Despite loving Android, I am getting more and more unhappy with Google.

[Hook]

[RANT]

Ever since Google+ and various format changes to their websites, I have just been getting more and more annoyed with Google. Amongst their most frustrating aspect is their tendency to introduce something and then later just drop it because… who knows. When Google+ popped up, another frustrating change is that more and more, everything became about Google+. I couldn’t do a search without being reminded about Google+. They began changing formats for the UI that were no longer backwards compatible (Google sites other than search are nearly unusable for me at work). In general, more and more, I feel like they are making changes not to make things better for me but to make things better for them. Yeah, I know ultimately, that’s what everyone does, but Google is becoming particularly cavalier about this. They make Apple look positively user driven.

My newest pet peeve is this:

No Picnik: Photo-editing site's users blast Google | Digital Media - CNET News

PicNik was an amazing web-based photo editing resource that worked hand in hand with Picassa. It was Photoshop for Picassa. I don’t use it, but my wife does and she is totally frustrated. They literally have decided to disembowel it and turn it into a way to make funny photos for Google+. You want the tools. Join Google+

This *is* my biggest objection to this drive to the cloud. If your work is cloud based, you are at the mercy of someone else’s whims because you don’t own the tool you are using, you are only borrowing it. I will take advantage of my son's student discount and buy my wife Photoshop. It will have a tremendous learning curve compared to PicNik, but it will give her back the photo editing power she had.

I am so glad I have found methods to totally bypass the cloud for my PIMs. Google can do what they want. Other than their search engine and Android (unless they screw that up too), I am making my embracing of Google minimal. At least if a program I have becomes abandonware, I can still keep using it. Google has run out of brownie points with me.

Luckily, I have my own cloud.

[/RANT]

[Mi An]

Google has always done it a bit, I was okay with it because they were willing to do some experimentation and give folks a chance to to prove a product could become popular. They also frequently let folks who had already signed up continue to use the abandoned projects for an extended period of time. For me, their shift away from that kind of consumer orientation was completed when they announced Google labs was shutting down.

This *is* my biggest objection to this drive to the cloud. If your work is cloud based, you are at the mercy of someone else’s whims because you don’t own the tool you are using, you are only borrowing it.

Well put. I remember there were folks scratching their heads over why anyone would pay for MS Office once a web-based version was available for free. Leaving aside the need to work even when connections are scratchy, certainty of ownership is a big deal. A bird in the hand...

[jigwashere]

Before you fork over the $$ for Photoshop, try Gimp. If you do get Photoshop, you might be interested in Learn the Basics of Photoshop: The Complete Guide.

EDIT: I don't like what Google's doing, either. I also don't like what's happened to Microsoft Office 2007. I still can't figure it out! I want my Office 2003 back.

[Hook]

Before you fork over the $$ for Photoshop, try Gimp. If you do get Photoshop, you might be interested in Learn the Basics of Photoshop: The Complete Guide.

EDIT: I don't like what Google's doing, either. I also don't like what's happened to Microsoft Office 2007. I still can't figure it out! I want my Office 2003 back.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it. If you still have Office 2003, you can install it and use it.

She has tried Gimp and has a couple of versions of Paint Shop Pro. PicNik was much closer to Photoshop than any of them. At some point you stop fooling around with "almost" and get what you need.

[Mi An]

I also don't like what's happened to Microsoft Office 2007.

Amen to that. I think they were trying to make it easier to use, but it didn't work for me.

[jigwashere]

Well, that's the thing, isn't it. If you still have Office 2003, you can install it and use it.

True, except for everyone moving toward docx format. Anyway, I'm on your side. While I appreciate cloud-based computing to some extent, I also prefer having the ability to make my own choices.

Posted from my very old yet fully functional WindowsXP PC using the browser of my choice.

[JRakes]

Easier for whom? Blind hamsters with a head injury? The "ribbon" introduced w/ Office '07 was a 10 year step backwards in productivity for anybody with anything significant to do. A box of index cards, some graph paper or ledger book, and an IBM Selectric would be easier half the time.

Like so many things, this stuff is simply an effort to dumb things down to the lowest common denominator and turn it all into a child's amusement game under someone else's control. Just another reason why I avoid cloud apps / data management like the plague.

[Hook]

Hey, we're taking pot-shots at Google here. Let Microsoft get their own pot-shot thread.

[JRakes]

Oh, only initially. My latter potshots were at the whole works...

[Varjak]

I'm still using Office 2003.

I agree about Google. I'm glad I didn't join G+, and I'll be logging out of Gmail whenever I'm not directly using it, so it doesn't 'overflow' into other things. I already only allow cookies for that session and think I'm blocking almost everything I can of Google otherwise. Wasn't Google supposed to be including a link that allowed you to get them to disregard your browsing info? Something about clicking a link under their text ads. I never followed up; but I have to now.

I agree about the cloud. Someone wrote something about that recently at the Times. Unless you back it up (there are sometimes 3rd party apps for sucking your info out of sites like Facebook, etc.) it can be gone at any time. Or modified or made less accessible. That's why I do almost nothing on the cloud and am looking into something like the Buffalo Technology Cloudstor, to make my own personal 'cloud.'