Why you can't trust the cloud: Google shutters Notebook

Posted by Tom S.
Jan 20, 2009 at 02:21 PM

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>Two comments:
> >#1 To me, Google Notebook’s demise _isn’t_ reason enough not to trust
>the cloud (though there may be other valid ones). We all have seen the end of
>development of many programs we used to rely upon, but that was no reason to stop using
>software altogether. As far as I can tell, all material entered into GN will remain
>accessible, but there will be no new features added. What I would suggest is that this
>case (as many others) is a good reason not to rely on ‘free’ services alone.

This is true. Two thoughts to add to yours:

A) The application needed improvement in order to reach its full potential. I actually started using it (again, not for anything important) because I expected it to eventually be something superior. In truth, it looked to me like it could possibly be a free, online One Note. It obviously will never get there now.

B) What made this application so convenient for many of us was the Firefox plugin that interfaced with it. This will also not be updated. When Firefox went from v. 2 to v. 3, it broke many of the plugins, including this one. When it goes from v. 3 to v. 4, I think we can expect the same, probably with no fix this time.

Tom S.