Saved By The Cloud

My beloved, trusty first-generation MacBook Air finally expired after many years of valued service. It was getting pretty long in the tooth, I must say ... modern operating systems and tasks were really straining it to the limit.

I've had computers expire on me before, but this, aside from the sentimental factor, was probably the least traumatic crash ever. Why? Because a couple of years ago I abandoned productivity suites and moved to the cloud. In my case, Google Docs.

The main reason why I made the switch is because, due I suppose to my laptop's failing efforts to keep pace with the latest and greatest software (which I mercilessly insisted on installing on it), I was finding the on-board word-processing and spreadsheet software just too darn slow. I alternated between Office and the equivalent offerings from Apple.

Once I switched to the cloud, I realized just how lousy those word processors had been and had always been. Even from the earliest days of my using computers to write, and it rather shocks me to say those days reach back to the mid-80s, I, like everyone else, had just accepted that word processor crashed from time to time.

You know what? A bit of time away from Office has made me realize that a word processor that crashes even once in awhile is simply unacceptable. You're almost certain to lose work, not to mention that all-important train of thought. Would we accept a car that stalled regularly? Or a production line that randomly switched off? Of course not. Yet we as a society have accepted that instability is just part of the package.

Then there's the whole issue of slowness. Type, type, type, argh! Spinning beach ball! But why? I'm just writing? No matter, there's some superfluous background task that needs doing, and it requires all your computer's spare resources. Why on earth have these apps become so absurdly bloated over the years? Quite the opposite should be happening, they should be slimmer and faster, but no.

Two years using the cloud and not a single crash. Not a single character lost. No pauses, no hiccups and it starts up in seconds.

There is still a ways to go ... I'd love it if Google Docs were to start using Word files natively. Since pretty much all my clients use Word (poor them!), my files have to be compatible, preferably native. I'd also like a revamp of their track changes software, which still lags behind Word (and isn't fully compatible with Word's annotations).

But still, I'm glad for the cloud. In my case it meant that as I closed the lid on my Air for the very last time, I was able to fire up my desktop and continue where I had just been working. All my documents were safe and sound.

Thus ends my rant for the day. Go cloud!

Oh, and if anyone was wondering what killed my Air, the hard drive died. Possibly damaged by the battery, which I recently had to remove because it was, well, swelling up and threatening to explode.