Usability

To follow up on my previous post about the differences between browser plugins, web interfaces and desktop applications, here is another post about my current rethinking of computer habits. In fact, I started writing this post a couple of months ago, when I decided to move back to using Apple Mail as my main e-mail application again. I had used Mail for a few years when I decided to test out Thunderbird last year. The most important reason for the change was the poor search functionality in Mail. True, the search function is fast, but it is very limited if you are looking for specific things. Thunderbird 3 has an improved search function with a very nice calendar view, so this seemed very tempting. Besides functionality, choosing Thunderbird over Mail was also an ideological one, since I wanted to try out using free software for all my main desktop application needs. More about that another time. ...

Nowadays I have a hard time deciding on what type of application to use. Only a few years back I would use desktop applications for most things, but with the growing amount of decent web 2.0 “applications” I notice that I have slowly moved towards doing more and more online. Let me use this blog as an example. It is based on WordPress, which now offers a good and efficient web interface. However, it just doesn’t feel as snappy as a desktop application. A few years back I used MarsEdit for all my blog writing, but for some reason (I can’t remember exactly when) I decided to use the WordPress web interface for blog writing instead. ...