Life in the Clouds

by Drew Kwashnak’

What can be better than to have access to all of your emails, calendar, files and programs virtually anywhere? Where the accessibility of smart phones, cellular modems and Wi-Fi means you don’t have to be separated from the Internet, even while on vacation?

That’s the goal of Cloud computing, where not only are your precious files stored on Internet servers, but the programs used to create, edit and save these files are all just a browser windows away.

Webmail is possibly the first real Cloud service, providing a means for you to read, compose and send emails right through your browser.  So when you aren’t near your computer and email program, you just have to hop onto a browser to see if that Nigerian Prince has finally accepted your offer yet!

More closely resembling what Cloud computing will be, are the office suites available from Zoho, Google Docs and Microsoft.  All free of charge, these suites provide the functionality of a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs, as well as the ability to store the files, download to your local system, upload existing files and share with others either as much or as little you want.

I take full advantage of being able to view a received attachment in my Gmail account right in Google Docs with the click of one link.  No need to download or save the file to view its contents.

Google and Microsoft, as much as they would like to be, are not all there is to Cloud computing.

Instant Messengers, the original social media, is available in a browser from the sites of such services as AIM and Yahoo.  For those that prefer to have all their services running in one application, sites like  IMO, IM+, eBuddy, LiveGo and Trillian provide one-stop shopping for many of your services; Yahoo!, AIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN and possibly even Skype!

Years ago I heard the big complaint against Apple was it didn't run games.  Today I hear Linux doesn’t run games.  I guess it is only a matter of time before I hear the Cloud doesn’t play games.

It’s true that 3D and shoot ‘em up games are usually graphic intensive, but that does not mean there aren’t sites to challenge that notion. FreeMMOGamer provides a number of games including shooter, racing, fighting, strategy and sports.  Sites such as Kongregate, AddictingGames, provide a wide range of online games alternatives to mindless zombie-killing games.  Just don’t blame me for lost productivity if you check these out!

While not as graphically intensive as 3D games, image editing is one category that is seeing growth in the Cloud based solutions!  So whether you want to fix an embarrassing photo, or doctor somebody else’s and you don’t have access to your Photoshop, Gimp or Paint Shop Pro, have no fear, the Cloud is here.

Online web albums Flickr and Picasa have been around for a long time and easily allow you to share your photos with as many or as few members of your family and friends as you would like.  The difference is now you can edit those photos right in your album. Picasa provides an easy way to edit your photos in Picnik right from the album, and save the modified picture back in your albums as well.

Meanwhile, Aviary provides photo editing, advanced image editing, vector graphics and even music creating applications all in the cloud.  Except for the use of the browser, the URL in the address bar or the integration with online sites, you’ll be hard-pressed to tell a Cloud application from an installed one!

Of course you cannot talk about image editing without bringing up the industry standard, Photoshop.  Even Adobe has gotten into the Cloud with Photoshop.com

The Pixlr Editor allows you to pull in your pictures in Facebook, Flickr and Picasa, as well as the images saved in your Pixlr Library, and edit them right in your browser.

Lately some nice products have come around that don’t play nice with Flash, Java and/or Silverlight.  Thankfully with HTML5 there are sites available that require no downloads, yet are amazingly capable. The Cloud Canvas is an image editing Cloud application using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and PHP, and a few other technologies, to do what the others have to resort to Flash to perform.

Of course there are times when you just need to get something done!

Project Managers may live and die by Microsoft Projects, and Multitask is a cloud-based project management application which can upload and download MS Projects 2000 through 2010. Currently they are working at integrating this with Google Docs, making it even easier to use!

If you don’t mind paying a small fee,  SmartSheet provides more capabilities for Project Managers including online collaboration, goals and objectives tracking, marketing, crowdsourcing and much more.  That you can do this online and collaborate with whom you need may be enough to warrant the costs.

Sometimes, though, you just need to code.  While not a replacement for Visual Studio or Eclipse, there are some IDE (integrated development environment) available online. Usually for HTML, JavaScript and PHP, there are ones for other languages as well. 

In most cases the IDE site FTPs into your existing server and provides a list of files.  You can open and edit the files and when it comes time to save, the IDE FTPs it back up to your site.  These IDEs usually doesn’t store your code which should make the security-minded developers happy.

I heard a lot of good things about PHPAnywhere, though I myself have not had luck with it. 

I have gotten good results from ShiftEdit which is based on Mozilla Lab’s Bespin project.  It has been straight forward and stable, plus my code has not been mangled.  A neat feature is the split view, where you can see the code and the WYSIWYG side-by-side.  It even provides a live view of the rendered page.

.NET programmers will have a difficulty finding a Cloud-based IDE, though I did find CodeRun, which provides an IDE for C# ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, PHP and AJAX.  It includes database support, compilation and debugging features.  If you decide to use their CodeCloud servers for hosting, you get the additional abilities to collaborate on your code with selected developers, and one-step publishing.

One of the great features for Cloud computing is that anybody can start using it.  People probably are already using it and not realizing it!

To use the Cloud requires two things, a working system that includes a browser, and a different mindset.  In return you get applications and files accessible from anywhere, access to updated applications without needing to purchase, download and install anything and the thrill of exploring this growing technology.

These applications listed are a tiny list of the exploding list of Cloud computing services available today online.  Try them out today!  Get your head in the clouds!

Drew Kwashnak’s migration to the Cloud was accelerated once he received a Chrome OS notebook, but he has been utilizing it for some time now between work and home.  This article was naturally written online in Google Docs on 3 different computers.

REFERENCES

Office Suites
Zoho http://www.zoho.com/
Microsoft Office Live  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps/
Google Docs https://docs.google.com

Instant Messengers
AIM http://www.aim.com
Yahoo!  http://messenger.yahoo.com/
IMO https://imo.im/
IM+ https://plus.im/
eBuddy http://www.ebuddy.com/
LiveGo http://www.livego.com/
Trillian http://www.trillian.im/

Photo Albums
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
Picasa http://picasaweb.google.com

Image Editors
Photoshop.com http://www.photoshop.com
Aviary http://www.aviary.com/
Cloud Canvas http://www.cloud-canvas.com/cloudcanvas.php
Pixlr Editor http://pixlr.com/editor/
Picnik http://www.picnik.com/app/

Online Games
Kongregate http://www.kongregate.com/
FreeMMOGamer http://www.freemmogamer.com
AddictingGames http://www.addictinggames.com/

Project Management
MultiTask http://multitask.gochromium.com/
SmartSheet http://www.smartsheet.com/

Integrated Development Environment
PHPAnywhere http://phpanywhere.net/
ShiftEdit http://shiftedit.net/
CodeRun http://coderun.com/
Mozilla Bespin https://bespin.mozillalabs.com/

 


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