Cloud computing is truly the tech du jour among business enterprises, but this tech buzz word is no passing fad, its gearing up to be that floating behemoth of data that’s here to stay. You’d be surprise to know that you’ve been using cloud-based services for quite some time now with Gmail, Google Docs and Dropbox. And with that realization, do you now understand the convenience of the Cloud?
As more company data and materials go on the cloud and away from any physical server at the office,
you can count on productivity and customer service to get a boost, as data can be accessed on demand
and traded among shared groups and even further improved on through customization. Well, you can think of Cloud computing in terms of the way a busy airport operates and with it comes its very own 4Cs- Capacity, Continuity, Checkpoints and Chokepoints. read more
When Google released their people widget it was believed to be a Rapportive “killer” but the company wasn’t having any of that talk and this week they decided to step up their game by adding Twitter integration to their social utility.
The company’s newly stepped up Twitter widget now allows users to follow their email contacts, send them Twitter replies and even retweet their contacts tweets right from inside their Gmail email messages, the program even allows users to see if their contacts are following them on Twitter.
Rapportive then goes one step further, integrating with the Twitter notification emails you get when you receive follows, mentions and direct messages.
In it’s most basic terms the program turns your Gmail account into a Twitter portal while maintaining the exact same Gmail functionality we have all come to expect from Google.
If you already have Rapportive you will receive the rollout in your inbox in the near future or you can head over to rapportive.com/twitter and download the program now. read more
On the Reddit blog today the social web sharing site announced that their [email protected] account had been hacked, adding that the account is used only for feedback e-mail, thus no confidential data was compromised. Reddit is now using [email protected] as their official e-mail for the time being.
Reddit released the following statement via their blog:
“We’re in contact with both google’s and twitter’s security team, and the site has not been broken into. All he’s done at this point is ruined everyone’s night. We don’t recycle passwords, and we don’t store passwords in the reddit email. No one’s account has been compromised. We don’t store any confidential information in that account; it is just for feedback email.”
The part about the team contacting Twitter was added because their official Twitter account was also compromised leading to fake Tweets being added to their account. The fake Tweets have now been removed.
While I like OpenID as a concept, I think it has been a bit too technical for the average user. Not that it is very hard to understand or use, but rather clunky and more of a hassle than something that truly helps out. There just wasn’t incentive enough for the user.
No more, potentially at least, because now Facebook is an OpenID relying partner. That means that you can use your Gmail account to login to Facebook, once you have authenticated it, and that in turn means that when you’re logged in to Facebook you’re also logged in to every site using Facebook Connect.
According to statistics, if you are reading this, you are probably on a broadband connection. Whether you are surfing at work on a LAN or at home on a DSL or cable modem, you are probably not on dial up at this moment.
However, there was a time not that long ago in which Webmasters were optimizing every element of their page feverishly to squeeze every ounce of speed from it. Broadband simply was not that common and, even over dial up connections, visitors had twitchy fingers on the “back” button at all times.
But in the age of YouTube, Flash ads and embeddable content, those lessons have been all but forgotten, However, not everyone has access to high-speed connection, especially in rural locations, and after spending just a few days limited to dial up, the lessons come flooding back.
So what lessons did I learn while surfing the slow Web while evacuated? Here is just a sample of what I saw. read more
Take a look at the comment below, caught by Akismet and held for moderation on a client blog I have access to, but not automatically marked as spam and removed when clicking the Check for Spam button. Why do I have to see it? What in this comment makes it even remotely possible to be a valid one?
Don’t get me wrong, Akismet is a great service, and it saves me a lot of time, as it does numerous others, but sometimes it amazes me what it lets through. And I’m not only thinking about the porn spam that litters most blogs’ moderation queues (or comment areas) should they have obtained some degree of traffic. read more
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans three years ago, I was stranded in the upstate of Louisiana without my most basic tools. I was there for several weeks with only dial-up Web access and a borrowed computer to help me out. Yet, I managed to update my online diary twice a day during my evacuation and continue to operate my then-newest site Plagiarism Today.
Now, three years later, I find myself in a similar position. As I am writing this, I am evacuated for Hurricane Gustav while tending to a new blog, Inelegant Solutions (see link above) and several older ones. I also have to worry about writing jobs and consulting work even though my computers and my files are mostly packed up.
However, this time around, I am better prepared. Not only was the evacuation more smooth, but I am better able to maintain my presence online despite barely being able to see the Web.
However, making that happen requires a great deal of preparation and taking several steps before anything happens. For bloggers who want to keep writing no matter what, I would strongly urge the following steps. read more
There’s no doubt about it, I’m in love with the cloud. Some people might not share my fascination with storage-in-the-cloud and compute-in-the-cloud models but I can’t wait to have the same computing experience regardless of the computer or device I’m using to connect to the Internet. I’ve taken it upon myself to change my workflow and digital lifestyle to get as much of my data online and make use of web-based tools until that utopian time comes. Here’s how I do it and you can do the same.
But without making major changes to G-Mail, Dan Rubin has refactored and relaid the GMail design onto a grid layout, added some spacing, and made a much easier-to-read and use interface for the vaunted enterprise email system. read more
Gmail had some down time for a few hours recently, luckily something I just saw in passing since it was at night where I’m located. I’m a dedicated Gmail user and I get very annoyed when it is not accessible. I also think that it works well enough to replace a desktop mail client, and that makes me think that the “beta” mark on Gmail is ridiculous. But it is there, and for a reason. Google has issues with their e-mail service from time to time, and obviously don’t feel that it is ready to be released for real. Which I think is a bit scary, but obviously understandable. It makes it easier for people like me and Om Malik to accept the apology and continue labeling our inbox accordingly.
While I like 
