.

Now I’m bringing things around to my point, which is Google. Google’s chat service — Google Talk — has a “gadget” that mimics a standalone IM applications but can be used on any PC with a compatible Web browser. That way you can use Google Talk from just about any Web-connected PC without worrying about individual clients or Pidgin.

I only have one person who I use Google Talk to IM, so I’m probably better off using Pidgin if I can, but it’s nice to see so much innovation in chat from Google and Yahoo. For all I know, AIM has the same capability, but since I’ve probably checked my AOL mail … maybe once or twice … since I first signed up for AIM a few years ago, I know nothing about it. I also remember AOL Mail as offering IMAP and POP to its users, and for that reason alone it might be well worth investigating as a mail solution.

Note: I remember hearing that Google was “rolling out” IMAP access to Gmail users and not granting it to all at once. Since my DSL Extreme account is not part of the regular Gmail throng, I appear to have both IMAP and POP as part of the deal between DSL Extreme and Google.

Summing up: A bit long and rambly, don’t you think? I’m just trying to think out loud about how deep I’m getting into the world of Google and its services.

There’s been a loud, long argument in the free, open-source software community (and at LXer in particular) about what cloud computing means for open-source software, users, freedom and all of that. For me, the freedom to have my files live in the cloud and be accessed from anywhere I’m networked is trumping almost everything else.

I’d love for the Google Docs interface to get more sophisticated about things like indented paragraphs and smart quotes — two of my typographical pet peeves. The technology is there, since Docs is based on HTML and CSS and can do anything that those two sophisticated technologies allow (and that is quite a lot).

And as I’ve said more than a few times recently, having the option of working with my cloud-based files either through Web interfaces or via the same kinds of locally based applications we all use today is something I’m very interested in seeing happen. It’s kind of ironic that the company I see buying into this concept (although their plans and offerings are presented in such a cryptic way that I can never really tell just what they’re planning) is Microsoft.

Yes, Microsoft’s dependence on traditional apps like MS Office and the billions it brings them has profoundly affected the company’s strategy for cloud-based data and apps. At the end of the day, a melding of local client apps that are not necessarily Web browsers could very well be more efficient than doing everything through the browser. (Or not; it’s too early to tell at this point).

The more data we have, from text files to images, audio and video, is increasingly hard to get a handle on. We need help storing, backing up, categorizing and utilizing all of this data. In my mind, it all points to the cloud.

Depending on how you look at it, it’s a little “Matrix”-y, “HAL 9000”-ish, “Neuromancer”-like

All I know is that Sun’s “The Network Is the Computer” mantra is becoming more true every day. Some of that will be good, some not. And that goodness/other will differ from person to person, application to application and entity to entity.

We won’t be limited to the huge cloud providers. There will still be traditional servers everywhere, along with clients in more shapes, sizes and guises than you could imagine. And the lone-PC-in-the-wilderness won’t go away, just as paper itself has survived in this most computer-infused of ages.

But the cloud model is real. And it’s growing.

Companies that understand this will prosper, others not so much.

The hidden power of Gmail, the increasing reach of everything Google and the inevitability of cloud computing

I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I’ve never really delved into Google’s Gmail, even though I automatically have an account due to my much heavier use of Google Docs and previous use of Google Groups.

All that changed in recent weeks due to my ISP DSL Extreme‘s decision to transfer all of its mail accounts from its own servers to Gmail.

I mainly use my DSL Extreme e-mail address for mailing lists. I have my OpenBSD and Debian mailing list traffic — which can be considerable — on that e-mail address just to keep it separate from the rest of my mail.

I never did like the DSL Extreme Web mail interface, and the fact that it’s going away in a week doesn’t bother me one bit.

But since DSL Extreme allowed users appropriately extreme flexibility in handling their mail, I’ve used it consistently, just not in a Web interface.

Instead I’ve used external mail clients — particularly Thunderbird in Windows — to process the mail, accessing it via IMAP and filtering it into folders that live on the server.

Since the connection to the mail servers can be fully encrypted and of the IMAP or POP variety, I’ve used my account fairly regularly.

My “lifestyle,” whatever that means, makes IMAP work way better for me than POP, which downloads mail to a single computer, and since I’m in front of a half-dozen different computers in different places, POP doesn’t work for me at all.

I was worried that the transition to Gmail for my DSL Extreme account would mean that POP and IMAP access would be gone, and I would be limited to the unfamiliar Gmail Web interface only.

But that is not the case. I can read the mail via POP or IMAP with any mail client software, and now I have a lot more space — about 7 GB, even though I can’t ever see needing that much.

And I’ve discovered a few rudimentary things about the Gmail interface that just might have me using it more and more — and dumping traditional mail clients entirely.

Right now, the reason is organization. I’ve relied on the folders and filters of Thunderbird to bring some semblance of order to the heavy volume of mailing-list traffic I receive.

I’m limited only by the folders themselves. A message can only be in a single folder at a time, and that makes finding things difficult in some instances.

But Gmail uses labels instead of folders, and an individual e-mail message can have as many or as few labels as I wish. So I can, for instance have a message from the debian-user mailing list begin its life with the labels INBOX and Debian. I can delete it if I don’t need it, and that’s what happens most of the time. But if I want to save that e-mail, I can remove the INBOX and Debian labels and effectively archive the conversation by giving it a Debian Saved label.

The other way Gmail helps me with mailing-list messages in specific, and the rest of my e-mail in general, is by grouping messages that are replies to each other together when I read one of the messages in that particular group. I think this is what Gmail refers to as “conversations,” but again, I’m so new at this that I’m unsure of the terminology.

What I am sure of is that this labeling and grouping, which at first looks more than a bit forbidding, is in fact quite useful.

Another thing Google does with Gmail is bring together all of the Google services I use (and many I don’t but just might try).

I’m already using the Google Chrome browser to access Gmail, and when I click a link called Sites, I have the option to create secure Web pages, gather information on them and control who has access to them. In short, it’s a great, free tool for collaboration over the Web. In that way, it’s a valuable extension to Google Docs (also easily navigable to from the Gmail interface), which is already performing very well as a collaborative tool used by many of us at the Daily News.

I’m trying to use Google Docs to bring some kind of order to my own documents. I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I finally do have offline access to Docs (via the Google Gears API), and I’m less than impressed with its reliability and speed on my Gateway 1.3 GHz/1 GB RAM laptop. Gears and offline Docs are both still relatively young, so there’s plenty of room for improvement.

One more thing: Chat.

Since I’ve been guesting in the Op-Ed department for the past week and a couple days, I’m not on my own PC, and as a result all my usual apps, from Pidgin to Thunderbird to Notepad++ and Filezilla are not installed.

I did add Google Chrome after Firefox 2 started acting up on me. And on this PC, Internet Explorer 7 has actually been less of a dog than I remember. I did get the installer for FF 3, but I’ve yet to do the install.

I said I was going to get to chat … and I am.

Since I didn’t have Pidgin, which I use to bring my Yahoo!, AOL/AIM and Google chat accounts under one app, I switched from the “Classic” Yahoo Mail Web interface to the “All-New” version of Yahoo Mail, which is designed to look and act like a traditional local mail client, with drag-and-drop capability.

The reason I haven’t been using the “new” interface until now is that its relatively large graphical load doesn’t play well with some of my, ahem, older hardware, and the speed of the “old” Yahoo Mail is very much needed on those creaky laptops and desktops.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, I opted for the “new” Yahoo Mail so I could use the integrated Yahoo Messengher client. When you want to chat with one of your Yahoo contacts, all you do is click on their name, and a chat window opens in your mail interface. That way, you can use Yahoo Messenger without needing to have the application installed on your computer.

Now I’m bringing things around to my point, which is Google. Google’s chat service — Google Talk — has a “gadget” that mimics a standalone IM applications but can be used on any PC with a compatible Web browser. That way you can use Google Talk from just about any Web-connected PC without worrying about individual clients or Pidgin.

I only have one person who I use Google Talk to IM, so I’m probably better off using Pidgin if I can, but it’s nice to see so much innovation in chat from Google and Yahoo. For all I know, AIM has the same capability, but since I’ve probably checked my AOL mail … maybe once or twice … since I first signed up for AIM a few years ago, I know nothing about it. I also remember AOL Mail as offering IMAP and POP to its users, and for that reason alone it might be well worth investigating as a mail solution.

Note: I remember hearing that Google was “rolling out” IMAP access to Gmail users and not granting it to all at once. Since my DSL Extreme account is not part of the regular Gmail throng, I appear to have both IMAP and POP as part of the deal between DSL Extreme and Google.

Summing up: A bit long and rambly, don’t you think? I’m just trying to think out loud about how deep I’m getting into the world of Google and its services.

There’s been a loud, long argument in the free, open-source software community (and at LXer in particular) about what cloud computing means for open-source software, users, freedom and all of that. For me, the freedom to have my files live in the cloud and be accessed from anywhere I’m networked is trumping almost everything else.

I’d love for the Google Docs interface to get more sophisticated about things like indented paragraphs and smart quotes — two of my typographical pet peeves. The technology is there, since Docs is based on HTML and CSS and can do anything that those two sophisticated technologies allow (and that is quite a lot).

And as I’ve said more than a few times recently, having the option of working with my cloud-based files either through Web interfaces or via the same kinds of locally based applications we all use today is something I’m very interested in seeing happen. It’s kind of ironic that the company I see buying into this concept (although their plans and offerings are presented in such a cryptic way that I can never really tell just what they’re planning) is Microsoft.

Yes, Microsoft’s dependence on traditional apps like MS Office and the billions it brings them has profoundly affected the company’s strategy for cloud-based data and apps. At the end of the day, a melding of local client apps that are not necessarily Web browsers could very well be more efficient than doing everything through the browser. (Or not; it’s too early to tell at this point).

The more data we have, from text files to images, audio and video, is increasingly hard to get a handle on. We need help storing, backing up, categorizing and utilizing all of this data. In my mind, it all points to the cloud.

Depending on how you look at it, it’s a little “Matrix”-y, “HAL 9000”-ish, “Neuromancer”-like

All I know is that Sun’s “The Network Is the Computer” mantra is becoming more true every day. Some of that will be good, some not. And that goodness/other will differ from person to person, application to application and entity to entity.

We won’t be limited to the huge cloud providers. There will still be traditional servers everywhere, along with clients in more shapes, sizes and guises than you could imagine. And the lone-PC-in-the-wilderness won’t go away, just as paper itself has survived in this most computer-infused of ages.

But the cloud model is real. And it’s growing.

Companies that understand this will prosper, others not so much.

Google Gears now works with Firefox 3 — and Ubuntu 8.04

Now that Firefox 3 has been officially released, the Google Gears team wasted no time in pounding out a new version of the API that works with FF3.

Coincidentally, this means that Google Gears now works with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, which began its life a couple of months ago with the then-non-Gears-supported FF 3 beta.

According to the blog post cited above, the change was made on June 11, but I don’t think the Gears link worked for Linux systems with Firefox 3 (i.e. everybody running Ubuntu 8.04) on that day.

But now that FF3 is officially official, I expect Gears to install in the latest Firefox browser, and I in turn expect my laptop (and me) to be enjoying offline access to my Google Docs files real soon now.

I tried Google Docs with Gears a week ago on Firefox 2 in the Slackware-derived Wolvix Hunter last week, and I was very impressed. Editing of existing Docs files was seamless, and while I miss the ability to create new files in Google Docs while offline, I’m fairly confident that the big brains at Google are hard at work adding this needed bit of functionality to the Docs/Gears world.

By way of explanation, here’s what I know about using Google Gears:

Google Gears is what’s called an API (which stands for Application Programming Interface), and it installs as a Firefox add-on. If you don’t have a live Internet connection, Gears detects this and uses a SQlite database set up in the user’s Firefox directory to allow the ability to read and edit files in Google Docs.

When Gears is first installed, the database is created and populated with all the user’s Google Docs files, after which Gears attempts at the earliest opportunity to sync that database with the files on the online version of Google Docs.

Like I said, I’ve tried it, it’s brilliant, and it’s finally come to the one computer that is regularly offline — my Gateway Solo 1450, which for the time being has no wireless connectivity (something I hope to remedy with a new PCMCIA assembly, should I be able to figure out how to pull the old one and replace it).

Google Gears/Docs update: I installed it in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, and it works. I plan to use it often.

Gears/Docs tip: I think I have a way to get around Google Docs/Gears inability to create new documents while offline.

I haven’t tried this yet, but I plan to create a half-dozen to a dozen “dummy” documents in Google Docs while online so I’ll have pre-created, empty documents in which to work when I’m not connected and using Docs via Gears.

Craziest story of the day: Google floats a balloon

This is pure speculation, but reports are flying around out there that Google plans to shoot hydrogen-filled balloons 20 miles into the sky in order to provide wireless services to middle America.

Here’s what Google-Watch has to say about it:

Google declined to comment, but bear with me for the rub. These hydrogen-filled balloons float up 20 miles into the stratosphere with electronics that acts like a cell phone tower proxy to deliver wireless services to the thousands of miles of territory I mentioned above.

Of course, these disposable balloons are good for only a day before they pop. The gear they carry relies on gravity and tiny parachutes to get back to earth.

It gets zanier. To launch these balloons, Space Data pays mechanics and dairy farmers $50 a pop to launch the space-bound balloons. While the balloons are cheap, the electronics in them are worth about $1,500. Space Data pays 20 “hobbyists” armed with GPS devices $100 for each device they find.

The Journal story acutely points out that more than a third of rural Americans don’t have Internet connections, partly because it’s costly to build cell phone towers in areas with so few customers. Space Data claims a single balloon can cover an area normally requiring 40 cell towers.

Who needs cellular towers to muck up middle America when you can use mini cell towers borne by good ole-fashioned balloons?

And no kittens will be involved.

While Microsoft chases Yahoo, here’s how Apple can win

Google didn’t get where it is today by charging end users for software and charging them again and again for endless upgrades.

Back in the early Macintosh days (i.e. the mid- to late ’80s), Apple used the OS to sell hardware. Upgrades were free.

Today, Apple sells music at 99 cents a track, but what they’re really selling is iPods, iPhones, iMacs, and any other damn thing they can slap an “i” in front of. And while the music is available in 99-cent increments, the iTunes software — which runs in Windows and OS X — has always been free. iPods would’ve never gotten to be such a huge business in any other way.

It’s no different for the OS.

With that in mind, Apple wins on the desktop — and crushes Microsoft — in one way:

Make OS X free — or very cheap. And make it run on Windows-compatible PCs.

Everybody wants that new MacBook Air. They’ll still want it, even if they can also run OS X on a crappy PC. While not getting $129 for each OS X upgrade, Apple would get market share, still move a whole lot of hardaware. And they would gain that all-important “mindshare.”

Most people have heard of Linux, but few have seen it on the desktop, even though they “use” it every day when they browse the Web. Most have seen OS X, a significant portion have used it a bit, and a few are rabid fans.

And while I’d like to see OS X go free and open-source, I won’t hold my breath on that one. As I said above, I’d prefer — at a minimum — that Apple port OS X to Windows PCs, i.e. make a native version that installs from CD and runs on non-Apple hardware.

But even making new versions of OS X free for Apple hardware would prompt more users to upgrade the software. When running the latest and greatest gets slow, they’d be more inclined to buy new hardware, most likely from Apple.

Right now I’m still running my 2003-era iBook on OS X 10.3. I saved $129 twice by not upgrading to 10.4 and 10.5. I can’t even use Apple’s newest Safari browser because it doesn’t run on 10.3. Firefox does, so that’s what I use. As a result, Apple misses out on any browser-generated ad revenue. Would 10.5 run well on my laptop? Who knows? I sure don’t want to spend $129 to find out.

By flooding the market with a free or very cheap OS X, Apple could blunt the effects of Microsoft Windows, which customers pay for but don’t really feel they’re paying for because the cost is bundled into just about every PC sold.

Even if a free OS wouldn’t fly at Apple HQ, if the company still ported OS X to Windows-compatible PCs, they could — and should — compete with Microsoft when it comes to pre-installed operating systems on non-Apple hardware.

Imagine if you could order a PC from Dell with Windows, Linux or OS X … there would be real competition for the hearts and minds of computer users everywhere from the home to the enterprise.

And since Apple’s hardware is so ultra-cool (and ultra-pricey), they’d probably sell even more of it if OS X had a much larger of the overall worldwide OS pie.

Is Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo to keep Amazon from getting it first?

You think? That’s one of the stories out there right now. Makes sense to me: Amazon could definitely use Yahoo as both partner and source of revenue. Amazon could also conceivably tap Yahoo’s pool of developers to help bolster the Amazon cloud computing initiative.

And tamping down any mojo that Microsoft might gain in the SAAS (software as a service) and overall cloud computing sector only helps Amazon’s own foray into what many people think is the future of computing (though others think it’s much ado about little).

Clearly it’s good business for Microsoft to buy Yahoo and entrench itself as a firm No. 2 in search advertising. And … while I’m touting the alleged skills of Yahoo’s developers, Yahoo itself is way behind Google when it comes to Web-based applications. Yahoo has nothing like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, nor does it seem to have a Google-like plan to leverage Docs, Gmail and network storage as a fee-based service for the enterprise.

I still think Yahoo Mail has an edge over Gmail, excepting the fact that Gmail can run a totally secure session (which, nevertheless can be hacked into through unencrypted cookies) and Yahoo Mail cannot, but to me Yahoo Mail keeps that edge with usability and functionality … but … Gmail offers free POP mail, Yahoo charges for it, and Gmail is also rolling out IMAP, with no similar plan for Yahoo that I know about.

On the other hand, the latest rendition of Yahoo Mail, if run on fast-enough hardware, does an admirable job of mimicking a stand-alone e-mail client. It’s the kind of app that makes me think Yahoo can develop a credible alternative to Google Docs if they wanted to do so.

Anyhow, back to business. One of the perils of being a publicly traded company without huge mounds of cash on hand is that somebody like Microsoft can swoop in and buy you when your stock is tanking.

Yahoo is a valuable brand with good core technologies. Given the time, they can manage their way out of this mess. But in today’s world, time is scarce.

There are two kinds of tech companies out there: those who would love to be bought by Microsoft, and those who loathe it. OK, there’s a third kind: those likely to be threatened with legal action by Microsoft, but I’m getting off-track here.

Remember this, Yahooligans: The Web isn’t set in stone. If Yahoo is assimilated, you can always cash out and start something newer and better.

As for Microsoft, the company has never been shy about acquiring the technology and market share it needs in order to survive and grow. They’ve got the money, so this acquisition is a no-brainer for them. The clash-of-culture thing could be a problem, but for most people, if the checks keep coming (and they don’t make people move to Seattle) and they see some kind of mission in their work, many will keep going. If it doesn’t go so well, Microsoft parts with cash to crush the No. 2 player in search advertising and effectively assumes that mantle itself.

But letting anybody else — especially someone with the scale and ambition of Amazon — get Yahoo, that would only hurt Microsoft’s search-ad, networked-application and plain-craven-moneymaking mojo. What’s a big load of cash good for when you can’t use it to crush your rivals?

Unless Yahoo can somehow find someone, somewhere with a bigger load of ready money or pricey stock, it looks like Redmond will win this round.

And whether the merger succeeds or fails, if it happens at all, it’s huge-upside time for the folks in Redmond.

Question: Can we trust Google with our data?

It’s not just Gmail, but Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and even more data in Google’s cloud. Can individuals and even corporations trust Google with their information?

I know they have the whole “don’t be evil” thing going on, but isn’t “evil” in the eye of the beholder.

On the other hand, is Google technically competent enough to keep the data from being damaged or destroyed? And on the other, other hand, maybe Google (or Amazon, IBM or what have you) is way, way better-equipped to be in charge of your data than you are.

The big question: Will Google roll over on you when the goverment comes a-callin’. I don’t know what Google’s record is on this, and the whole thing is a legal quagmire in the making.

From a purely technical standpoint, it might be a good idea to keep local backups, even if all your data is in Google, Amazon/Red Hat, IBM or whoever’s cloud.

But considering how poor most of us (myself included) are at making and keeping backups, cloud computing and data storage is probably a pretty good idea.

But I throw it to you: Do you trust Google?

Why Google has a LEGO theme today

Glad you asked … it’s the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick, and the Googlites (i.e. the two founders) used the plastic bricks to make cases for hard drives when they were first developing the now-iconic search engine.

Why I barely use Internet Explorer 7, even though I was a big fan of IE6

Let’s get to it: I have one Web site that I work on infrequently that requires Internet Explorer, but since I barely have to do anything on it, I am free to use IE, or not.

And I waited at least a year to “upgrade” my IE6 to IE7 on the XP box at work. Yeah, it’s an upgrade because now IE has tabbed browsing — a feature Firefox has had for years, and which IE probably would’ve never added had FF not had it first.

I like IE6 because it was a fast program — it opened fast and did the rest of its thing fast. And I could use it as an FTP client.

Now that I have IE7, sure there is tabbed browsing, and it looks a little better, but it’s way slower than Firefox, and I pretty much only fire up IE for ONE Web site because it’s at the top of my IE favorites and the bottom of my FF favorites.

IE loads more slowly, the favorites come up slower — basically it gets beat by FF in performance by every measure. (I’m running a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM.)

And I can run Firefox in Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X … and I do (though I’m partial to the Mozilla-derived Epiphany in the GNOME desktop, as well as the Seamonkey browser/e-mail client/HTML editor suite — also based on Mozilla).

Truth be told, if it really bothered me, I’d try to roll the box back to IE6, if that indeed can be done. Since IE7 installs over your IE6, I think it might be a problem to “go back.”

Note: While I can’t get the same FTP functionality out of IE7, I have a Windows workaround: Open up My Computer from the Start menu, and type your FTP address in the search bar. The window functions pretty much like IE6 — it’s the same “Explorer”-like interface Windows uses to let you examine your own files, and it does FTP just like IE6. Thanks, Microsoft!

I used to think IE was the best browser for OS X, too — that final version of IE5 for the Mac was a masterful, innovative application, and I’m sorry Microsoft abandoned it. Safari doesn’t have enough critical mass to cut it — many Web sites don’t look so hot in it — so Firefox is pretty much the browser of record for the Mac, too.

And Mozilla is making hand-over-fist money by getting a cut of the Google searches made through the browser. All it means is more money that Microsoft isn’t making.

Hope you’re happy, Microsoft!