My colleague, Mr. Griffiths, argues just inches above this sentences that no Web-based service should ever win one of our Editors' Choice Awards. Mr. Griffiths is a good man, a wise man, a man whose counsel I would not hesitate to seek in most matters Mac. And, judging by the argument he advances above, he is a man who apparently filed the above article from his lead-lined bunker in 1999.

Because the fact of the matter is, the world of computing is an ever-evolving one, and there's an ever-increasing number of ways to skin the proverbial cat. Maybe it's via a piece of software you've installed on your Mac. Maybe it's on a mobile version of that OS on one of Apple's handheld devices. Or maybe it's through a Web-based service you access through the browser of your choice. All offer equally valid ways of getting things or blowing off steam or accomplishing whatever it is you wish to accomplish.

As an example, let's consider Google Apps, the online-based collection of productivity tools that let you create documents, spreadsheets, calendars, and presentations, easily share them with colleagues, and access them from anywhere in the world where you've got Web access. A lot of the stuff you see on Macworld.com--iPhone reviews, FAQs, and anything else requiring a lot of collaboration and back-and-forth--gets its start as a Google Doc or spreadsheet. The instructions for uploading podcasts and videos, posting articles, and updating the front page of Macworld.com? Those are available to our staff in Google Docs, too. It's a remarkably useful set of tool that's helped us stay productive and work together, even with editors and collaborators who never set a foot in our San Francisco offices. It's no wonder that we gave an Eddy to Google Apps as part of .

And yet, under the brutal edict of Rob Griffiths, we'd never even consider such an application for our awards because it runs through a browser as opposed to an operating system. Is it useful? Sure. Will it help you work in ways you couldn't easily pull off without it? Absolutely. Oh, but it's Web-based? Well, then no dice, Mr. Google. Take your suite of Web tools and pound sand.

You'll forgive me for saying this, but that's crazy talk.