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** This is a guest post by Neil Matthews. Find out more about Neil below. **
Lea recently wrote a couple of posts on the benefits of using Gmail (7 Tips To Get The Best Out Of Gmail For Freelancing Digital Nomads) and Google Docs (2 Features Of Google Docs You Should Be Using But Probably Aren’t).
I thought I would expand upon this post and talk about a technology developed by Google called Gears and how it can help the location independent professional when using Google’s suite of web applications…
What Is Google Gears?
Google Gears is a web browser plug-in which allows you to extend the functionality of web-based applications. In short, it is technology which allows you to use web-based applications & services, such as Gmail, when you are offline.
It does this by downloading data, script files, CSS files and images to a local store within your browser to speed up and make applications available offline.
Gears was primarily developed for Google’s suite of applications such as Google Docs, Read and Gmail, but it has been adopted by other web apps. For example, the WordPress turbo function which speeds up the admin of your blog is an implementation of Gears.
Because Gears moves some of the processing from the web server on the internet to your local browser, this gives you extended functionality when not online including:
- Offline use of services
- Speeding up applications by running scripts, serving images locally instead of over an internet connection
When you do connect to the internet again, Gears will synchronise your offline work with your central store.
Which Services Are Gears Compatible?
This is by no means and exhaustive list, as more and more web apps are taking advantage of Gears all the time, but the Gears compatible web apps I know of are:
- Google Docs – online office software
- Google Reader - RSS feed reader
- Gmail (currently in Labs testing) – email service
- Picasa – photo manager
- WordPress – blogging/CMS platform
- Zoho - a large suite of office, productivity & collaboration tools
- Remember the Milk - task manager/ to do list app
How To Install Gears
When you activate the plug-in on a Gears ready application, it tests to see if the Gears plug-in is already installed on your browser, if not the plugin is downloaded and installation is completed.
For example, in Gmail click on Settings > Labs > Enable the “Offline” option and when you’ve done this, the offline option appears at the top of your Gmail page. When you then click on this, your browser will detect if Gears is installed, if it’s not, your browser will install Gears for you.
A quick note about security:
When you use Gears, you are storing data & potentially unsafe scripts on your local hard drive; do not activate gears on shared machines. The data storage is not very secure and your data could easily be compromised if you used Gears in an internet cafe, for example.
Why You Should Use It
The big question is how Gears can help the nomadic location independent professional run their business. Here are a few suggestions:
1 – When In Transit/Offline
Whether you’re in transit or in a location with no internet access, using Gears means that your data (such as emails, important documents, RSS feeds etc.) is still available for you to work with – which can all be synchronised smoothly once you’re back online.
2 – Using Slow Connections
If you’re in a location with patchy internet, using Gears means that you can still continue to work efficiently without the slow connection seriously disrupting your progress.
For a LIP, Google Gears can be a powerful tool which can help overcome (or at least ease) some of the challenges you may face whilst on the road or when faced with limited internet. For more information about Gears (including which browsers are supported), check out the Google Gears mini site.
Three cheers for Google Gears!! I had no Internet access in my beach hut in India a few months ago and only connected to work (wired in an Internet café). Thanks to Google Gears I downloaded all my emails and RSS feeds to read and respond to leisurely in my time off :)
I’ll add that it also works with Google Calendar (not listed above), but not for editing (read-only).
This was very helpful! Thanks.
Quick Questions.
Does Gears keep 100% of all documents, email, feeds etc. on your hard drive at all times?
Could it also be used for a back up of the Google suite?
Does it take a lot of storage on your computer? (other than files)
I had been curious as to what exactly Google Gears was. I always saw the turbocharged link at the top of my Wordpress, but just had never gotten around to seeing what it was all about. Thanks!
I absolutely LOVE Google Gears.
@John I don’t think it stores 100% of your docs and emails at any given time, though I don’t know the rational behind which are stored. You may be able to adjust the settings, though I haven’t looked into doing that yet.
It doesn’t use much room on your computer (which leads me to believe they compress the information in some wiley and brilliant way) and has worked really well for me in the past (especially on those long plane flights when you need one teensy little detail from an email for what you’re working on).
Gears is definitely one of the most impressive technologies from Google in recent years. Shame that more web apps haven’t integrated it, although Wordpress and Gmail are the big two for LIP’s.
I’m all for the functionality of gmail on a slow connection, but I’m afraid Gears will compel me to answer emails on long flights, which are usually blessedly communication-free!