Google is free and so Google is wonderful. Camie and I have began using Writely a year or so ago, and it worked very well indeed. We could both access each other’s files, and we could both work on the same report at the same time. And the files were tagged not put into folders, so nothing ever got lost.

Oddly though, the developing ideas behind the memi militate against this in a subtle manner. They raise the question: where should my stuff be stored, and who should have primary access to it? Or, to put it another way: do I want to outsource my life-data to Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or anyone else?

In an ideal world a fully fledged memi would be a hardware/software amalgam that would be both a server and a client when it was online. In that kind of world my life-data would travel with me, and I would have primary access to it. This is not yet an ideal world, and my life-data is currently parked at GoDaddy although, officially, I am still the one with the primary access, even though I have never seen the physical server on which the data sleeps.

I have been thinking about this issue a lot recently, and today I discovered ThinkFree, a Word-compatible office suite that comes in an interesting assortment of flavours. It comes as a free online service ( similar to Writely); an offline java-based suite of applications; and a server-based online/offline combo. The last option costs $30 per user per year, and is the one that interests me.

In principle, this would provide me with a decentralised and personalised service for a realistic cost – and if I am reading the information correctly I could also use the offline tools to work on boats and planes and trains.

I shall think this over and test it out.