I was doing some work using Google Docs today and noticed a new feature – off line access to my documents. I don’t know when this became available, but it is completely awesome. It works by using Google Gears to save files locally and sync them when an internet connection is detected. I need to read more about it. The Google Gears version is not 1.0 yet – so I assume they have a lot of features, etc. yet to write. I’m not sure how it handles concurrency on shared documents. I’ll have to set up an experiment with that at work or something.
Google Gears itself has been around for a while and slashdot has had posts about the launch as well as a piece about Brad Neuberg and Gears.
If you are interested, installing gears is easy – it is available as a plugin for firefox – I think you can install it on IE as well. I was going to put a bunch of Gears links here – but I think the best thing to do is just google, google gears. The top hits are all very good and will get you everything you need if you are interested.
I’d like to do some reading on the gears api – as it is open and creates a means for persistent storage with any web app. Oh – and if you are like me, once I had installed it and synced my docs- my first thought was “Where are they?” That is answered here. Not hard to find – but just thought I’d throw it in there.
