Getting Disconnected

The purpose of my Netbook experiment was to go without software. There has been an interesting side effect of my efforts, I am now learning that I can go without hardware!

The more I push myself to become independent of the tether called software, the more I am realizing I do not need to worry as much about having a specific computer at hand. Don't get me wrong, I know I cannot walk around without the Softless Netbook and have any guarantee to be online all the time, but I am learning that if my computing life is geared to live in the clouds, then I don't care what I use to reach them.

Case in point, my wife offices out of our home. Her office is downstairs, my home office is upstairs. It is just as easy for me to jump on her office machine, log on to my office web email access, check email and send out meeting requests, as it is to climb 14 steps to retrieve the Softless Netbook. I can write this blog, work on my web site, Tweet to my heart's content, and never leave the first floor our our residence. Yes, I am lazy. But its true.

The importance of this week's story is that while we are achieving software independence we are also achieving hardware independence. This (I think) in part, is playing a large part in the proliferation of mobile devices. It just doesn't matter how you connect, as long as you can get connected. Thus ideas like Netbooks are now a growing reality, not an occasional visionary. Since I have been carrying mine, have noticed a lot more of them. This may not be a fad.

On another front, I am still chained to some applications. I have yet to find a suitable replacement for PowerPoint. Don't say Google Presentation, I'll make you put together a real deck with it as punishment. Its not that Google Docs Presentation does not work, it just does not work in the same class as PowerPoint. I am willing to compromise, I am not willing to go backwards in time. I am not sure why Google Docs Documents is so good, and Presentation is so bad, but in my opinion it appears they were written in two different eras, let alone buildings. Over the next few weeks I will be looking into some options. You can be assured I will report them here.

To cap this week's comments off, I want to mention a new application I started using this week. Its a remote desktop tool called LogMeIn. I use it to access the laptop (that I have started to think of as a desktop) at work. We have some very heavy client side data tools that are not anywhere near ready to be hosted (think Java Eclipse IDE for data stores). To use them I have been linking to the desktop of my office via LogMeIn. So far, so good. The video could be better, but once I start working on a project I forget all about the pink that should be white. The best part, they have a free version that meets my needs.

Also next week I think the new NetBook will be here...should be interesting to see how all this transfers over to LINUX.