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Rumors have emerge in the past weeks of Apple making MobileMe, their web service that provide Email, Contacts, Calendar, photo gallery and web hosting which currently costs $100 per year. The rumors say the reason is so that they can compete with Google’s free apps that have those features and many more! I think that if Apple makes some changes to MobileMe, it will be a  much better service and many more people will use it.

1. Price Reduction- If they don’t make it Free, then at least reduce the price to $50/year  $100 is too much for the few features it offers.
2. Free For iPhone Owners- Mobile Me also offers great features for the iPhone like “Find My iPhone” to find lost iPhones and “Remote Wipe” to securely delete the information on your iPhone over the internet. MobileMe should be included for free to all iPhone users so they can all take advantage of these very important features.
3. More Storage- Currently MobileMe offers 20 GB of storage for Mail, Photos, calendar, and files, for a lot of people that may not be enough. Storage should be increased at the very least to 100 GB if not unlimited.
4. iTunes Sync- Right now, iTunes is a major pain to setup on multiple computers or to move between computers. Why not have MobileMe sync all your iTunes content over the air and to your iPod or iPhone so you don’t need to plug your device in to sync, and content can automatically sync between computers.
5. Web Access/Streaming iTunes Content- In the event you don’t have your iPod or iPhone with you MobileMe should offer an option to stream song, videos and podcasts from your iTunes library on the web.

Google Voice is a service where you can get one local number and have it set to ring all your phones. This is great if you have a home, work and cell phone because you can give one number and have it ring everywhere. You can also have voicemails transcribed to text and emailed to you as well as have your text messages emailed to you. Also you can schedule it to ring certain phone numbers at certain times! This is perfect if you don’t already have a well known number because then you can give everyone you know one number and then when you recieve calls, you can pick up on whatever phone is convenient for you. You can also replace your cell phone voicemail with Google Voicemail giving you a centralized voicemail box that can be accessed over the internet. I think it will be a great way to centralize all you phones and just to get one number to ring them all. One downside though is because it is still a semi new product, it is invitation only but, if you can get an invitation, theyn give it a try to have one number to ring al your phones!

When the idea of Google Wave came out, I got excited and thought that it will be a revolutionary communication platform. Then, I began to use it and i realized it really is nothing special. I was excited when I got ther invitation but, unless I am really missing something major, I don’t see the point of using Wave.

With Google Wave you can send messages, called Waves, in real-time to friends and you can collaborate in realtime. The biggest flaw in that is that very few people currently have Google Wave so there are very few people to communicate with and even then, the feature set is scarse. I think that if the application store that is rumored to come through may save Wave, but as it stands right now it is not as revolutionary as it claimed to be. I really hope that Google works to add more features and innovate, which Google is quite good at. If they do this, then they could easily make it the revolutionary platform that it set out to be. However, as it stands right now, I prefer regular email to Wave as of right now and think Google has a long way to go to make Google Wave the next “wave” in communication.

Cloud Computing is a great way to work and collaborate wherever you are whenever you need to work. This is especially beneficial for students because students work at home, in school, at the library and at a friend’s house. Why bother carrying a thumb drive that could get lost, dropped or broken when you could just go on the cloud and be able to access your information anywhere on any computer. This applies to Secondary students and even more to college students. Cloud computing not only adds convenience for students, but also allows a group of students to collaborate from their dorm room, the library or across the world.

First and simplest Cloud service is Google Docs; it allows users to write documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and to share and collaborate with others over the internet. This makes working on a project much easier no matter if people get sick or can’t make it to class, work can be worked on across the web. Google has also developed more tools specifically for students which allows Google Docs to be used as an equation editor, has added a built-in language translator, and chemical equation balancer.

Next, Dropbox, if you don’t think that Google Docs will cut it for you, Dropbox is the next best thing. I wrote about how Dropbox is so great and combines having files local and being able to share over the cloud. You can install it on all your computers and easily share data or just use the simple web interface and have a thumb drive you can access on any computer with Internet access and can’t be lost or broken. Dropbox also allows you to share documents either publically or privately with other users.

Cloud computing seems as though it is meant specifically with studnets in mind because it lets user do what they want, when they want and it is near impossible to loose your data unless you forget your password. I have always loved cloud computing but, now using it for school work it is even better!

For those who have multiple computer and want to access files between them, usually requires the user to use either an external hard drive or thumb drive and manually move the file from one computer to another! However, that is now a thing of the past with Dropbox. With Dropbox, all you need to do is sign up for an account and install the program on all the computers you want to use, the program works on both Mac as well as Windows. With the free account you get 2 GB of storage but, if you need more you could pay for up to 5o GB of storage. With Dropbox, you have a cloud drive that you can use like a thumb drive, but once you save files to the Dropbox, they are automatically uploaded to the web and then are synced to the other computers. This makes thumb drives a thing of the past and let you just save files to Dropbox and you can access it anywhere, even online in your browser!

Personally, I use my Dropbox to sync files between my Macbook Pro which is on my desk most of the time with my netbook that I take to class so, my school work is availible and up-to-date one whatever computer I choose to use! If you think 2 GB is not enough for you, which if you are just doing documents it should, since I have all my school files on there and some other stuff and I am only use 2%! However, if you need more you can get another .25 GB for going through the Dropbox tutorials and even more if you invite your friends! Dropbox is a great solution if there a a few crucial files you want to have backed up, Dropbox is a awesome way to do it! If you want to not worry about copying files and remembering a thumb drive give Dropbox a try, you will not be disappointed!

When I first started using Mozy last October, I truly enjoyed the service and having a backup service where you just “Set it and Forget it” . However about 4 months ago, I have begun to experience issues backing up my data and  have not been able to back-up my data ever since. I contacted Mozy support however, they were unable to help me and told me to do the same thing everytime: uninstall, reboot and re-install. I also realized that Mozy for the Mac, although it is a paid service for unlimited data for $5 per month per computer, the Mac version is still in BETA! I do not want to pay $5 per month for a beta program.

After four months of much wasted time and trying in vain to make Mozy work, I decided that it was time for me to begin to search for a replacement. The first alternative that I looked at was the very popular Carbonite. It provided the unlimited storage that I want however, it did not let me backup data off external hard drives, which for me is necessary because I keep all my video editing files and other very important data on external hard drives and I need to keep that data safe. After some more searching, I found Backblaze. Backblaze, like Mozy, has unlimited storage for $5 per month per computer and allows me to backup my external hard drives.

Don’t get me wrong, when Mozy worked, I loved using it and liked having peace of mind knowing that my data was safe. however, I don’t want to continue wasting time trying to fix a beta product that definitely has its share of bugs. I still like what Mozy is doing and if they repair their issues, I woulod consider going back to them. However, I am very happy with Backblaze and hope it does not have all the problems Mozy has.

Cloudscoop has been a great project and I feel I have put a lot of content on the site but, I have run out of ideas for new posts. I have moved all the Cloud Scoop content on to the Gdovin.net Cloud Computing Section so you can continue to read the content there and I will also write a more about cloud computing on that site. I am also becoming a full-time college student this fall so I probably won’t have a lot of time for multiple websites so, it will now all be a part of Gdovin.net! As for the domain, I  will have Cloudscoop.com redirect to Gdovin.net cloud computing section until the domain expires! I would like to thank all the readers andother people who have help Cloud Scoop in it’s run. Please enjoy all my future cloud computing  content on Gdovin.net!

Picnik has a lot of features for a web image editor and Adobe, the maker of de-facto photo editor, has now made their own web editor called Photoshop Express.  Unfortunetly, it does not live up to the powerful name Photoshop. The only advantage that it has over Picnik is storage of 2 GB, which is able to be upgrade if you pay. Image editing is not nearly as powerful. This is a disappointment that Photoshop is the best desktop editor but, cannot build a web client. I reccommend using Picnik.