What the Cloud?

Is your network up here?

Cloud computing, cloud computing! We've got lots of friends who've asked us how it works, what it does and whether or not they should care. In reverse order, the answers are: Yes they should care, it allows a user to access their data from any web-enabled computer and I'll need more space to answer the third.

Here's the Coles Notes.

Think of it as internet-based computing. The information you want, the software you need and the resources you require. It's important to know that there are different types of networks: private clouds, public cloud, community clouds, but they all operate under the same principle. Get online, login to the cloud network, and everything you store or have access to is made available from any computer terminal. It is also important to note that with the  different types of cloud networks come varying capabilities and shortcomings.

The business implications are immense, resulting in much less reliance on specific physical devices. From a personal standpoint, you can access your pictures, music and videos from wherever you are. Web startups like Dropbox provide simple cloud capabilities. Each "dropbox" allows people to store files online at no cost, and can be accessed by anyone who is granted access as invited by the creator. Cloud computing is already here and the adoption curve continues to climb across personal and business networks.

In similar fashion to how cloud computing is transforming the world of data - increasing accessibility, breaking down walls, increasing reliability, saving money - unified communications makes real-time communications easy and available from and web-enabled device. It eliminates dependencies on certain platforms, certain devices, and waiting time. But now we're getting off-topic. Check out our webpage for more.

That's us!

A blogshare with the MacBook Air

Many of our friends (including some of us) have become Apple fans. The unwavering loyalty of many Mac users is astonishing. They defend their aluminium unibody notebook computers with passion. This blogger shares his experience with the new Macbook Air.

From ioshints.com, written by Ivan Pepelnjak

MACBOOK AIR – MIXED FEELINGS (OR IS IT JUST ME)

If you read my Twitter stream, you’ve probably realized I’d been stupid enough to decide to do another multi-vendor experiment: I’m trying to figure out whether an old grump can adapt to a MacBook Air.

Warning: What follows is a rant. You might want to skip this one and read something more technical.

No problems so far with reliability or software stability. I love the design (who doesn’t), the speed, the weight, and the fact that OSX is Unix-based. Opening gedit from a remote Linux box on which I have to change a few config files, doing ssh or running perl without installing tons of add-on software is a godsend ... but I still have the feeling that MacBook is a toy designed for creative people, not for people who have to get a job done.

Let’s start with the menus. There’s a reason I know every possible shortcut and Ctrl-Shift-Alt/Something/Something-else-totally-weird combination in every program I use – I can blind-type and I don’t want to waste my time moving to the mouse, carefully positioning it to the top of the screen (not top-of-window, that would be way too close), and wandering through menus to select what I need.

I can use most of the Windows applications I need without mouse. I almost never use Mouse in Word and PowerPoint is the only major exception, but even there I use mouse only to position the objects (and I would use arrow keys if I could somehow select the objects) and deal with the keyboard stupidities Microsoft created in place of the traditional menus. With Mac, using Office for Mac or any other program, I waste more than half of my time playing with the trackpad...

Read the rest here

Source URL: http://blog.ioshints.info/2011/11/macbook-air-mixed-feelings-or-is-it.html