I love reading Tara at HorsePigCow; she writes stuff that’s sufficiently off-beat to make me think hard and go places I didn’t plan to go. Which is a good thing.
Tara recently posted on the death of the browser, and then followed up after a comment by JulesLt.
And it made me think. About the different behaviours people exhibit in the context of the devices they use, and how those behaviours change when the devices aren’t connected to the ether.
Let’s take the device first. And for the sake of this argument, let’s keep it simple and concentrate on the laptop or handheld computer.
Some people are happy to work “offline” on things, like choring through e-mail while connectionless on a plane; they get off the plane and then zap a plethora of mails out. They seem happy doing this.
I’m not sure why, but I don’t do this. And I perceive I’m not alone. I tend to work “analog” when I am not connected, rather than work “delayed-digital”. I read physical printed things. Listen to music. Sleep. Talk to people. And it’s not just the laptop, it’s the blackberry as well. No signal no writee.
Staying with devices. They become like pens. Some people want to use their particular special pen. Some will use the nearest pen they can find. Some don’t care. And that’s the way I see people use mobile computers.
When we look at applications, I take Tara’s Google Calendar point completely. There are some applications such as address books and calendars where you need an offline or no-connection facility, which requires a local copy. It is immensely frustrating to be denied access to low-volatility information just because you’re offline.
But you have to be careful. Local copies create their own evils. Synchronisation. The need for discipline in the size of what is synchronised. The problems of synchronisation failures or mismatches.
My guess is that there are some things where I would always want a local copy of the information, such as music and video and photo and address book and calendar. These are also things I can put easily on a USB stick. And all the synchronisation I want is probably at port or Bluetooth level in close proximity to the host device and independent of being connected to the ether. And I become personally responsible for the backing up and the housekeeping.
There are some things where I would always not-want a local copy of the information, where the joy comes from outsourcing the pain of looking after it and maintaining it and backing it up and and and. Like this blog.
As far as possible, I want to minimise the things I must have on my portable device, and have a full backup on flash memory. This way I can detach myself from device ownership, using the USB stick as my personal augment to any suitable device.
And offhand I don’t want to have anything that has to be replicated and synchronised between my device and a web server, too many things can and do go wrong.
But that’s just me.
An aside. I wish I could have an address book that worked like iTunes. A big library, with a Gracenotes equivalent to extend and enrich what I enter. And a simple way of creating contact playlists for phone, for blackberry, for laptop, etc.
Just musings.
Don’t you want to not have to know or care where your knowledge (data) is stored?
I want to know that I can get to it when I want it. I want to know that it is looked after, in the context of regular backup. I want to know that I can show it to people I want to show it to, and keep it from people I don’t want to show it to.
I am comfortable with knowing that some data will only be available to be online, and some offline as well, provided I know which is which.
When we do have ubiquitous and affordable bandwidth, I will worry less about online and offline; I think that’s a reaction to our current broken state in bandwidth availability.
But in the meantime, I largely agree with you. I don’t want to care where my data is.