Googled

So my recent deployment of the MediaPortal machine has kind of left me scrounging for storage. I've pulled the big drive out of my personal workstation to satiate AVServer's relentless hunger and provide space for all the little red envelopes that have been showing up in my mailbox of late...

This has left me slapping an old 40GB drive in to keep up with email , personal business and a game or three.

I was downloading the latest version of OpenOffice when thoughts of another recent article (that I can't find right now but will link to when I find it...) crept into my head. It talked about Google OS and how Google has really come out with a plethora of applications and services that it damn near IS an OS already.

So, I hit cancel, popped open a fresh frappuccino and began stroking my imaginary beard like an evil-genius with a plan.

I had just completed installation of XP and hammered through all of the required patch files. I'd installed fresh drivers, Nero for CD/DVD burning and OneCare. I'd done my regular tweaking with TweakUI and gotten my 'look and feel' on with StyleXP. I had MediaPlayerClassic installed with the Real and Quicktime alternative patches in place.

So, I turned to Google to see where I could get from there.

I had not yet delved too deeply into GoogleApps and knew they had some office type apps but was pretty well amazed at what I found.

I took one of my "to be played with" domain names and signed up for a free standard apps account. What a toolset! Here I was thinking I'd get a little spreadsheet and word processor, but Google is hosting my whole domain. Mail, Calendar, Chat - for up to 100 users....FREE! They even host web pages if I want and have a nifty little web page creation utility.

Here's a list of the google apps I've got to running:
GMAIL (Up to 100 accounts using my domain name)
Google Calendar (Shared or private)
Google Talk (Chat)
Writely (Word Processor)
Google Spreadsheets (duh)
Google Earth
Google SketchUp (light cad)
Picasa (Photo Management)
Google Desktop
Google Reader
Google Photos Screensaver
Google Video Player

The Google Pack really rounded out the install:
Firefox
Gallery Player HD Images
Skype
Acrobat Reader
(The pack also has virus and spyware apps along with Real)


Then I started hitting the firefox addon's directed at Google:

Google Calendar Quick Add

Google Calendar Notifier

Google Reader Notifier

Firefox Google Bookmarks

Then I started grabbing widgets and plugins - gmail notifiers and managers, gdrive...

It was well past midnight...the room was spinning, I'd been back and forth through so many different interfaces and utilities and I was just in a daze. I slogged off to bed with visions of connected distributed applications dancing in my head.

But it's up, it's running... I'll let you know how it goes when I get home and get to start playing with it.