Don’t Be Evil

I spend a lot of time on the internet. That’s no secret.
I like to think that I’ve optimized and streamlined everything as much as possible. I’ve fiddled with Firefox and gotten it to do exactly what I want and need it to do, to the point where it is the most important application on my computer.

Backtrack, it is July 2004 and I’ve just registered for GMail. I’m really pumped about this, because I’m a huge nerd. I use it frequently until the end of highschool, and for that time it is a great tool. Then I stop using it. I honestly don’t know why, maybe I forgot about it, maybe something else, whatever the case, I didn’t use it anymore.

Now some two years later, I logged in to one of my GMail accounts. I’ve used my Google ID for a couple of their other web apps like docs.google.com (which I used to write a couple papers this last semester), but I hadn’t actually signed in to GMail. So I did that today.

No, this isn’t about the messages I found from years ago (which were pretty fun to read) or the spam that somehow got in there. What drove me to write this post is how incredibly tight Google has tied together all of its apps. I’ve paid attention over time as Google churns out nifty web app after web app, but I hadn’t taken the time to see how they worked together, and that’s what makes them valuable. Lets move back to my original point.

I’m considering a massive shift in the way I use computers. I can do this with Google Apps. Google Reader replacing Sage (Firefox plugin for RSS feeds). GMail replacing Thunderbird. Google Calender replacing 30boxes (I like 30boxes well enough, but the integration with Google is so handy). Hell, even iGoogle replacing my homepage. I’m not sure about Picasa replacing Flickr, but I’ll play around with it.

Yes, I’m a bit apprehensive about putting all of my information in the hands of one company. But their privacy policy and terms of service are solid, so I think it should be alright.

I think I’m going to try and go through with this. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.