As I write this, I’m in a Holiday Inn in New Hampshire. I don’t have a laptop with me, but I’ve got a stack of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition books next to me, and a review due Sunday night. A few years ago, I’d have been doomed, but now I’ve got access to the net via the hotel’s lackluster Windows XP machine. The machine itself doesn’t have Microsoft Word installed, but again, no problem: the net has what I need, or more specifically, Google does.
Sitting in Google Docs is a copy of my review, and with a few clicks, I’ve got the document up in front of me, cursor eagerly awaiting my input. I won’t finish the review tonight (especially if I keep breaking away to Nuketown to write spontaneous blog posts) but that’s ok. One quick save, and my Google Doc’s updated, and ready for me to pick it up again once I reach my sister’s house.
Laptop? Who needs a freaking laptop?
Ok, in truth, I do — to be without it is like missing a limb — but the great thing is that I do have this virtual workspace that I can get to quickly and easily simply by firing up a browser. Granted, it doesn’t have all my documents, and in truth, I don’t want it to. I like Google … but I don’t trust it to hold all of my data. But it has what I need, at this moment in time: a document, floating in the ether that is the Google metaverse, allow me to access it whenever and however I want.
That’s pretty damn cool.