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Recently I've been coming to you live (-ish) from Google Docs. Yes, the past couple blogs, and this one, and pretty much the next one, and the one after that... etc... will be from Google Docs. This comes from an individual who spent many a year in MS Word, from writing endless papers in college (don't double major in writing intensive disciplines, kids) as well as the odd, ill fated attempts at fiction. I even know how to use the really cool stuff, like indexes, outlines, table of contents, and quite a few other little bells and whistles that bloat MS Word so mercilessly.

Really, can't deny MS Word is a prime example of software bloat. Like many programs, it developed so many features that it virtually lost relevance to its core functionality. That core functionally, which most people use it for, is "typing stuff." Don't get me wrong, I'm not "anti-Word". I still like it and use it, but it is pretty much overkill to pound out blog entries. After the spell check, there's not much there that enriches the blog-writing experience. As one prone to those mistakes that commonly elude spell-checkers, even that doesn't do much for me.

Perhaps Word's bloat is just not really "cool", unlike say... Photoshop's bloat. Sure, you'll probably never use a quarter of all the stuff in Photoshop, but it's still fun to find buttons you've never pushed before and just see what happens. A similar experience is pretty hard to obtain with Word. Text is text. It's crisp, vector, and beyond font choice, there's little you can accomplish "graphically" that makes for an amusing way to pass the time on a slow afternoon. Well, the table of contents thing in Word is cool, but you actually need to structure your document beyond just adding extra hard returns around "headers."

In terms of feature-set, Google Docs doesn't quite approach the massive list upon which Word rests its laurels. That's the point, though. Basic formatting, indents, quotes, lists, justification, a handy spell check, and some styling choices (header, etc) are pretty much all there is. Can't even insert a table. But it works, especially for simple, direct stuff like this. My formatting needs for this blog don't run much higher than bold, italics, and the occasional hyperlink, usually to Wikipedia. Google Docs has all of that and very little more. Granted, the spell-checker in Docs, much like the one in Word, isn't fool-proof. I should know, I'm the fool using it.

The main plus to Google Docs is the portability. Basically, you aren't really porting around anything. Your Docs are saved on Google's servers and accessible via most any web browser. Just sign into your Google account from anywhere and continue to write and edit a document. In a world of portable flash memory, this might not seem like such a huge deal, but for most the convenience will be real. One doesn't have to worry about wither their saved version is the latest, since the only copy is on the server.

Haven't really tried out Doc's sister product, Spreadsheets. It appears to follow the same basic "less is more" design philosophy that characterizes Docs and a lot of other Google releases. Obviously, its use, like Docs, might depend on what kind of features you plan to use. Word is still a perfectly valid choice for advanced projects, as is Excel. It's the more common, everyday tasks at which these applications excel. The ability to work from anywhere is a plus, though I confess I'm certainly not planning on doing any blogging from the comfort of home. The option is there, though, should the unexpectedly dire happen.

Oh, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets are free. I suppose that might also spur someone to choose. That software bloat in Word does have a way of keeping the price up. Financial considerations aside, this comes down to a "right tool for the right job" situation. I was considering a graphical analogy comparing Google Docs and MS Word to MS Paint and Photoshop, but I realized that might actually be a bit of a disservice to Google Docs. Of course, a dirty little secret of mine is that MS Paint actually provided my first taste of the power of pixel manipulation, and I was hooked ever since. It's not something anyone really likes to admit, like saying your first ISP was AOL.

Ahem, which it was for me, but that's beside the point.

New Google Earth Developments

I really didn't want to mention this so soon after doing another Google Earth post, but they've got those little engineer hamsters running 24/7 over there, seems like. Google Earth finds it's place in the Universe with "Sky View." Now, any regular readers will probably have grasped by now that I'm something of a sci-fi geek, so I find this little addition to be exceptionally cool. Right now it seems like something in an embryonic stage that will grow into untold awesomeness. Even in this state you can 'browse' the night sky, see photos from the Hubble Space Telescope, and learn more about galaxies, star clusters, and other nifty things in the real, actual universe.

In interesting-but-slightly-less-than-awesome developments, they also added some real time traffic data and book search references. The book search feature is sorta cool, actually, though the books from which they draw seem primarily to be from the 19th Century and earlier. I suppose the general controversy surrounding the book project lends itself to some caution in the Google Earth implementation.