Google is a great search engine: I use it all the time. But, I am beginning to get bad vibes: the culture at Google is just not open and responsive to users. All they need to do is say what the deal is, and stick to it. I don't like that its cookies expire 35 years from now, and that it records all my searches including the embarrassing ones...
Comments 10:35:14 PM    

I actually have a Linux desktop machine, but I don't have the time to keep it up, patched, cool new apps installed etc. Workspot is just there (an 'immortal machine'): I can get to it from anyplace there's a Web browser and Net connection, and a bunch of Linux geniuses keep it running like a 1967 Pontiac GTO. In fact, I can run Workspot's sleek Red Hat 8.0 Blue Wave desktop more reliably from my rather less elegant RH 7.3 Gnome desktop, which, sadly, keeps crashing.

Compare $10 for Workspot to, say, the $8.25 .mac costs: both give you an email account, but .mac's is via a clunky (read: slow) Webmail interface, where Workspot gives you the full Ximian Evolution email application (with address book that autotypes, calendar, etc. etc.) - it's what you wished Outlook was.

On .mac, you can share files; on Workspot, you can share your whole desktop, apps, files, pictures, Web pages and all. .mac only lets you share files with other Mac users (though you can now share files with Windows XP users who download a special client). Workspot just requires a browser and a Net connection - no special OS, apps or plug-ins required. .mac lets you download and install OS X apps and updates: Workspot does it for you, and they make sure it works.

Another nice Workspot feature, is that you can resume your sessions anytime - all your apps etc. are right where you left them. And $120 a year is probably less than most people pay for a computer. Think about it: the average American consumer keeps a computer 3.5 years, and pays around $1000, which works out to $285.71 a year, vs. $120 for Workspot. Yup, I'm a fan. I'm also [full disclosure] a Workspot Associate. If you click here and then sign up, I will rake in the princely sum of $2.50...
Comments 7:59:49 PM    

So I was thinking of that in relationship to information gradients. It's normal for Web sites to proceed from the very public - the home page for example - to more private info (the bios of the management team and founders).

Weblogs have relatively little in the way of intimacy gradients in the sense that they just hang it all out, in reverse chronological order, on a single page (with archives mainly for convenience). They are more private than, say, Google, in that you usually only can discover them by following links from other blogs. Unless you have heard of me, you're not going to Google 'Gulker', and are much more likely to find me when someone you already are reading links to me.

So, in a way, the Web is one giant edifice, with Google and other search engines as the lobbies, big portals as the street-level commercial space, and Weblogs as the apartments upstairs. Shades of the Metaverse...
Comments 5:28:36 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures