Before I go to bed, I had a quick thought. Over Spring Break, my laptop completely died. When I got back to school, I had to get my computer re-imaged, and while I didn't lose my My Documents or Desktop files, I lost all my programs. It was painful. I lost 11 months worth of archived e-mails. I lost the special version of AIM that I had paid for and specifically configured. I lost my Google Desktop, with all my RSS feeds attached. I had many, many programs in my start menu, which were all gone. Now, two weeks after I got my new laptop, I have installed just 7 programs onto the computer:
- Regular AIM, in case my meebo isn't working right one day.
- Easy MP3 Alarm Clock from www.deepcom.com, because I haven't found a Web 2.0 alarm clock (please comment if you know one!).
- Google Desktop, because nothing I've ever used can index your e-mails, files, chats, and web history better, or make searching easier or more convenient.
- Google Talk, because it's a great way to catch up with friends for free.
- Google Web Accelerator, because it's so satisfying to know that I've saved 25.0 minutes.
- iTunes , because it's one-click buying of new tunes, and organizes my music and podcasts well. It's not my music player of choice.
- And finally, the wonderful Mozilla Firefox 1.5 . No explanation needed.
So I have installed just seven programs, only two of which are software applications that I commonly use: my Firefox browser and iTunes. Yet I have been crawling the Internet more now than I have in years. The key is that I'm increasingly moving my applications from the desktop to the webtop. My music comes from Pandora, my e-mail from Gmail, my instant messaging from meebo, my feeds from Google Reader, and my new front page on Net Vibes. When I'm at a friends house, I can play my own radio stations from my Pandora account, or check my latest feeds at Google. Not only has my personal computer experience gotten much safer, but it was gotten much more portable.
Hopefully I can knock off several of those items off of my install list over the next couple of months. I'll keep you posted. Please feel free to comment with any suggestions of your own.
You can download and use this software for alarm. It is better than your alarm software now
http://www.cinnamonsoftware.com/alarm_clock.htm
Posted by: JimmyHuy | Monday, April 17, 2006 at 10:08 PM