brad garland

Yes, I know, surprised it took this long, eh?

I have just come across some of the coolest new apps that people are creating and deciding to jump in head first with it. Tangent: My co-worker and I were talking yesterday but… how soon it will be before everything we do is either web-based or being run off of one server instead of these individual laptop/desktops we use today? My guess, sooner than we think. The technology is already in place to run the majority of apps, now when it can run my games or fully functioning media apps like Photoshop or Premier…then, it’s all over for local installs of anything. But I digress…

So what did I do to become entirely web based? Well, it’s a combination of little things…I’ve always been a big user of web-based emailers (Hotmail and now Gmail) for a long time b/c I like the flexibility so that was already done. Now as far as my news and such until today I’ve been using Google’s IG page. It’s been real good from a RSS feeds standpoint and I can get all the news from there but I still found myself relying on a Firefox extension I’ve used for a while called Sage. It browser based and did what it was supposed to but, unfortunately, I’m constantly going back and forth between two machines updating my new RSS feeds I’ve added or removed, back and forth, blah blah blah…you know the rest. So I was happy, nay estatic, to come across an deemed ‘Web 2.0’ site called NetVibes. It’s a Google IG type service but only does about 1,000 additional cool things as well. Not only can it do all my RSS feeds, but it has Gmail, Flickr, delicious, Writely, To-Do Lists, POP/IMAP email function, all built right in. Two words: KICK ASS! Due to porting everything over to it I finally jumped onto the delicious bandwagon and put all my bookmarks across my machines on it and, man, I had no idea how much nicer that is, wish I would’ve done it sooner. I already have a Flickr account setup, which has been great, and I can now view random images come across a Flickr feed of my pics OR anyone’s pic if I want. So what’s this whole thing give me access to from any PC on the planet? Let’s break it down:

• Email (personal and possibly work, still working on that one)


• News


• My Photos


• Bookmarks


• To-Do List (needed a place I could keep centrally organized)


• Search (Google, WikiPedia, etc.)

Which pretty much covers anything I need to do on the ‘Net. I couldn’t be happier.

Only drawback? If I lose connection to the Internet, my head, I’m pretty sure, will explode. :)

What’s next you ask? Well…hehe, thinking of possibilities.