Bringing Web-Apps to the Desktop
I’ve always liked the idea of “cloud computing” ; where basically all the software you use, is available on the Internet (aka “The Cloud”) as a service. Google Apps is a prime example of this. However, I was never comfortable with using the web interface. The risk of the browser crashing, causing me to lose my work, added to the hassle of having to sift through the list of tabs to find the app I’m using, made using web apps more of a hassle than anything. Although browsers are convenient and portable, because every operating system has one, they tend to be rather clumsy and counter-intuitive at handling applications.
Projects like Mozilla’s Prism aim to solve this hurdle, by allowing user to launch web-apps as if they are “regular” desktop applications. Although it seems to do nothing more than provide a means to launch the application, without the web-browser’s interface getting in the way, it’s a nice step forward. It still doesn’t address the risk of losing work should the application crash, or the connection time out.
And this brings me to Windows Live Writer, an application that I’m currently testing with this blog post. My first impression is that it definitely takes a step towards reducing the risk of data loss. It has a “Save Local Draft” feature, which is located under “File” and can be accessed with the CTRL+S shortcut; very familiar to those who are used to using the Windows interface. I can’t seem to find any option to backup all the blog posts, but if I do find anything along those lines I’ll update this post.
So why bother with cloud computing, if you prefer to use desktop apps? Well for starters, specialized desktop apps are more intuitive, stable and integrate nicely with the operating system. They (should) also allow one to save and backup data locally to prevent data loss. And worst case scenario, one could always fall back to the the web-interface.
