02.15.09

Living in The Cloud

Posted in Apple, Journal, News, Travel, Uncategorized at 12:40 pm by Pablosan

Leading up to Christmas and her birthday, my eldest daughter had been asking for a new computer. She has been using a hand-me-down Titanium Powerbook (the G3, 500 MHz version), which is still in perfect operating condition, but runs a bit slow. So, for her birthday and not knowing for sure how I wanted to handle it, I gave her a “Free Computer Upgrade” coupon. Yes, it was a bit of a copout, but I had my reasons: primarily I wanted to wait for MWSF, to see what Apple might have up their sleeve.

A couple weeks later I had made my decision: buy her a netbook. So Karyssa and I sat down together to order an HP Mini 1000. Over the next week or so, Karyssa and I looked for an email informing us it had shipped. The email finally came and we watched the progress of the package as it made its way from Shanghai, China to Dallas, Texas.

I was a little worried: concerned that maybe this wouldn’t work out. Once the netbook actually arrived, I was disappointed that it did work out. I knew within the first hour of her using it, Karyssa was very happy with her new computer… and I wanted one. I mean, there are a couple concessions (the screen can be a bit small for some things, and the keys on the keyboard are a shade smaller than standard keys), but it would easily handle the vast majority of my needs. And HP has done an incredible job putting a very slick UI on top of the standard Ubuntu Linux distro. The fit and finish of both the hardware and software — the way they complement each other — reminds me more of Apple than of HP.

My move to The Cloud will be complete when I switch to an HP Mini 1000. And at one third the weight and 40% the size of my 17″ Macbook Pro, it will fit incredibly well with my plans to travel light.

It’s time to start saving my pennies!

02.12.09

Moving to The Cloud… again

Posted in Apple, Journal, News at 3:54 pm by Pablosan

I tried about a year ago: I’ve decided it’s time to try again.

Up until this week I’ve been using Apple’s MobileMe to keep my laptop and iPhone in Sync, even though I really prefer Google’s apps. Due in large part to a recent announcement, I was eager to make the move. As of last night, my transition is complete: my email, contacts and calendar are now all sync’ed to Google’s apps.

Real-time sync capability wasn’t the only feature missing, however. If I store everything up in The Cloud, how do I access it when I’m off the grid? Shortly after my first, failed Cloud Move Attempt, Google announced Gears as well as offline capabilities for Docs. In the last few weeks, Google completed their trifecta with the release of Gmail offline and Google Calendar offline. Ya gotta love Google! …well, mostly anyway.

Early reports suggest their are still kinks to work out of their latest offline offerings, but I fully expect these to be ironed out in a nice, iterative fashion, as is Google’s modus operandi.

In my opinion, offline data access is essential to the success of services in The Cloud. I may not always have internet access when I need access to my data.

So it begins… again. I may not make it, but I know it’s a lot closer to being ready this time than it was a year ago. So far so good!