We did hear about shutdown day 2007 and we are now hearing about shutdown day 2008 and thing like that kept me wondering. We are so dependent on web services and applications like Google. Can we go by a day without Google?

I don’t know about you but like most other web user I am very much depended on Google. Its services and Applications are incorporated in to our daily routines. To start off let me tell you all about one typical day of my life with Google.

First of all, all my mails are stored on the 6638MB [at the time of writing] of storage space available on the Gmail. All my email communications go through the Gmail web interface. My @maldives.net.mv and my corporate emails are all auto forwarded to the Gmail inbox. Unlike most others I receive quite a low count of mails into my inbox but these also needs to be taken care of promptly so I have a habit of being logged into Gmail at all times. As I’m not a fan of Google Notifier or the Google Talk client as it is another software piece which needs to be installed on the Computer. I am more interested with Google as a web service than a desktop service

There aren’t many contacts that I instant message on Google Talk. But some random people along with one of my closest buddy use Google talk to IM so sometimes I use Google talk as an instant messenger but still MSN is the most preferable solution.

One main reason that I do not get much mail in to my inbox is because I efficiently use Google Reader as a source of notification. I go with RSS subscription to keep me updated on News, Blogs and other frequent information sources. For example I read recent submission to mvBlogs and Digg technology via my Google Reader. I check the updates on Flickr Photos and YouTube Videos tagged Maldives; via Google reader. So I’m very much involved with Google Reader day in and day out. I have 59 RSS subscription and most of them get an average of 15 updates per day. I read almost 150 – 200 articles from my Google Reader on a daily basis.

Scheduling appointments, Reminders and Birthday notification has been a necessity in my busy life. Google Calendar with the feature of sending SMS notification to Wataniya mobiles shifted my trend of saving above mentioned data’s on my mobile phone to a better alternative which is the Google Calendar.

I write a lot of stuff for my blog, some general articles, reports and documents in my professional career. Before it is been published or goes official I always make it a habit to get the view of my colleagues, and industry friends. What better way is there to share a document for collaboration than the Google Docs? Google Docs has also become a very frequent use in my life.

I use Google Adsense to generate small revenue for my blogs and web services I am part of. I use Google Analytics to monitor the statistics for my website and help me analyze my websites and blog for optimizations. To view a website originating in a foreign language we get the help of Google Translate. Youtube is another application owned by Google which gets major views from me and most others who are reading this blog. Speaking of blog most of the Maldivian blogger’s user Blogspot (Blogger which happens to be owned by google) as a host for blogging. And of course we should not miss the important role the Google Search engine plays in the daily life of us. For searching, Image searching, converting currencies and measurements Google search is yet the most popular option.

With Google so much involved in our lives can we spend a day without Google or its services? I am expecting it would be a very hard time for most of us. But what I believe is we should not be that dependent. What if a natural tragedy or a man made incident in some part of the world makes us unable to communicate with any of the Google Data centers for an extensive period? What if a Blackhat Hacker or a likely community deliberately disrupts the internet traffic with a virus/worm or a similar attack which could result an internet black out or a cyber Tsunami. These things could happen at anytime what alternatives do we have to overcome such a situation. What is your say about this?