06.19
I’ve been meaning to blog this for ages, but a while back I was in the process of changing workspaces and had cause to have to use someone else’s machine to check email etc for a while. I mainly use .mac’s excellent web based email system for that, but I thought it might be cool to have a look at the various options out there to see if any offered better functionality etc. That’s when I stumbled upon Goowy, a Flash based desktop replacement site. When I first saw it, I thought it was *way* gimmicky but signed up to check it out anyway – I’m so glad I did. It started out as something to use when I was away from my laptop but now I’ve started to extent that further so that if I’m off somewhere where I know there is a computer then I don’t always take my mac.
So, what can it do? Well, pretty much everything you do in your average working day as far as organising and communication goes. It checks your email and presents it in an email ‘app’, it has a pretty awesome multi-protocol IM app, a file storage utility, calendar and address book etc etc. It works in a very OSX style so it’s all pretty intuitive too.
Good things: you can pop up on any machine to chat on IM; check/read/answer email in a intuitive way; import your contacts into your address book; store readily needed files (webdav); access your account on any machine that has Flash and an internet connection; you can upload your own desktop image;
Bad things: can’t import calendar events yet; IM buddies are shown by screen name so it isn’t always easy to figure out who they are.
Goowy offer a trial account if you just want to check it out before signing up for your own free account.
Note: I have nothing whatsoever to do with Goowy – apart from being a very happy user.