The Pinged Hobbit

Cloud Computing is the new buzz word. It’s all over the place as people believe that in the future desktop apps will be replaced by web apps. Instead of having Word and Excel installed on your local system, you will use something like Google Docs to create and edit your files. Instead of using Oulook you will keep all your emails in a web based email solution like Gmail.

For mobile workers like me this is ideal. No matter where I am working I would be able to access the apps I usually use and the data I need to work with. But putting my other hat on, that of IT admin and data security ‘expert’ it’s a bad thing. With cloud computing you lose control of your data and your what your users are actually doing with it because the apps and the data are no longer on your server. You cant track who is doing what and you cant effectively back up your data because it is stored on somebody else’s server. Continue reading »

One of the hardest things about being a mobile worker is keeping in contact with people. If you are not at your own computer if can be hard to access your own emails and contacts list. As you may have noticed I am not a big fan of the idea of web based desktops. I like web based apps such as Google Calendar and Documents but I do not want to be running an extra layer of program on my normally computer all the time. I want to have access to my emails no matter where I am, I need to be able to see my sent and recieved emails not just the ones I haven’t downloaded yet.

I have a Gmail account, have had since Gmail was in beta release in fact (mind you most Google apps spend an age in beta release). It is a good send, the size limit on the account makes it ideal for users like myself who move between computers and need access to all their emails there. With the addition of an IMAP server rather than normal POP accounts Gmail made my life easier, I could pull all my emails in to one account and then have that account accessible on all of my computers, keeping my sent and received synchronised between them all.

That covers when I am working on my own computer. But what about when I am working on a machine that isn’t my own. I don’t want to be setting up my Gmail account to temporarily pull down my emails to a loaned machines do I? I could use the Gmail web interface, but to be honest while I like the size of the Gmail account and I like the IMAP facility the Gmail web interface sucks. Its messy to look at and it doesn’t always split conversions down the way I would like. The answer I have found for this problem is to add Portable Thunderbird to the applications I carry upon my USB data stick. Thunderbird is my email application of choice on both Mac and Windows (i don’t use email on Linux box) so having Thunderbird as my portable email app made sense

Portable  Thunderbird installs on the stick very easily, simply follow the instructions in the download on the page I have linked to. The beauty of this version that I have is that it is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS meaning no matter what kind of machine I am loaned I can access it. Once its running it works just the same as it would when running natively on the machine. Everything is in the same place and all your emails are accessible, your own SMTP is used to send emails an not trace of your correspondence is left behind (privacy is key after all). This app could also be used by those working on a shared pc at home, allowing them to be absolutely certain that no one was accessing their emails by some less that honorable method keeping things private if they need them to be

The recent release of Google Chrome has caused a bit of a stir in the blogsphere. Plenty of post are appearing arguing for and against the latest kid on the browser block. There plenty of pros and cons to Google’s new baby and it’s certainly making for some interesting discussions between the various sides. One thing that Chrome does seem to have brought to the for once more is talk of the Web OS and Cloud Computing. People are pondering whether or not the value of a traditional OS can out shone by the Web based OS.

The Web OS is not a new phenomenon, there have been a few around for quite a while such as Desktoptwo and Eyeos are two of the commonly known ones. Web based OSs come with applications installed and some file storage. The big advantage, no matter where you are or what computer you are on you always have the same desktop and applications (a little like active directory on a grand scale)
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