Posts Tagged ‘Gmail’
We all use cloud services in one way or another. When you access your Gmail, use Facebook and store photos online, you are actually leveraging cloud services. For small businesses, saving money, increasing productivity and enhancing uptime are some of the major reasons why a move toward the cloud computing platforms available today should be given priority. Regardless of what industry you are in, there are enough cloud computing tools to help you run your company in the cloud.
1. Harvest
Harvest is a time-tracking and online invoicing cloud service. It offers users the ability to see a distributed visual report of a company’s resources. With Harvest, you can create online invoices, bill clients, get paid online and view employee and contractor timesheets. Harvest also offers detailed data reports that can be filtered by project, staff and in other ways. You can then determine how time is being spent, which easily helps to manage projects. The time-tracking feature is especially handy when working on time-sensitive projects or projects that are paid on an hourly basis. Time tracking using Harvest can be done anytime and anywhere. You can even track time via your mobile device, widgets, Twitter or Gmail.
2. Carbonite
If you deal with large amounts of data that need to be backed up frequently, then Carbonite is a handy cloud platform to easily manage your backups. It works for multiple computers within a small organization and keeps track of each computer that is running the application. Once installed, Carbonite does all the backing up in the background for each computer every time it detects an Internet connection. Restoring backed up files is as easy as backing them up. With a few mouse clicks, files are restored to their original computers or to another designated drive. A browser-based dashboard lets you monitor the backup status of each computer in your organization.
3. ZenDesk
ZenDesk is a customer help cloud platform that lets you centralize your customer conversations making it easy to offer support services. It offers ticket management, reporting and analytics tools, self service, branding & integration services and tools to make the customer experience quick, efficient and more manageable. Ticket management is especially critical to a business since it helps to quickly identify high-priority issues and respond to them, automate certain responses and collaborate with others. ZenDesk allows a user to monitor support trends, ticket volume metrics and analyze customer satisfaction ratings to better provide support to clients. ZenDesk also integrates with other products to provide a seamless experience across your organization.
In addition to the above platforms, Google and Microsoft have created their own cloud tools and services, and integrated them with their already existing services. When selecting a cloud computing platform, determine your industry, customers and employees and choose a platform that will result into a smooth seamless transition and that will most effectively serve the needs of all three.
Kind Regards,
Lina Deveikyte
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
According to Statcounter numbers and charts, Google Chrome should be the number 1 browser in the world as soon as this year. Let’s see what LI members think about this prediction.
«No. Good old IE has plenty of mileage left yet, and because it is a “known platform” will continue to be a standard in much of the business world for at least a few years yet.»
Bernard Gore,
Project & Change expert
«According to statistics available, it is unlikely that IE will be knocked off the top spot in 2012, even though Chrome has seen a meteoric rise in usage in 2011.
In Jan 2011, IE accounted for 46% of all Internet browsing, by Dec this had dropped to 38.65%.
Meanwhile, Chrome rose from 15.68% in Jan to 27.27% by Dec, trouncing Firefox into third place with its market share changing from 30.68% in Jan to 25.27% in Dec.
Other browsers, including Safari and Opera remain minnows in comparison. Mobile browsers (which are not included in the figures above) doubled from 4.3% in January to 8.03% in December.
However, it should be acknowledged that these statistics are far from an accurate representation of the true market share of the various browsers, as the statistics are usually taken from a small range of web site visitors and often visitors’ browsers cannot be sniffed by the methods in use. Remember that there are a huge number of corporate users of IE around the world that will continue to use IE for the foreseeable future.»
Glenn Reffin,
Experienced Graphic and Web Design Professional
«Yes. Although I prefer Firefox, I do believe that Chrome will make it to the top by mid-2012. IE is terrible and makes web design tougher because it does not conform to new and updated HTML or CSS.»
Nina Churchill,
Owner of Fresh View Concepts
«While Chrome is an outstanding browser, it will not be #1 in 2012 due to the simple fact that the vast majority of Internet users, contrary to conventional wisdom, are not particularly savvy with regards to the Internet and technology. Most users are people who don’t care about browser wars. They simply want to be able to check their Facebook accounts and e-mail and Twitter and… Well, you get the point. Until Chrome gets must-have features that even your mother or grandmother are asking about, Chrome will remain #2 at best.»
Christian Zimmerman,
Desktop Engineer Team Lead at Nelnet, Inc.
«Not sure what it will look like in 2012. I will say I haven’t used IE in over a year or more. Chrome get’s on my nerves sometimes; but I have tried them all and found Chrome to be the lightest without sacrificing great options. »
Tony Rappa,
Nugget Training Advisor
Google Chrome only launched at the end of 2008, but with close integration and added features for people using Google’s ubiquitous suite of web tools such as Gmail, Google Docs and the like, the exciting benefits that will surely come as a result of Google+, and Google throwing oodles of cash at promoting the product, Microsoft and Mozilla must be seriously concerned. Agree?
Best Regards,
Kristina Kozlova
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
Facebook says its new Messages service is no Gmail killer, and Google’s CEO has said he is not concerned. Bellow you may find some LI members’ opinions about this topic.
«I feel no, Facebook is one of the best networking site to communicate and keep in touch everyday.»
Sean Lopez
«Yes! Some people think FB messaging service will replace email in the future….»
Kate Jillings
«Well, inertia is a powerful force. It takes some getting for people to switch e-mail services, especially when it comes to the hassles of changing your contact information with friends, banks, credit cards and other organizations that use your address. Even then, the possibility cannot be ruled out. Facebook already has a treasure trove of personal information and a huge messaging platform. Throw email into the mix and you have a deadly combination. And there’s also the social element: FB knows very well who your friends are and how closely you’re connected to them; it can very well do a pretty good job of figuring out which personal emails you want to read most and prioritize them accordingly. With more than 500 million users, FB is a giant much bigger than all email providers. If it can manage to integrate the new messaging system with the main interface, I think FB will get even “stickier” than it is and will make people keep their distance from the privacy-invading behemoth.»
Abdul Rahim Hasan
«It would be death for Google to say that it *is* worried, whether it is or not. New technology does not kill old technology immediately. It layers on top of old ways of doing things. Email is not, despite what Facebook says, dead. Facebook is engaging in a little psyche-out with Google, pretending that it’s David to Google’s Goliath, when it hasn’t been David for years. Watch, in 5 years as Facebook becomes MySpace and some new, even cooler platform takes over the zeitgeist and we all forget about Mark Z.»
Erica Friedman
«Absolutely not. While Facebook has the user base, their current platform apparently does not have the ability to support a real email service. I’ve been using the “New Messages” for a few weeks now, and my conclusion about it is “Seriously? That’s it?”»
Brian Altenhofel
«I am concerned about the privacy issues that are going to come up…not at an IT level, but because people have begun to let down their guard where they’d have never done so like this in a shopping mall meeting someone and talking, or a cafe, or elsewhere. Facebook does not seem secure to me in that sense rather than the security of their messaging system. I’m seeing droves of people joining facebook then baring their souls and their everyday existence…then realizing you cannot take that back. One thing you must say is that communication is still more or less in writing but not for long. Voice recognition etc is going to become more common. So facebook may serve a purpose as it’s more visual than verbal for many folks and the others still require more written communication. Like it or not, many people find that requires a little work!»
Heather Vitaglione
Maybe you have something to add?
Best Regards,
Kristina Kozlova
Altabel Group
www.altabel.com
The computer industry is one that confuses most people, even those within it. The buzzword today is “Cloud Computing”. But what is it? More importantly, why do I care, and why should you care?
I am sure that most people will say – “The PC that I bought at my local shop made no mention of the cloud; it must be an app on service”.
Not so!
Most people are already users of the cloud. Do you have a Yahoo, Gmail, or MSN email address? If yes then you are a cloud user. Your data is not on your local computer, it is stored potentially 1000’s of miles away.
The same goes for the social media sites, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and the other eight gazillion places operating in the same way. Your comments, pictures, ideas, are not living inside that box on the floor beside your monitor; they are on a computer far, far away.
To be honest, the Cloud seemed scary when I first heard about it. Who would trust information to be stored in a place that is hard to define? A place that you could not reach out and touch?
But, think about it for a moment. Your local hard drive is the same in a way. Sure, you can take a screwdriver and unhook it. You can hold it in your hands, but can you really touch the data? Can you hold that picture of your child in your hands? The answer is a resounding NO!
You can hold the physical device, but so what? What happens if that physical device gets damaged? The sensible answer would be I would reload my data from my back up system. It sounds great, but, how many of you actually back up your data?
The cloud makes good sense. Your data is backed up, it is safe. Sure, if you lose your Internet connection it will be inaccessible until service is restored. I class that as a minor irritant that I can live with, and when it happens I can always continue to create at the local level.
The cloud as a data repository makes great sense to me.It unfetters me from my computer, no matter which part of the world I am in, and I can access the information.
Can the cloud do more? Yes it can 
Kristina Kozlova
Altabel Group
http://www.altabel.com
