Google Stuff and Linux

It's really surprising when you look at how many sites and services Google offers most at no cost. Guess they must really know how to push advertising. Anyways what is more interesting to me is their effort to supply some of those apps and services to users switching to Linux. I'm currently running Picasa on Ubuntu and can even use it to post pictures directly to my website. Aside from Picasa they've made Google Desktop and Google Earth available. Now I'll admit I'll likely never use Google Desktop as I don't have a need to search for files on my computer, the actual main use of Google Desktop. It does provide a way to search the web from your desktop but at what point is it really more convenient than just going to a search engine, or using the built in search in most of todays browsers. As far as Google Earth goes, as neat as it is I can do the same thing on a web page so again I don't feel the need to install it. But they did put in the effort which is great. Other popular companies have also made great software available for Linux, Sun and Adobe. I personally don't mind that the code in proprietary, since they are still providing it for free just as they do for windows. I'm going to continue to find ways of doing everything Linux that the average user does in Windows and post them here as I find them. So far though for the last year we've been pretty satisfied, but most of the "testing" so to speak is done by Diana, since I trivialize almost every task on the computer. Later! ;-)