August 24, 2006

When Web Apps Go Down Be Ready

Web Applications are wonderful. I use them all the time. But the painful thing is when they go down. When you need that customer record and can't get to it. That's when there's a probem. When you need to access a report and you can't get to the 'net or the application is "not available" as happens to me from time to time with Google's blogger service.

Cnet writes Google Calendar is a great Web-based application, but if you want to use it when you're not connected to the Web, you're out of luck. Or are you? A Canadian startup, Time Search, has released an early public beta of Calgoo, an offline reader for Google Calendar. It downloads your appointments from Google onto your local PC, and has its own decent calendar interface.

There's two things you can do:

1. Have your important data downloaded daily or hourly so you always have a back up with you on your PC. Just the data you really need.

2. Consider an offline application that hooks to the web application. For example, Windows Live Writer is an application that you can use to post blogs to MSN's blogging service, Blogger.com or other blogging tools.

Here's the story of someone who tried to live his entire life only using hosted applications.

0 comments