Download Squad

We can't decided if Google Web Desktop is a brilliant use of the Google Docs Data APIs or just a time waster. It's probably a bit of both.

Miami University Senior Joe Pestrona put this demonstration page together with a pretty simple idea. What if you could interact with Google Docs & Spreadsheets files the same way you do with documents on your desktop. When you visit the page, you're prompted to sign into your Google account, and you will get a warning from Google letting you know that you're essentially granting someone else the right to look at your data. If you've got some company secrets stored online, you might want to skip this demo.

Once you're signed in, you're greeted with a page of icons representing your documents. You can drag them around the screen just like icons on a normal desktop. Double-click one and it will open up.

Click the close button and it will close. Click "save & close" though, and you'll be taken back to the standard Google Docs interface, so it looks like there are a few bugs to work out. There also doesn't appear to be any good way to organize your data by folder, so it's actually a bit overwhelming to see all of your docs scattered across a "desktop." But with all the webOS applications out there, it's nice to demonstrate that it's possible to webOS-ify existing products like Google Docs.