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A lot of people want to do basic photo editing but, don’t want to shell out $70 for Photoshop Elements and think that GIMP is too complicated. Plus, you need to buy and or install your software on each computer. Cloud computing comes to the rescue with Picnik which takes care of  simple image editing and can although it does not do everything Photoshop does, but for average users it should be fine.

Picnik has a simple UI and lets you edit pictures from either the web or from your hard drive. As far as features, it lets you zoom, rotate, crop, modify colors, sharpen and reduce red eye. You can also, get a premium account to further, the features and still starting at only, $2.08 a month. If Gimp is to complicated and Photoshop is too expensive for you then, try Picnik it may be worth your while.

Cloudberry already has made a great FTP-like explorer for Amazon S3 but, what if you want to back up all your data to this server because it is so affordable and everyone should backup their data incase of disaster. Cloudberry Onlinebackup takes care of this need and lets you install it on as many computers as you like and backup your information onto your S3 account and save money over other services and does everything you need. It has all the features you need including scheduling, encryption, verification, notification and much more! Once again it is only Windows but, I hope it will expand and let others be able to keep their data safe on S3.

Many people who move back-and forth between several computers use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to upload data to remote servers and can access the data from any computer connected to the Internet. However, if file transfer is all you need, web hosting can be too complicated and expensive. However, there is a solution one a software program that is currently free called, Cloudberry Explorer the other is a extremely inexpensive service called Amazon S3. First you need to get a S3 account. S3 allows you to upload and store data on Amazon’s servers and only pay for the space that you use and the per-gigabyte price is extraordinarily low, only 15 cents per gigabyte per month. This is great for just transfering files where ever you are and only pay for what you need. The real star however, is Cloudberry Explorer, which looks just like a regular FTP program like Filezilla but, lets you upload files to your Amazon S3 account! There is a freeware version as well as a Pro version that is free for now while it is in beta and adds encryption and lets you move files from a FTP server to S3!  The interface is very simple and intuitive and my one and only gripe is that it is Windows only right now and I think inorder to fully grasp the theory of Cloud Computing is to run on all major operating systems but, it is great to move your data with you without having to carry it!

Last week as all Gmail users would know, Gmail was down for several hours and left many people without access to their email. This is the perfect example of why if you use cloud services, that you should keep a copy of your most important data locally incase of an outage. One of the major problems of Cloud Computing is that if a server goes down or the Internet goes down, then people will be unable to access their data.

One way to do this, is to syncronize you cloud service to your local machine. Email can be done easily by setting it up in a mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird. Same can be done with calendars via subscribing to an iCal feed. Other services like Google Docs and Delicious do not have backup feature, but especially for Google Docs, you should make sure any document you cannot survive a multi-hour outage without, has a copy backed up on your local computer. The other issue is that there is not guarantee that these services will be around forever, so this means that you need to always have a “Plan B” incase one service goes down.

Cloud Computing is great because it allows you to get you applications and data anywhere in the world and share data with others and collaborate with them. But, would it be great if you could have an operating system that will provide you direct access to cloud applications and simulate you operating system but all in the cloud?

Web operating systems fulfill that need and lets you do just that. There are very many Web OSes to list a few there are: eyeos, cmyos and my personal favorite G.ho.st. These sites are a very accurate of a desktop operating system like Microsoft Windows or Mac OSX and does most of what they do but, all in the cloud. These web operating systems allow their users to check their web-based email, use their web-based documents service,  store files, play simple games and surf the web. That’s right the web operating system has an actual browser iside your own web browser which is kind of cool. As far as web applications, it depends on they system, G.ho.st, allows the user to use both Google Docs and Zoho which is one of the reasons that I like it.

In my opinion, these web operating systems are integral to cloud computing becoming a standard. Even if it is not your primary operating environment, it will be at the very least a very nice launcher, making using cloud computing much easier. I also believe that they will begin to make web operating systems that can be installed and can be used online and offline similar to Google Gears and syncronizes between the local and cloud files making cloud computing very newbie friendly. I recommend giving a web OS a try because it make utilizing the cloud much easier.

The term “Cloud Computing” is a bit too broad in my opinon and because of that I think that it is a term that confuses the average user. I gave my definition of cloud computing but  I think that inorder for people to fully understand what Cloud Computing is it needs to have a more “user-friendly” name.

My suggestion of a new name is browser computing, because most cloud computing is accessed via a web browser. This new name would also allow people to understand that Cloud Computing is essentially using web-based applications and storing data online. Anyone who uses webamil for their email is utilizing Cloud Computing but, many people don’t know that. Browser computing is much more of a friendly, down to earth name that represents cloud computer best! I think they should be synonomous and can be used intercvhangably to prevent confusion. But, I believe that Browser Computing will be the best for n00bs who have no idea that they are very likley using cloud computing and don’t know it!

This is a product idea that I think will come out in the next few years that  will create better PDAs that will be way better than any before. My idea is creating a PDA that instad of running applications that are on the local device, they access cloud services like Google Dcs, Gmail and many others. This way a PDA doesn’t need to be directly syncronized, via tethering, and syncing but, instead everything will be done over 3G internet connection. I know there are devices that lets you access services on PDAs, but this device will be all cloud and let people get work done anyuwhere. Cloud computing on a PDA makes everything easier and data won’t lost and if you have a computer or device malfunction.

Cloud Computing lets users access their information on any internet connected computer and eliminates the need to install software or transport your data. This also lets you use any interent-enabled computer no matter operating system and no matter how much power  your machine has. You can realize you don’t need Windows or Mac OS if you just use cloud services and a free and open source operating system called Linux is all you need! Many people say Linux is not as powerful as MacOS and Windows while others say quite the contrary. Either way if all you need to do is run a browser to access cloud computing services, then Linux is all you need because it is lightweight and stable.

This has also lead to netbooks which are mini laptops with law sytem specs that are built to access Cloud computing services and many run Linux operating systems. Really, netbooks only need to have basic functions and why run a large operating system that requires a lot of power if you need low system specs.  Even on regular computers, many people may realize they don’t need Windows and Linux will do everything they need. As more people adopt Cloud computing and use becomes more of a standard practice, more people will realize that they don’t need Windows and Linux is not only for computer geniuses but, for regular people as well!

Although I said WYSIWYG design is pointless Squarespace, has proven to be the best implementation of WYSIWYG and what I hope future blogging platforms will evolve to in the future. Squarespace is a subscription service that lets you run a full-fledged blog without having to run a server and manage the CMS. However, you do not loose control of the site and have a lot of power over the design of the site and is easy to use,

Squarespace has a back-end that is really just the same page as the front page but, with loggin in, you gain access to all the administrative controls. Like many blogging platforms, there is a dashboard to manage all your siute functions and everything you expect it to. The big winner is templates and design, you can use templates but, from there you can just drag collums to be wider or narrower and change colors with a few clicks. It also has a library of other additional tools that allow you to add integration to social networks, add photo gallerys, web forms and much more! These additional tools let your site be more flexible than your average blog and lets you do exactly what you want with it. Squarespace also can keep sites stable even if there is a spike in traffic, assuring your site won’t go down if you are dugg or slashdotted! Squarespace makes running your website easy but, maintains all the power for the advanced users.

Plans start at: $8/month and go as high as $50/month depending on features. I would definitly consider to migrate to Squarespace if the price goes a bit lower because and if they allow multiple sites on one plan but, I do like how you can import existing blogs and exporting if you no longer wish to use Squarespace. I have used the trial and am very impressed and think if they add those requests i mentioned I would seriously consider switching!

Although Google Docs is great, and can take your office suite from your local machine to the internet however, it is still a bit short on features however there is another, more powerful websuite that has more features. Zoho has a word processor, spreadsheet and slide show program just like Google Docs but, it also has more advanced features that Google Docs has left out. In addition to the basic applications, Zoho has other applications as well like Zoho Notbook for note taking, Wiki for running a wiki page, Planner to plan events and many others. There is also a line of business applications such as CRm to manage sales, Project Management tools, and many others. However these business applications have limited free use and then users need to pay for full access for the services they want, unlike Google Apps which charges one flat fee for full access to all their services. There is one major downside to Zoho, beside the price the user interfact looks as though the application UI has not been updated since the late 1990s. The other problem is there is not easy way to navigate between applications which I really need and is why I use Google Docs because they make it very easy to navigate between applications and has a modern UI. I think Zoho has a lot of potential and if they had a one price for full access business model and up date their UI they may be a worthy opponent to Google but for now they are still in need for further development.