Google Docs Go Offline

Just received a MacBook Air loaner today from Apple. I wasted no time charging the battery and taking this slender, silvery piece of computing heaven to a local Internet cafe to work.

I'll write more about the MacBook Air later, as I'm planning to travel with it from San Francisco to the East Coast in May. My goal: To see what kind of cross-country traveling companion the MacBook Air is.

Instead, this post is about Google Docs.

A cool new feature is the ability to work on your Google documents offline as well as online, which I did on the MacBook Air. This is particularly beneficial for a Google Doc user traveling by plane without Internet access. Now, you can work on your Google docs in flight. Changes made to the documents are stored on your local hard drive and are automatically uploaded when you make your next Internet connection.

Google Docs is still a long way off from besting Microsoft Word or other Office applications in terms of features. But for relatively basic--and free--office productivity tools, Google Docs is now a viable alternative for frequent flyers.