photo credit: mansikka
Over the past few weeks, I witnessed many situations in my daily computer help rounds that would have been far less painful and costly for the computer user IF they utilized the cloud.
The cloud I refer to is a broad term for using programs found on the web versus on your computer. Another commonly used term for this type of computing is Web 2.0. Here are some examples of problems I ran into recently that could have been minimized or avoided had the person used a cloud application.
Today, for example, I had a client who had a problem with Microsoft Outlook and an Internet Explorer 8.0 update gone awry. Her ability to email, access her calendar, contacts, and to-do list were all lost. Cloud solution: Web based email and calendar systems from Google or Yahoo.
Earlier this week, a customer needed to resize and crop some photos, but did not have a tool other than Microsoft Paint. Cloud solution: Web based image editors like Pixlr.com or Picnik.com
Another situation I ran into was a small business who needed access to word processing documents from various locations and have employees do the same. Cloud solution: Zoho.com or Google Docs.
These are just a few of the situations I run into daily that could be solved quickly and inexpensively by web applications. Starting today, I’ve added a new section to my Links page called Web 2.0 Applications. Check it out.
If you have any web applications you use on a regular basis, tell me about it, by leaving a comment below.
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Rick, for the past five years I’ve tried to get one woman to completely drop the AOL software bundle, but since that’s the first way she started using the web and her advanced age she’s kind of stubborn about it. I’ve been trying to get her to switch to Gmail or even to use AOL in Firefox but I fear it’s a losing battle. I use all the Google apps, Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs, and even started testing Google wave( I have invites if you’re interested), and Picasa. I kind of wish their Maps app had more options when getting directions, such as setting start and end times but it’s a good free alternative to MS Streeets.
Hey B, I guess it IS how one starts out. As for ‘advanced age’ I’m a senior. I’ve never used “Almost On Line”. My kids started with it, and have never given it up. There is NO convincing them otherwise.
Although I love teaching folks how to use new technology, many times the best policy is to leave them where they are comfortable. Glad to see another Google fan out there, though!
I totally agree with you about this, Rick. I think that you know my feeling about the cloud
I work for a decent size company of about 250 employees. We have 3 servers that run Exchange Server, our ERP system, and other accounting packages. The IT guy that is “in charge” of our system, well doesn’t really know what he is doing (I’m not bitter).
Anyways, I can think of at least a couple of things that the cloud could fix in our situation, like corporate Gmail for instance. There really is no need to host our own Exchange Server at the moment, we don’t even really use all of the “advanced” features and actually end up using it like an internal IM client; it is seriously crazy. Using Gmail corporate wide would reduce a TON of headaches of running our own servers.
I love the cloud. Thanks for this post. I needed it!
Good thoughts…it seems that many universities are heading down that path…corporations may follow.
Rick–Another great reason to use cloud computing is if you need an application to work across different platforms. I use several flavors of Linux and also one Windows box. I had a devil of a time synching my password program with all of these O.S.’s until I found Passpack Password Manager.
http://www.passpack.com/en/home/
I have only used it for about a month, but I can’t find anything wrong with it. In fact, it was the only cloud password manager I could find that supported CSV import. I will be interested to see what you think of it.
Great addition…I have also tried Passpack and find it to be pretty solid. I’m a little nervous about putting financial passwords up there, but only a little. After reading the particulars on how it works, I don’t think anyone should worry. I don’t know if there is stronger security or encryption anywhere.