Hell 2.0
No Tuesday post, I am filled with shame. My job decided, in a terrific reversal of protocol, to be a job literally all day, and I was busy. Alas, today looks to be just as filled with Lotus Notes-related busywork, so the blog goes on neglected. I hate Lotus Notes, it is messy, confusing, inefficient and outdated. As I slam my head against its astonishing load times and scattered installation files, grasping at some database or another like a primate trying to coax fire into existence, I sometimes wonder why clunky email clients still find such purchase in users’ online life.
I know, the Lotus platform, like the infinitely superior Outlook and Thunderbird and so on, does more than just gather email: these programs act as hubs for scheduling, instant messaging, databasing, and, now that I look closely, an entire goddamn office suite. Someone is making presentations and blogging by way of this monstrosity? Really?
I’ll admit that Lotus makes sharing and accessing databases easy, provided every single human being desiring to make use of said databases is set up with the platform and they’ve got some rich reading material on hand to occupy them selves during load times, but I’ll just as quickly suggest that there must be lighter and simpler alternatives.
I’m a child of web-based email, so downloading a program in order to access email strikes me as one too many steps, something that complicates the process without any worthwhile benefits. You need an email address to make use of any of these desktop clients as it is, so making the effort to configure and access one is the equivalent of taking several extra, bloated, non-portable steps to arrive back at the same place. I understand that Outlook, which I do admire, boasts of added security and the ability to easily synchronize calendars and contact information with other devices and services. Gmail matches this handily, with the added benefit of being accessible wherever one can get a hold of some internet, no downloads or configuration required. This is analogous to the difference between a sturdy, well appointed dirigible and an SR-17 Blackhawk. Sure, the former might fly, but you and I both know it can and will burst into flames at the slightest provocation. Yes, I am making Hindenberg jokes, because I am topical.
The thing of it is, I’m a sucker for data portability, and desktop clients like Lotus (even when they work) seem sunk indignantly into obsolescence at this point. I’m a firm believer that data portability is the future of web-based applications and services, which are themselves the future of computing. Reading about the heady dreams of the Data Portability Project, OpenID, cloud computing, the Google OS, and browser based storage, even Skype is exhilarating, as these are the technologies that are even now liberating users from their limitations and constructing, atom by atom, the Sci-Fi Future Wonderland that we get to live in. Email clients were innovative in the days when internet connections were scarce and fragile things, some spindly wires that reached out into a deep unknown to reel back your electronic-mails from the abyss, only to snap and coil limply into the dark. This is not the case anymore, though maybe this is a state of affairs familiar only to the internet-native generation.
As a side note, did you know that you can type in https://mail.google.com instead of the usual http:// modifier and you get an encrypted connection to your mail? Change your bookmarks now.
And also – wait a second. Does Skype really let you make calls to any land line in the world for 1.4 pence a minute, no matter what, without a contract?
And I just bought a 3-year plan with Rogers at ~$50 a month?
Fuck me.
BIT PART 