Lessfeet » cloud

Cloud Music Wars

Mark — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:30:17 +0000

The war to be the best streaming music site is on. In April the announcement of Amazon’s Cloud Player and last month Google’s cloud based music service Beta called Google Music. I sign up for Cloud Player. I also requested an invitation to the Google service last month and just got the invitation today and logged in. After messing with it for a few minutes I found Google Music to be easier then Amazon because you can automatically add a lot of free songs so you can begin streaming right away. Amazon you had to wait until you upload some songs to the Cloud Drive or buy some from Amazon. Granted you don’t own the free music but who cares. It’s free! Of the two Cloud Player and Google Music I think Google Music will be a better experience for most people. I take issue with one thing. Google and Amazon have a uploader program that is for Windows and Mac only and I’m a Linux user. Fortunately Amazon has a web based uploader, Google only has the program, so I have to switch to a Windows Machine to get my on songs on Google Music.

Happy listening!

Everything On The Web

Mark — Sat, 14 May 2011 03:03:15 +0000

Google has just announced the new Chromebooks to being made by Samsung and Acer. They’ll be sold by Amazon and Best Buy beginning June 15th.

The idea behind these computers is everything on the web. Use Gmail instead of Outlook, use Google Docs or Windows Live Office. Watch video on YouTube or Vimeo. Even watch TV with Netflix and Hulu. I just found these today! Do 3D modeling with TinkerCad. Lookout now! The killer app announced at Google IO this week Angry Birds online. Are you excited now? Do photo editing online with Picnik. You can create great zooming presentations with Prezi. This and much, much more.

Do you think you could do everything on the web?

Chromebooks Coming

Mark — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:40:19 +0000

The new notebook computers with the Chrome OS will be available for purchase June 15th. Last year we started talking about the new toy that Google was giving away the CR48 notebook computer. It looked pretty much like a regular computer but when you took a closer look you found it only have one program. That’s right the only program was the Chrome web browser. The concept was, to do everything on the cloud. Now being called ChromeBooks they are being manufactured. They’re going to be sold by Amazon and BestBuy starting June 15th but to all other consumer outlets soon. The computers are being manufactured by Samsung and Acer for now.

The first Chromebooks are…

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook

Intel ATOM Processor N570 1.66Ghz
12.1″ LED (WXGA) 1280×800
1 Mega Pixel HD webcam
16GB, Solid State Drive (mSATA)
Weight: 3.26 pounds
With WiFi and 3G, or WiFi only
Price $429 for Wifi only, $499 to include 3G

Details

Acer Chromebook

Google Chrome OS
Intel ATOM Processor NM10
11.6″ LED (WXGA) 1368×768
1.3 Mega Pixel HD webcam
16GB, Solid State Drive (mSATA)
Weight 3.3 pounds
With WiFi and 3G, or WiFi only
Price $349 WiFi only, 3G don’t know

Details

I like this concept since nearly everything I do is on the web but I’ve talked to lots of people who don’t like the idea of paying full price for less. The lower end laptops and the netbooks can be used while not connected to the web. The Chrombooks are the same price as these computers. I and some Google/web 2.0 enthusiast like myself will buy them. Some consumers will buy them because they are bigger than netbooks. They’ll take them home and return them the next day after finding it’s not a full computer.

I’ll let you know what I think after I get one.

Google Makes Computers Disposable

Mark — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:10:53 +0000

By now you’ve heard about the Google Chrome notebook. I thought it sounded intriguing and quickly went to their site to check it out. It would be nice to have a notebook that is lite, starts quickly and has great battery life. I tried a dell net-book the Mini 10. I didn’t like it at all so I returned it. Unlike the Mini 10 the Chrome notebook has a SSD (Solid State Drive) so it is much fast then netbooks with spinning harddrives. It has the Chrome OS not Windows so there’s no need for anti-virus software. Your saving all of your data to the cloud so if your computer is lost, stolen or destroyed you still have all of your data. Because you need to be on the Internet to use this thing (actually not true due to offline mode for Google apps and some other sites) Google has made sure your connected with WiFi of course but also they’re giving you 3G wireless. 100 megabytes free each month from Verizon Wireless for two years. 100MB is good enough to work on Google Docs every morning on the bus as long as your not taking YouTube breaks.

I’d like to try what Google is proposing, doing everything in the cloud. Hell I almost do it now. It would be a great experiment!

Jungle Disk

Mark — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:00:16 +0000

Jungle Disk is an application that lets you store files and backup data securely to Amazon.com’s S3 ™ Storage Service. S3 does not have an application So Jungle Disk provides you with one. Jungle Disk creates a network drive in your computer and you just drag folder and files over or you can setup an automatic backup. I’ve been using Jungle Disk foryears and it is outstanding. Jungle Disk use to cost $20 and you could use it on as many computers as you wished but now I think it is some sort of monthly subscription. I think it’s $3 dollars a month. The data backed up via Amazon S3 is very cheap as well.

Carbonite

Mark — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:05:45 +0000

Carbonite is an online data backup solution. I’ve been using Carbonite to backup the data on my desktop for a years because of the price and all the data you want for $54.95 per year per computer. I have a lot of MP3s and photos to back and the all you can eat pricing is great if you have a lot of data.

Gmail Uploader

Mark — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:37:47 +0000

Have you recently moved to Gmail but still have a most of your contacts and all of your Email still in a program like Outlook on your Windows computer. The Google Email Uploader is what you need. The Gmail Uploader will take those contacts and messages preserving your folder structure and import them right into Gmail.

Backup Your Cloud

Mark — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:00:59 +0000

Backupify is one of the coolest services that I have seen. Backup all of your online life in one place. Enter all of your cloud accounts (Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Docs, Photobucket, WordPress sites, Basecamp, Gmail, Facebook, Friendfeed, Blogger, Hotmail and coming soon Youtube, Xmarks and Tumblr) and Backupify will backup your data on those sites to an Amazon S3 server so you know it’s safe. Backup the cloud on the cloud. How cool is that?

Roku Player Easy And Awesome

Mark — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:26:59 +0000

The Roku players are settop boxes the brings all of your favorite content from the Internet to your television. Simple setup; I didn’t even look at the instructions. Roku players have built in wireless but I used the ethernet. After I connected the player to my home theater system and plugged in the ethernet I connected the power. I selected the connection type ethernet. You select the media source with the remote. If you have a Netflix, Flickr or Pandora account it will give you a codes to enter into those accounts via Internet. Don’t worry the Roku player walks you true it. You can now play unlimited online content from Netflix or Amazon Video with a payed account. Play podcast and other programing for free from Mediafly, blip.tv, Revision3, TWIT and many others. You can hear great music from Pandora. View your photos on Flickr and much more. Being a big podcast consumer I haven’t enjoyed a gadget this much in a very long time. I love TWIT.TV, Revision3 and others on the Roku very much. I am having a ball!

The Roku SD (Standard Definition) is $79.99.
The Roku HD (Hi Definition) is $99.99.
The Roku HD XR ( Hi Def with Wireless N) $129.99.

Alternatives In The Cloud

Mark — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:48:44 +0000

I just told you in the two previous post about alternative software but increasingly I am turning to the Cloud (or Internet) for many of my applications. Here are just some of my favorites:

Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Live Mail – alternatives for your traditional ISPs email with an email program like Outlook Express.
Google Docs, Zoho, Microsoft Office Live – alternatives for Microsoft Office
Mint – alternative for Quicken
Quickbooks Online – alternative to Quickbooks software