If Gears was a problem then how about running Gmail offline on Air?

So, yesterday I wrote about the new (and much expected) vulnerabilities in Google’s Gears technology. The issue is clear – Gears is picking up speed and traction as Google’s applications start to use it (i.e. Gmail, Docs, etc…) and its security model is being scrutinized. And then I stumbled across GeeMail. It’s basically offline Gmail without using Google’s technology. How do you do that? Simple – use Adobe’s Air™, as if one technology was not enough to deal with, try mixing and matching two for some added confusion and security standard overlap.

Just like Gears, Air has its benefits, (admittedly, I’m using them both), but seriously, this is just too much! So what’s the next step? Gmail offline using Adobe Air with Silverlight UI running through Yahoo! Pipes backend? Back in the days we used to follow a simple methodology – keep it simple (I’m omitting the latter part). Doing things just for the sake of using a specific technology is so 90’s “war of the programming languages”… everyone moved on to the simple model of using the right tool for the right job. In our case, even the review shows that the technology mix-up didn’t really cut it.