tzunami.com — Why is it that despite the fact that you can do virtually anything from anywhere through the Net, most of us are still tethered to our computer because of the need for access to basic desktop software? In this article, we highlight 100 free webware apps which will help you cut the cord from your computer and its traditional desktop software.
Aug 10, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountAug 10, 2007
Unless i can play CS:S using my web browser then i give two hoots about web application. I said it before and i am saying it again. Web Apps != real Apps.If you want an office on the go then just get a damn memory stick and install a linux OS fully customized to your needs on it or if You can have executables of your favorite Apps for windows on it. hell there are some many Office, Media and internet apps that directly run of and exe and done even need to be installed on a system.Also carrying one flash drive around is far far more superior then remember your account id on 100 f**king websites.
redboydotcxAug 10, 2007
I like some of these apps, but what several posters have said about giving away your data and relying on a third party is a big deal for me. I've got a lot of the functionality running on my own server:Mail: Roundcube. The latest release fixed search, and seems much faster. Its not GMail, but its as close as I feel like I need to come. Bookmarks: Scuttle. They implemented a lot of the del.icio.us API, and it works really well for me. They haven't released in a couple years, though, and based on the amount of spam on scuttle.org, I'm worried about spam bots finding my install and battering it. Task management: TaskFreak!. It rocks, exept that it can't send you reminders. RSS: Gregarius. Love it, love it, love it! I added a plugin that puts a Flash MP3 player in front of MP3 enclosures. No more downloading podcasts unless I actually listen to them!Misc: TorrentFreak for downloading Linux isos, and I've while there really aren't any good web-based music managers that I've seen, KPlaylist seems to suck the least. Not exactly a web app, but SamePlace is a Jabber client implemented as a plugin to Firefox; not full-featured, but its a good chat app, and its lead developer has some amazing ideas in the works. I'm still missing a good calendar app, and way to have my system ping my phone or Jabber client. Its not anywhere near perfect, but I use these in place of desktop apps in several cases. I can SSL-ify everything, and I still retain full control over all my data.
robmclayAug 10, 2007
8. Forced upgrades/downgradesWould hate to fire up the browser and find a feature I depended on was gone, or changed significantly as to make me have to change my workflow.
thisismynameAug 10, 2007
f**k that s**t! There was just another story on Digg earlier today explaining how to use Google securely as they default to regular (ie, insecure) for connections for everything except your initial login, and now another article's here trying to sell me on all these wonderful online tools. Hmm... I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Only a fool relies on online, 3rd party tools for their important data.A lot of people see no problem with such things, and happily store their most important data, as well as their everyday emails and such online because it's so convenient (and it is!). But ask anyone who's been cyber-stalked, or who's had their identity stolen whether they would trust such services, and the resounding answer is always no. People only trust online services until they're confronted with the reality that there are thief’s out there, there are service outages, and there are no guarantees from these companies.Remember all the stories when Gmail was in beta (The original beta, with limited invitations. Not this "production-ready" lifetime beta they use now to get out of lawsuits), about people losing months worth of emails, with no warning, and no backup to fall back on? This is the same thing right here waiting to happen. You can now (or soon will be able to) store 9GB's of email online via your Google account, but what would you do if you lost all that email? Do you have 9GB's of data backed up elsewhere?Do you think that these companies really care about you? They’re there to make a buck 99% of the time. That’s the only reason they exist, and their forte is in product development. Not customer searvice. If your data is lost, and you haven’t planned for this eventuality, then you’re f**ked, plain and simple.And you can threaten them all you want, but they owe you nothing. All of the free services have disclaimers and fine print which absolves them of any responsibility when it comes to you and your data, and most of the pay services have similar disclaimers, if you take the time to read them.But some of these sites do have uses. You just have to learn about them, and plan your strategy. For example, I use Gmail to store files offline using an app which treats my mailspace as a virtual drive. But before I do this, I encrypt the hell out of what I'm storing there, and I only use this as an off-site backup. My local copies are always here, and the online service only serves as a backup to the backups, so-to-speak. And this makes sense, in the sense that if my houose burned down, my backups would go with it, but my off-site backups would be safe. This also protects me in the event that the company hosting my files suddenly gets hacked, loses the data, or just goes out of business, as my actual backups are not store on them.I could ramble on, but I’ll finish with this:If you’re going to be taken in by the marketing gurus of this “new wave” of Internet-enabled apps, keep several things in mind:1.
gojedaAug 11, 2007
The PC is still necessary because an Internet connection will never be as fast at a task that is running locally on your computer.That being said, yes, some of these webware apps are nice, especially if you are, say, a traveler who does not travel with a laptop....but please do not mislead people thining they can toss their PC.I will not bury this as some of these apps are quite good
bshockAug 11, 2007
Idiotic. We want hard drives so that we can have some sort of control over information that's valuable to us. Leaving it all on the Web is leaving it all to Big Brother.
xenogisAug 11, 2007
I have a hard drive because I have a life. That means I have pictures, music, and home video on my hard drive. Not just office programs and documents.