I’m taking the web-only challenge. Are you in?
With the slew of decent-powered but low-priced, small notebooks, I thought I’d try a little experiment. As of the time I hit “publish” on this post, I’m going to see how long I can go without using a full client application on my Mac or my UMPC. It’s not a terrible stretch for me to do this because I’ve been migrating away from software and towards services for nearly a year now. Still, a few times a day I currently up an app like Word, Outlook or the new Pandora client. Just for kicks, I want to see how long I can go without any of them.
This ties in with mobility, my last two years of daily UMPC usage and that wave of netbooks I alluded to at the beginning of this conversation. For mobility, you need connectivity, but you don’t necessarily need horsepower… unless you’re a PIXAR animator that likes to work in the park. If you are, I’d love to see the rig you lug around. 
And UMPCs over the last two years? I’ve watched them struggle with a balance between performance and run-time due to battery life and device design. With the 1.33 GHz Intel Core Solo under the hood and the two 6-cell batteries I have for my Samsung Q1UP UMPC, I can easily work a full 10-hour day so I’m covered there as well. Many of the new netbooks and small notebooks should benefit in terms of battery life with Intel’s Atom, even though there’s still some question on the performance side of the house. I think we’ll see a generally acceptable compromise between performance and power needs, but in the end, you won’t be designing “Cars II” on these smaller devices. The raw performance isn’t there and it isn’t meant to be.My thought is that while some people will always have a genuine need for specific client applications, you can be productive with a lower-performance device that doesn’t have much more than a web browser and some type of connectivity. Web services are maturing… not extremely fast… but fast enough and with functions that people want to use; not tons of functions that few will use, as I’ve seen in many a desktop application. I’m also a good candidate for such an experiment: my computing needs are really meager in the sense that I create contentSo the intent here is to “test” a lifestyle. A paradigm shift. A glimpse into what I expect we’ll see in the future. Namely: a centralized heavy-duty box for the home, but lighter, portable web devices for the home’s inhabitants. I realize that not everyone wants or is ready for that and that’s OK. Personal computing is, and should be, personal. This is just to have a frame of reference and help open up some eyes as to what you can really do with small, low-cost notebook or UMPC and the web.I’ll have to request four exceptions up front. First, for my WWAN connectivity, I use a Verizon EV-DO card. On my PCs, I have to run the VZ Access software to make such a connection, so that’s going to be labeled “acceptable”. I don’t need to run that software on my Mac. Another exception is for me to download, trial, and/or review software applications to be covered here at jkOnTheRun or other writing venues I contribute to. I also reserve the right to use iTunes but ONLY to upgrade my iPhone if I’m still holding out when the next software upgrade occurs. I also produce the MobileTechRoundup podcast, so unless you don’t want to hear any more shows, you’re going to have to let me use Skype and Audacity for the show. Aside from those few conditions, I’ll have one app and one app running only: my web browser. Deal? [If you're really feeling charitable, you'll let me read my eBooks in eReader too, but I'd understand if you won't. ]I’m not really suggesting you join me on this, but it might be a good experiment to try. See how long you can be fully productive using nothing more than a browser and web services if you can. You just might find some new services that you would have missed otherwise.I’ll report in along the way if I determine there’s any information that would be useful to share. Of course, I’ll also let you know when I fell off the wagon and why. The clock starts now!
Good luck Kevin! I’d try with you but I won’t last a few minutes until I go crazy w/o Outlook or OneNote.
Pixar animators who like to work in the park use HDX Dragons
I would die on just web-apps. Really, I would. Major respect for you if you can do it.
Yeah, right, Kevin. I’m really going to UPLOAD a frikkin photo just to crop and resize it for my blog? And then REdownload it to UPload it to my blog?
I. Don’t. Think. So.
Photo apps, as mentioned, are the hardest to get rid of. Navigation and av apps too.
But where do you draw the line between OS built-in and client apps?
Is WMP a client app? What about windows live apps that you have to download?
Cheack out the Wakoopa UMPC team and youll see what apps we use the most.
I encourage other umpc owners to join too. Especially you Kevin. Then we can track you!
http://wakoopa.com/teams/umpc
Steve
I love online apps because they are extremely lite weight and allow me to stay productive even on a machine that many times smaller than a desktop or traditional laptop. Granted, the UX490 is still the most powerful UMPC market, and has the highest power:size ratio, but I am using the UX180 which is 1.2GHz Core Solo with only 512MB of RAM, and I don’t just “get by” I have the full experience that I need on a computer even through almost completely web based activities. Once you get yourself set up in the world of web apps you never want to go back. The biggest advantage and the thing that keeps my coming back is the ability to have access to all of your information from any computer.
I use my iPod Touch as an extension to my UX and I can access nearly everything that I need on my iPod Touch. When I need power to create content the UX goes right in my pocket.
Wakoopa would be a good way for us to keep Kevin honest. But wouldn’t Kevin be failing the challenge by installing the Wakoopa client install?
I think this kind of cloud computing is a nice idea, but not really all that practical if you are doing anything that would qualify as “mission critical”.
First, connectivity and bandwidth are still too unreliable. I’ve experienced complete outages (at least within the area I’m in) a couple times with the Sprint EVDO services and I’ve also found plenty of places where the signal is too weak to get any kind of reasonable throughput.
Second, web services simply put too much dependency on a remote service that is out of my control. With local applications and data storage, I suppose I do run the risk of a hard drive crash or some other system failure, but at least I’m not at the mercy of some third party that I have minimal-to-no control over. Having experienced significant outages or service degradations from my email and web hosting companies in the past, I’m definitely not ready to run a risk of the same kind of problem with word processing, notetaking, or even something entertainment-oriented like music playback.
Finally, I think there is still a big issue of security. My employer already expects us to maintain certain levels of security on any systems where company-confidential materials are stored. We also have to use a VPN to get into the corporate network. For any company work, use of cloud computing services are pretty much forbidden unless the company has entered into an SLA with the service vendor regarding security and reliability. These issues are going to make most cloud computing options pretty much a non-starter for a large percentage of business-people that want mobility for their work.
Still, I’ll certainly be interested to see how your experiment ends up going. I’m sure that under certain circumstances and conditions, working in the cloud will work out well. I do hope you will pay close attention, though, to how much (if any) productivity, convenience and ease-of-use you end up having to sacrifice to make that work.
For me, cloud computing is a no-go. Inadequate security (both in terms of transmission and storage) and lack of apps are the two main issues, although mobile bandwidth cost is in there as well. I need control over the security of my files; I know now when they are backed up, both locally and remotely, but I don’t know that if I rely on the cloud. Also, video & high res photo editing need far more bandwidth than wireless supplies currently. Plus, there simply aren’t versions of most of what I need in the cloud. Screenwriting software, for example.
If your main area of work is non-mission-critical content creation for the public, then cloud computing is fine. But for the core of most businesses, where security and near-100% uptime are the difference between success and failure, it just doesn’t work yet.
Sounds like a fun experiment. Definitely keep a list (updated for us readers, of course) of the apps you find yourself using.
So you’re only going to use Skype for the show, not for occasional other calls?
Hi Kevin,
I’ve been using a Pentium III 1Ghz laptop to run apps on my main desktop via Remote Desktop (over EVDO). Once in while I might notice a little slowness due to latency of the connection but overall its very usable.
BTW, I’m still running my XV6700 but upgraded to WM6 (Helmi version) and SPB Mobile Shell with an 8GB microSD card. It’s really amazing how well it runs now.
Welcome to the cloud. There are a lot of us who rely exclusively on the cloud for casual computing. Because I own a MacBook, a Q1, and an eeePC, my main system requirement is Firefox compatible. I understand that it’s not viable for enterprise solutions, or high end video/music/animation/etc, but for day to day, it serves me well.
No.
I’d love to be able to do this but it doesn’t even work for Word documents. I still have some other cloud services to try but it’s not looking good.
To me Skype or other VoIP solutions instead of landlines qualifies as web apps.
I personally couldn’t survive without client apps. I need a programming tool for coding and while the coding part (syntax, objects, efficiency, etc…) can easily be supplied on a web service app the compiler would have to be a local feature as some apps take ages to compile and this is a very processor intensive task.
Program/software technology types I don’t think are viable for web apps atm are:
Language Compilers,
Video Editors,
Picture Editors,
Critical apps that need access 100% connectivity like some military/government databases/communication software.
Of course the first three will be limited by bandwidth and processor power (systems that will improve in the future) but the last listed item will always be a niche me thinks.
>>>Second, web services simply put too much dependency on a remote service that is out of my control.
Sing it, brother! YahooMail has always managed to find the *exact* moment to be ill when I Absolutely Must get an email out NOW.
Why does it have to be Either-Or? What’s wrong with Both?
@Hatmike:
Have you tried Zoho apps? Maybe you’re a power user, but works well for me.
I like Zoho. I tinker mostly in Google docs, but have been interested to give it a shot. How’s the mobile web client?
You may also consider using RescueTime to track your usage. Does a great job tracking usage and the nice thing is that you can bucket different apps in different categories. Now if you are on the web nearly exclusively that may not be a useful feature to you.
@JR: “the compiler would have to be a local feature as some apps take ages to compile and this is a very processor intensive task.”
As someone who does a lot of programming from my HTC x7500, I’m very thankful of remote compilation! You’re statement seems to be based upon an assumption that the client machine will have more processing power than the server… not always true, especially when you’ve got your own cluster-based server system that can expand on demand to super-computer processing speeds.
See Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for example.