Google Docs and the Future of Computing

I just wrote a term paper on a free web application offered by a search engine.  The last time I wrote a paper in something besides Microsoft Word, I was 7 years old and the year was 1994, when you could buy the internet in a box.

My desktop Packard Bell computer ran a Pentium I with 64MB of RAM.  My 15 inch cathode ray tube monitor looked like a droid from Star Wars, and my computer gaming life was limited to a turn-based, 2-D, tank-shooting death match.  

Then, my mom brought home a copy of Office from work.  I've used versions of that program to write book reports in grade school, research for debate in high school, and write my thesis in college.  My relationship with this productivity suite has taken me through a lot.

So, it was a big development in my life when yesterday, I wrote a paper in Google Documents: 24 pages, 1.5 spaced, 1 inch margins, APA format, headers, footers, and tiered headings for crystal organization.  Google even packaged the document into a PDF.  

And I can't see myself going back to Office again. 

Google Docs, and the associated Google application suite, allows  me to sit down at my "computer" at any computer connected to the internet.  No jump drives, no sync programs or anything.  All I need to get my stuff is a browser and a computer no more powerful than my old Packard Bell.  Pretty cool.