@akulavolk - I don't have a good suggestions for how to get the "cloud" onto the airplane or into those other disconnected times of our lives. However, Google appears to be addressing at least some of the offline issues with their Gears product.

As far your syncing gripe goes, take a looks at Spanning Sync (if you haven't already). Spanning Sync is well worth the price at $25 a year. It is currently serving as the "glue" between my Google info and my iSync/iCal info.

@lipbalm
Thanks for the great feedback. No gripes. Just realizing that there are a few hurdles between where we are now, and the ideal: up-to-date access to all of my important data, on all of my devices, whether I'm currently online or not.

Google Gears will get there, but isn't there just quite yet. For one thing, it doesn't support Safari. Gears/Docs have improved a lot of late, though. They just added beta support for offline (Gears) Docs in Google Apps, which is important for those who use Gmail at their own domain via Apps. Gears won't help with Address Book or Calendar, I don't think. And I can't edit Google Docs on the iPhone (yet). Mail works via IMAP with gMail, so that's covered, and MobileMe just added Gmail address book syncing.

I tried SpanningSync, but:
a) I ran into a number of bugs or technical problems with it including it deleting or duplicating my calendar entries. BTW, I LOVE Time Machine now.
b) It ONLY tries to solve the problem of iCal <- - -> gCal.
c) It's not $25 for the software...that's a yearly license. It's $65 to buy the software. Since I fully expect Google or Apple to integrate this feature in the near future, that's too much money for simple sync software.

MobileMe may solve some of this over time. Here's hoping we get full syncing between Google's and Apple's calendars, address books, etc.

Hi
I will be commuting from Washington DC to New York on the Amtrak Acela train and was wondering if Macworld readers had had any experience in the northeast corridor with any of the cellular networks discussed in this article. I have a MacBook Pro running 10.5.4 but expect to get a MacAir shortly.
Many thanks
S

@ gs3369: I agree that most of the apps listed are major biggies and as such while they are good apps make this article a little bit useless to advanced internet users looking for new productivity apps.

@orsburn : I agree Basecamp would be a better suggestion than Backpack in the role of Project Management. We use teamwork project and love it!

@graeme smith : As an internet app Google Docs is miles ahead of the competition, it still doesnt show word documents like they are in real word so none our team actually made the jump. The only time we would use it is if we were in a complete bind and OpenOffice.org wasnt available to us.

If you would like to use Backpack and aren't always online you can still use it offline and keep things in sync with a Mac application called PackRat. Check it out at http://www.infinitenil.com/packrat