Tag: Cloud

Google claims the cloud is more reliable

Now this recent post by Google claims that their cloud computing email solution, Gmail, is more reliable that companies that have on premises email solutions like Exchange server. They then use that to tout the superiority of cloud computing (especially their own).

You have to take a report from Google touting the superiority of their products with a grain of salt, as you would with something from Microsoft, however I believe it does indicate the way things are moving.

I would seriously ask any customer these days why they want to have an onsite mail server. There are so many hosted solutions that do it better, cheaper and more reliably. E-mails are a constant source of issues within a business for the simple reason they let something in from outside the network. You can neither really control the flow in or out of e-mails. Many more SBS customers I speak with no longer run Exchange on SBS, they out source it for the simple reason it is too complex to maintain internally without dedicated staff. Also when it comes to things like Blackberrys and Windows Mobile Devices most businesses don’t have the expertise to make it happen.

So if the trend is for email to move to the cloud I’m sure it won’t be long before all the other components follow.

As an aside you know what I’d really be interested to see? How Microsoft’s hosted Exchange stacks up to Gmail. Personally, I reckon it would be just as reliable and probably have a much richer environment than Gmail because Exchange already incorporates, tasks, calendars and so on. However, the  bottom line is that its all moving to the cloud. Are you? 

The writing is in the cloud

Can we believe this?

 

Microsoft will soon release ‘Windows Cloud’ OS, Ballmer says

 

To quote – “Within a month, Microsoft will unveil what Ballmer called “Windows Cloud.“

 

If nothing else it is going to raise the profile of ‘cloud computing’ with everyone, including customers. If you currently sell IT hardware stuff to clients, ‘you better watch, you better not cry, you better be good ‘cause I’m telling you why. Cloud computing is coming to town’ (and it isn’t even December yet).

So which of these do you believe?

There are plenty of sites out there to test your Internet connection speed. Problem is that they never seem to give consistent results. So here’s a few of the most popular sites and the results they provided for me.

Speakeasy – http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Speed.io – http://www.speed.io/index_en.html

Speedtest – http://www.speedtest.net/

My actual router

image_8_fzysQ

So it would seem that Speedtest is probably the closest to the “true” speed. For a final indication of what is the best option I use the power of the Internet via ‘social book marking’. In simple terms, I have a look at how many other people have book marked these sites using Delicious.

The result? Clearly Speedtest comes out a winner by a margin of more than three to one. Probably the reason for this is the ability to easily compare your results with others in your region like so:

So the tip is that not everything is as it appears with technology but you can always use the ‘social’ power of the Internet as a another method to assist you making a decision. Smart operators understand this ‘new’ power of the Internet and are using to their advantage. Are you?

Who needs an iPod?

Wow, I’ve just discovered a great way to listen to all your tunes using Windows Mesh. Simply use Mesh to sync a local folder with all your music to Mesh and then you can log into your account from any Internet browser and stream the audio directly over the net!

The above screen shot shows my Mesh desktop after I logged in using my browser. All I do to listen to my audio is simply select the Music folder, then change to media view and press play. Remember, all I need to listen to my music is a browser connected to the Internet.

You can currently store up to 5GB of data on Mesh and it can be any sort of data. It is interesting to consider that rather than simply being storage space Mesh actually has intelligence in determining what sort of data you have stored. How long will it be before you can preview your Word, Excel or even PDF document in Mesh? What other stuff could you do with data ‘intelligently’ in Mesh?

Just another benefit (and example of things to come) from ‘Cloud Computing’.

Groovy – Speedtest.net

Here’s a groovy little site that will tell you what your connection speed to the Internet is. Simply click on a displayed node and the speed will be tested between your site and that location.

 

It has a nice graphical user interface which means it requires Flash to run so it probably better run from a workstation rather than a server, but non the less it sure looks smik!

New version of Live Writer

I use Live Writer, a free download from Microsoft, to create my blog posts and upload then to my blog. Live Writer works really well with Sharepoint but there have been a few issues, such as embedding YouTube videos. Microsoft have released an updated version of Live Writer, that is still in beta but is claimed to fix this and add a swag of new features.

 

Find all the information about the update and a link to download the software here. Here’s a summary of the fixes and improvements:

 

Video and Image Publishing Enhancements
  • – Upload videos to Soapbox
  • – Image cropping and tilting
  • – Additional border styles
  • – Support for LightBox and other image previewing effects (like Slimbox, Smoothbox, and others)
  • – Support for centering images
 
Editing Enhancements
  • – Auto Linking
  • – Smart quotes/typographic characters
  • – Word count
 
UI Improvements
  • – Revised main toolbar
  • – Tabs for view switching
  • – Improved category control with search/filtering

 

I have thus downloaded it and installed it over the top of the previous version and am now composing this first blog post with it. So if you are now reading this you know that I have been able to at least post updates to my blog with the new version. With that sorted I’ll try some other stuff shortly and let you know the improvements.

Live Mesh from Microsoft

One of the other things that I have been playing with of late has been Live Mesh from Microsoft. Basically, you install a client on your PC’s and Mobile devices and then nominate which directories on these machines you want sync’ d. This means that the information in these folders will be available on all machines. It also means that a copy of the folders is also kept on the Internet so you can access your data from machines that are not part of your Live Mesh.

 

At the moment Live Mesh is still in Tech Preview (which means you have to sign up for a beta) and you only get 5GB of online storage. Given that, from what I have seen so far it is a pretty good product. The installation is simple and nominating your Live Mesh folders is a snap. The Live Mesh client give you information about other machines in you Live Mesh and their status.

 

I find Live Mesh a handy little addition since I need to keep information in certain folders up to date on all my machines. This means I can work on documents in one location and know that if I move somewhere else I can continue to keep working on the same document. Another handy feature is that it provides an automatic backup of your documents. So if the hard disk on one of my machines fails I know my documents are located not only on other machines but also online. All I need to do to get access to them is logon via a web browser or install the Live Mesh client on a new machine and re-sync.

 

Personally, I see this sort of technology playing a bigger and bigger role. We are only now seeing the beginning of ‘cloud computing’ but mark my words this will be big. Most people really only want access to their ‘stuff’, they don’t care where it is they only want to get to it. They also don’t want to have to worry about backing it up and here’s where stuff like Live Mesh starts to come into its own. I agree there are issues around privacy but I feel these will soon be overcome with the integration of seamless encryption that means everything in a Live Mesh is automatically encrypted to a level beyond that any government agency can break. At that stage business will start jumping on board but long before consumers are going to lead the way with these sort of products.

 

It is all about having access to your ‘stuff’ no matter where you are and for me so far Live Mesh is a winner.

Going all the way

I’ve been frustrated of late with my ISP at home not being able to provide ADSL2. Finally, there was little option but to change ISP’s, no big drama there. When I started to think about making the change I also decided that perhaps now would also be a good idea to get rid of the normal phone provided by the telco and go totally VoIP. Would that be possible? Would there be any savings? Read on for the story.

 

The first step was to have ‘naked’ ADSL installed. With normal ADSL you need a phone service connected before you can get ADSL. This means that even if you don’t use the phone you still need to pay the line rental charges. Now, ‘naked’ ADSL means that you can have ADSL BUT you no longer need a normal phone line. All you require is a copper connection. The good thing about getting ‘naked’ ADSL with my new ISP was that they would install the ADSL2 service and disconnect the existing phone for me automatically. No argument there boys, go for it.

 

On the nominated day my old ADSL service stopped, I reconfigured my modem/router with the new ISP details and bamm, I’m running ADSL2! Nothing could have been simpler. Now, phase 2, a VoIP phone that supported inbound calls.

 

When you think about it, having a phone line is still a very good idea, especially in case of emergencies whether your own or someone you know. My next challenge to work out the best way to have a phone without having a ‘traditional’ phone line. Initially I considered a pre-paid mobile phone but decided that being a technology bloke I decided to bite the bullet and get inbound VoIP working. Next stop my new ISP.

 

I logged into my client console, clicked on the application for VoIP and within a few clicks I had an inbound phone number and a plan that cost me nothing per month in rental and allowed 10c un-timed calls nationally – bonus! So now I had faster ADSL, no line rental and a phone that people can still call me on! All of which added up to a significant monthly saving. The only issue was how to use my existing handset on the new VoIP service.

 

The solution turned out to be the installation of a Linksys Internet Phone Adapter (model PAP2T around $60). All you do is plug it into the broadband modem/router, logon and configure via a web page and connect an analogue phone and bingo, you’re in business. Now, I must admit that it took me a little longer to work out the Internet Phone Adapter simply because I’d never used one before. Once I determined where to put all the login information for the VoIP account I was up and running. I have to say that there are hundreds of settings on this device, I really wonder what they all do? Maybe, one day. The cool think about this Internet Phone Adapter is that it has the facility for two lines. This means I could configure a different VoIP account to work on the second line. I could even get a VoIP account from a different provider. Thus, if someone in your house calls interstate a lot you get the cheapest VoIP provider for that on the first line and if someone else makes a lot of mobile calls you get the cheapest VoIP provider for that on the second line. The potential savings and possibilities here with VoIP are mind blowing.

 

So bottom line is that I have faster broadband, no line rental, ability to utilize my existing telephone handsets, have cheap calls, will save a packet each month and it was all really, really easy to get up and running. Truly amazing. Now I can say that I have gone all the way with technology at home!