While I'm a big fan of Google, gobbling up just about every feature it releases while still in beta, they seem to be running the same path befitting developers of platforms. That is, while Microsoft established the first standard for what we've come to expect in a computing experience with Windows, Google is well poised for the same position for defining for us the same experience in "the cloud." And while in the pioneering days - 1998 - Microsoft overran all its competition, dominating the market with its products, and almost decimating into oblivion what we know now as the mighty Mac Book, Google seems to be the likely choice for holding the title and presiding with kingly stature over the Web 2.0 proving grounds.

And what had made Microsoft so formidable was that the PC world was, by-and-large, an open platform. Both hardware and software manufacturers were given the opportunity to designing and engineer for it. While Microsoft and Windows' contribution was the OS that tied all these diverse threads of market competition together, its product increasing in value when a plethora of software and hardware choices dominated the puny shelf spaces of Apple or Linux, it was heralded for a time as our savior. It launched a stock market boom, and gave rise to the term Tech Stocks. It formed the cornerstone of the IPO boom. It made us believe that anything was possible, as if our generation had traveled to the Moon as well. It was a Golden Era, but the enthusiasm, as with all things, didn't last.

Bill Gates at this time became the image of national Evil long before Bush came onto the scene. His fickle audience - the one who thought that a comuterisized utopia aught to be at hand - criticized Microsoft for not only for violating anti-trust laws, but also for being negligent at delivering a reliable product that didn't crash. The computerized world had, rightly, become paranoid that, because no one could touch this juggernaut devouring small upstarts that soon became a piece in their Start>Accessories bar, there would be no check or balance to their mighty dominion.

Well, no one knew at the time that, while the fear that unstable computing was becoming a norm, that a simple search box on a nearly blank page, Google, would become the David to this Goliath.

But Google seems to be repeating the mistakes of the past. Apple, even on its death bed, was still touted as having a better, more robust computing experience. It did so since Apple had a heavy hand in coding for its operating system. While Windows had gone the route of a free-for-all and developers-run-amok with the fine print of "compute at your own risk," Apple's saving grace was the claim that no virus or buggy warez could even make a beach head on its virgin desktop.

But while Google has built its temple and is in full stride with its mighty empire; while Google has, recently, done what most in the Microsoft days would reckon is the unthinkable: divorced itself of even the need to have an internet connection to use some of its products; while their competitors - Yahoo and Microsoft are still clamoring for their piece of the Web 2.0 market share; while Google has championed the "open source" movement in the form of its arsenal of gadgets and its incursion into mobile communications with the Open Handset Alliance, it has fallen prey to the same forces that disappointed once proud owners of a PC - the bugs; the pesky failures because, when code is so freely given and manipulated, a platform opens itself up to potential hazards. The header for Gmail "labs" projects informs you:

Gmail Labs: Some crazy experimental stuff.

Gmail Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for primetime. They may change,break or disappear at any time.

If (when) a Labs feature breaks, and you're having trouble loading your inbox, there's an escape hatch. Use http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0.

In other words, like with Microsoft, "compute at your own risk." That's fine and dandy when it's declared that these projects are not "ready for primetime," but Google has, unfortunately gone a step further with their business model that defies even the reckless gobbling up of small Web developer projects and including it in its kingdom. Their platform is built and patch together in a more haphazard way than Microsoft ever dared to do. Here's what Google declares about one of its recent additions to its pre-loaded OS:

The Imperfect Cloud: What happens if Google crashes and the ramifications of relying more and more on computing in the cloud. David Chehebar and J.C. Martinez discuss some of the problems associated with the advent of cloud computing with a few digressions into the wonders of where computing is at as a whole these days compared to a few years ago and a quick glance at the state of operating systems as a whole.

Podgnosticast's weekly podcast with David Chehebar is now up and available for download via iTunes. Click Here to subscribe, or simply listen to it right here.

The holy grail on the lips of reviewers and tech pundits is the $200 Netbook. That's Netbook, folks, not Notebook. For us laymen who aren't savvy with the new lingo that's been introduced only recently, the Netbook is a small laptop with 10" screens or smaller; compacted keyboards and a modest array of jacks for peripherals; most have Intel's more inexpensive and lightweight processor: the Atom; they don't come with built-in DVD burners or Blue Ray drives, but instead opt-out for making them plug-in peripherals. They're not flashy or sexy, but they're extremely portable, and they usually come with great WiFi capabilities and Bluetooth technology.

They are, however tricked out and are best suited for internet browsing, word processing, email writing and, really, those day-to-day functions that most of us - even our grandmothers - do with computers nowadays if we do much of anything else with computers anyway. In short, they're a worthy laptop to own for most of us not doing some funky designs, movies or music. And, the Netbook as a class of computers, is gaining traction as a descent alternative, especially when budget is an issue becaus, most importantly, the Netbook's fundamental specification that makes it a "Netbook" is its price: around $350, give or take another $50 and a few rebates or sales here and there.

Some even wonder if this new class of notebook has any place for something like the Sony Vaio P that, though it looks like a Netbook and acts like a Netbook - and could even fit into your sport coat's breast pocket - it may not be one since it costs $900 and it looks TOO sexy.

Suffice it to say, while computer taxonomists, gadget reporters, and manufacturers all debate and decide the final baseline for what makes the latest Dell or Asus or Sony or even Palm or iPhone the best Netbook of 2009, what's clear is that the Netbook may just very well be the salt-and-pepper shaker of our times - an every day staple.

That is to say, that now that "the cloud" or "cloud-computing" is quickly making its way out of geek lexicon and into a cautious media that fears being misunderstood; now that folks with Gmail and Yahoo and Quicken Online accounts suddenly know that what they've been doing all along is "cloud computing" - and they call it that; now that even the term will no longer need quotation marks or italics or even explanation of what it is with Tech dudes like David Pogue, and that other pundits who say that 2009 is the year for cloud computing to take hold, well, that just does even more for making the Netbook - the quote-unquote cloud computer - as the platform to take the center stage on our home's desks.

Cloud computing, in a nutshell is an umbrella term for the ability to get all the work you need to get done with only an electric plug and a Web browser. That is, and it's a big term for something that's already a significant portion of most of our lives: that a Web browser - and only a Web browser - is needed to do some complex tasks that were once reserved for mainframes. Also, the term signifies that more than "just" Online versions of our most used and favorite applications get some serious attention versus the version you regularly install on your home computer.

Be warned, the term "cloud computing" has the connotation of it being widespread, enveloping, and, more to the point, casting a shadow over how we have grown accustomed to using our home's machine. It's not so much lingo or a new engineering feat, it's a climate - a computing climate.

At the end of the day, when cloud computing takes hold in earnest in 2009, we won't be doing anything more fancy or intricate with our computers than we've been doing all along: e-mail, Facebook, Netflix, Online banking, Word Processing and so on down the line. What we're talking about is that the Internet and the World Wide Web has, finally, caught up to our needs from merely a markup language with billboard-like Web pages to a bonafide platform for making THIS - our individual lives - happen.

In comes the Netbook. It is not only a new product on our shelves, but also a "concept" that requires the "market" to compete with Asus - the originator of the program - with their own Dell or Sony spin on the idea. In comes the Lenovo IdeaPad S Series, and the Acer Aspire One and the Sony Vaio P; and then there's the issue of having enough credit or bank roll nowadays to be able to get the glassy wide-screen laptop with that ONE button straddling the numeric pad that will launch the manufacturers predetermined media site...

And then there's the fact that $350, or even when it gets there: the $200 Netbook, will get us in touch with the right people and allow us to network and make tee-shirt logos in the cloud - especially in these times when the credit card has been maxxed out for a few months ...

If anyone's been geeky enough to notice what's on Capt. Jean-Luc Picard's desk
, it looks suspiciously like the Asus Eee PC, and why shouldn't it. The salt-and-pepper, all-around household staple doesn't need to be bozonkers crazy with bells and whistles. It just needs to be affordable and get the work done. Leave the sophistication to those purveying the onslaught on Web-apps to come, and give us the machine that gets us to them: the Netbook, the cloud computer.

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Here's a question that anyone may venture to ask of themselves: When was the first time that one used Google for their Web search?

For those of us who had internet connections prior to 1998 or 1999, the field was wide open. We had, if we were curious about something, to chose from pretty big name competitors in the Web search domain: Alta Vista, AOL, Yahoo, Excite, Ask Jeeves, and these were only some of the few out there to choose from.
Google, for all of its current might, was ,to my recollection, a late comer on the scene of Web search.
My computer consultant and best friend (everybody needs a computer guru these days if one's to get by) mentioned when I asked that Google came on the scene during the "Portal Wars." Portal Wars? Yes, I remember that logging onto Excite or Yahoo or Alta Vista meant a getting a brief preview of news, horoscopes, weather and so on before I typed my querry into the search box, but Portal Wars?

The thing is that now Google, with its continuous and remaining understated presence on the Internet, has, as if one just blinked one's eye, created a new paradigm. It skirted past the Portal Wars, and emerged, pacifistically, the dominant force of the World Wide Web - not only for its search, but also for its ancillary products such as Blogger, Google Sites, Google Notebook, Picassa, Google Maps, Google Calendar and so on ... Googe Docs! Can it get any more sophisticated with a Web browser?

At any rate, I had to wonder where and when Google became my mainstay for search. It is only now that I have made Google the source and point of origin for my computing ecology. That is to say that I've already uninstalled Microsoft Office, and the only apps that remain in my hard drive have to do with photo and video editing.

Which is to say ... How did this revolution of computing on a personal level happen? It came like a thief in the night, and now that Bill Gates has retired from Microsoft, the torch is being passed to the good 'ol boys over at Google.

So here's a question for myself and for all of you out there. When did Google search become your mainstay search engine, your main internet squeeze, so to speak?

My Web Guru friend tells me that my first time logging into to a Google search came on, probably, a suggestion on his part. I tend to agree with the geneology he presented as far as Google infiltrating my life. But, as far as my Web Guru-friend is concerned he can't recall when he began turning to it as his Web point of departure.

Despite what we may know of when we engaged Google for the first time, it's for certain that they're at the hub of a revolution that is raging before all of us, nationally and globally, and the key, the crux of the revolution lies in two words: SEARCH and SHARE