My Other Blog

Besides Inverness Forest Today I have another blog called Cloud Computing For Free that I've recently started.  Although I started programming computers 47 years ago (1963), I'm still fascinated by the continuing improvements in computer technology.  Cloud computing refers to not only storing your data files on the internet instead of your computer's hard drive, but also to having your software reside on the internet as well.  Thus rather than using Microsoft Word to create a ".doc" file on your hard drive, in the cloud you would use your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) to go to the Google Docs website and use the software on the website to create a word processing file which is stored in your Google Docs account.

If you think about it, this "cloud" way of doing word processing has a lot of advantages over the using Word on your computer:

• You can work on your data file from any computer in the world that has internet access (home, work, laptop, smart phone, friend's house)
• You don't need to make backups because the cloud provider typically makes copies of your files on several servers in different parts of the world.
• You can invite others to collaborate on your document and watch their changes in almost real time on your computer, even as you make other changes.
• You don't need to buy and periodically upgrade copies of Microsoft Office.  The word processing software in the cloud is always the latest version.  You don't have to spend any time or effort upgrading the software.
• Many of these cloud sites are totally free.

Hence the name of my blog, "Cloud Computing For Free".  I'm convinced that, judging from the rates of adoption of cloud technology, it won't be long before most data processing will be done in the cloud and progressively less will be done using software on your computer.  The city of Los Angeles recently decided to stop using Microsoft Office and instead set up all it's thousands of employees with Google Docs accounts.  The savings of not having to buy thousands of copies of Office (and the subsequent upgrades) will save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Besides word processing, you can use the cloud for spreadsheets (replacing Excel), presentations (replacing PowerPoint), email, calendars, photo retouching, and even blog writing (I'm using Google Docs to write this blog post).  Once your document is in the cloud you can do do many things with it that you can't do at home, such as faxing it, sending it to Kinkos to be printed and bound, or turned into a website (or blog post!).

Chances are that you are already using cloud computing but didn't realize it.  Consider email: are you using gmail, hotmail, web-based AOL, yahoo mail?  These are all cloud applications.  Creating an email is done in the cloud using your browser, as is reading your email.  You can read and write email from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.  The software to read, write, store, and search your email is entirely in the cloud.

If you are intrigued, as I am, by the opportunity to try out and adopt what is possibily a better way to work, a way that will likely become, in the near future, the way much of the world works, then you might want to read my Cloud Computing For Free blog.  There are two ways for you to be informed when I add a new blog post to Cloud Computing For Free: email notification or RSS feeds.  You can check out the CCFF blog's sidebar to sign up for either (or both).  

This is the link to Cloud Computing For Free:

http://cloudcomputingforfree.com/

Harvey Levine

iftblog@gmail.com

or,

harvey@cloudcomputingforfree.com

Inverness Forest Today Facelift

I've given Inverness Forest Today a facelift and added several new features.  The change in appearance is more than cosmetic.  The old layout always used the same narrow column for all the posts regardless of how wide you made your browser window.  The new layout display the posts in a wider column when you increase the width of the window.

I've added a set of navigation links at the top of the page as shown here.  Home takes you to the usual blog posts, More links takes you to a page of additional links that you might find useful.  These links are in addition to the ones found in the sidebar.  Suggest Topic is a page that asks you to suggest a topic for future blog posts.

Near the top of the sidebar is a new Search box.  Enter a word and a search of the blog finds posts that match the word you entered.  For example, there was a blog post about raccoons almost a year ago.  If you type "raccoons" in the search box, the post from June 1, 2009 will be found.

Another way to find previously covered topics on Inverness Forest Today is with the Topics list.  As you can see in the illustration, there have been 13 posts about the minutes, six about snow, five about gardening, etc.  Clicking on the keyword, such as snow, takes you to a list of the six posts on snow.  From here you can view the individual posts.  It is possible that a single post can cover multiple topics so it might be listed in more than one topic.

Finally, I've added a link in the links list to the Trash Pickup status.  Clicking on this link will tell you whether our trash will be picked up on Monday or whether, due to a holiday or weather conditions, it will be picked up at a later time.

I hope you find these new features useful.  As always, if you have a comment please click on the "Comment(s) link below or send me an email.

---

Not long ago I reported on the new features of the invernessvillage.org website (link in sidebar).  In addition to those feature I've created a new communication channel for all Inverness Forest residents.  Until now, if you had an issue you wanted to discuss your only option was to send me an email and ask me to post your email on my Inverness Forest Today blog.  There was no way to raise and discuss issues on your own.  I've solved that problem by creating a Google group located at http://groups.google.com/group/invernessforest/  I'll be inviting everyone on my mailing list to join the group, but you don't have to wait to be invited.  One of the options you will have when you click on this link is to "Sign in and apply for membership".  

If you already have a gmail account or use any google service (Picasa, Google Calendar, Google Docs, YouTube, Google Groups, Blogger, Google Reader, etc.) then you can use your google sign in/password to access the invernessforest group.  If you don't already have any of these google accounts, you'll be asked to create a new google account.

As a member of the group you will be able to send mail to the group's email address, which will, in turn, be sent to every member of the group.  Don't worry about spam.  No sales pitches for used cars will be allowed.  You will also be able to upload photos and other files to the group so that all group members can see them.

Harvey

iftblog@gmail.com
---------------------