The cloud just saved me… No, it wasn’t a religious experience or anything like that. But it did keep me from uttering a few things under my breath that weren’t very nice.
Just had a power outage here in the office. It only lasted a second at the most, but just long enough to take down my desktop (yes, I still have a “grandpa box”). And no, I don’t have a UPS, so shame on me. Maybe this is the wake-up call I need. Off to Fry’s…
Being the careful person that I am, I booted Windows 7 in safe mode and everything looked OK, so I did a restart. Again everything came up OK and I let out a sigh of relief. Then I started my browser – Rockmelt – and I got this ominous message: “Rockmelt cannot recover your preference settings” with the option to click “OK”. Not much else to to but click on it and mumble a few more things under my breath…
As Rockmelt started I had to sign back into Facebook (which I somewhat expected). Then for a second or two things looked a little strange. The Facebook “edge” was on the right side of the browser window instead of the left. Dangit… Guess I’m going to have to re-add everything to the applications “edge”. Not a big task, but a nuisance nonetheless. Then, in another couple of seconds the Facebook edge popped up on the left side of the window where it should be and the applications edge popped up on the right side – with all my applications (feeds, extensions, etc.) intact. Woohoo! Life is good. Thanks Rockmelt for “livin’ in the cloud!”
See, Rockmelt actually does live in the cloud. While the browser actually runs on my desktop, all my settings, preferences, bookmarks and browsing history live in the cloud. So when I add a feed or application or bookmark on my desktop, it shows up on my laptop – and vice versa. So instead of having to copy bookmarks between machines, or use a bookmarking service (which I detest), I always have a synchronized browsing experience between my platforms. Kind of like Dropbox for the browser world.
I think this is where we as consumers will continue to enjoy the real benefits of “the cloud”, regardless of how we define it. We’ll let the enterprise world fight over that. For you and me and the stuff we do every day, these types of features/services will make our digital life a whole lot easier. Obviously there is a “price” to pay for this convenience. I have to give up a little piece of my personal identity to Rockmelt (and Facebook) and there may be some of you who say it’s not worth the risk. But as I have said many times before, there is no privacy on the internet. From the moment of your very first mouse-click, you have committed yourself to sharing your identity with the world. It’s how you protect the vital information associated with your identity that matters.
So back to the topic at hand. Good job Rockmelt!
