Image via Metalsucks.net

So I took  a couple days off there, but I’m back with the cover art for the upcoming Skeletonwitch Album “Breathing the Fire,” which showed up on MetalSucks the other day. I’d lay more praise upon the band, but I think I already did that plenty a few months back. Besides, I think those guys already summed it up well enough for me.

Which brings me to my next point. I’ve been making that whole Google migration over the last couple of weeks, and I’m pretty damn impressed with all of it so far. In fact, I was completely blown away when I discovered Google Apps. It completely changed my whole concept of what Google has been doing, and frankly, I  think they’re on the right path.

The main idea is to use things like GMail and Google Docs for the Apps concept (basically it’s a way to load these online applications as if they were programs on the hard drive, not online), but Chrome lets you make an App out of anything. For instance, I’ve got the WordPress Dashboard saved to my desktop as an App, so I can launch right into that and post updates any time I want (not that I use it that often, but still).

The other App that I’m big on now is the music player from Lala.com, which is pretty much the greatest site ever with the worst name ever. Basically, my music is almost all on the internet now, so I can listen wherever I want  (without needing the external hard drive to carry all 103 gigabytes). I highly recommend checking it out. I’m basically off of iTunes now, thanks to this. You can even buy web only songs for 10 cents each (I swear I don’t work for them).

Obviously, this isn’t actually that huge. I mean, essentially, it’s just a shortcut. But for some reason, looking at things this way makes so much more sense to me. Like I said, it’s about changing the way I use the internet.

Alright, this has been a pretty scatterbrained post so far. Thanks for bearing with me, but I think I’m just going to close it off here.

Aside from GMail, this is really my first foray into Google’s non-search features. I’ve alway been a little leery of their online based apps, though I honestly couldn’t tell you why. Things I save online are probably safer than on my 4-year-old laptop.

But I’m right in the process of downloading and setting up a lot more google-based software. I’m starting to realize that I might as well get onboard with what everyone else has already started doing.

There are two big reasons for this:

For one, I’m looking for a new computer. I might end up just getting a netbook, in which case I’ll need to rely more on online software and applications for this kind of stuff. Even if I don’t go the mini route, I’d still like to be up to date on what kind of technology is available before I start fresh on a new computer. It might help eliminate some of the unneccesary software that I usually end up downloading or installing.

The other big reason is my new job. We’re working on the fall issue now, and I’ve been fact checking articles that deal with things like “cloud computing” and other social media aspects. Basically, it got me realizing that, for as much as I profess to enjoy technology, I’m pretty much a year or two behind.

So my hope is that, bolstered by the Harvard money I’m going to be making, I can start catching back up with the rest of society on the hardware side. In the meantime I’ll work on picking up the pace with software.

Stay tuned…