Little website gems pop up every now and then. Search engines unearth some. Newspapers and magazines unearth others. But it’s the ones friends put you onto that are the diamonds in the rough. The Internet Anagram Server is one of these. Let’s call it a brilliant cut, 3 carat beauty.
Type in a word or a phrase and it spits out a stack of anagrams. Some funny, some stupid, some nonsensical (try Azure Blues), but some are quite insightful.
Try it yourself. Drop us a line with the clever ones.
One of my favourites sites gives me no information. It doesn’t tell me about sport or health or cheese or check my mail. It doesn’t do anything except act as a little drop box for whatever I want to drop there. Hence the name drop.io.
Simply genius. It even has a little FireFox plug-in that lets you drag a file from your desktop onto a little red symbol and voila. You get a unique web address that links to a page containing your file. This making no sense to you? Be patient, grasshopper.
Instead of me explaining it all to you just take a peek at the video:
Easy as pie. Useful too. Have visitors pay to access the drop via an Amazon service, have complete access control including passwords and other guest permissions. Set drop expiry conditions. Plus more. As the video says, 100mb drops for free. Genius.
Grasping a new concept can be difficult. Having it explained to you by an expert can be a double edged sword. On one hand they answer your questions but on the other hand they leave you wanting to know more. That’s why I quit while I’m ahead and realise that I’ll only understand what I’m capable of understanding.
That said, I’ve been doing some digging. Digging into the “cloud”. You see, I’ve been asked by a few people who’ve said, and I quote, “Erik, what’s up with this cloud computing bizzo?”. And I’ve been saying back, “um, dunno”. But, oh yes, I’ve been mulling over the concept and have made some realisations.
The computer as we know it is dead. And good riddance. Stupid computer thingee.
So as far as I can gather and reduce it to the smallest divisor, there are two main categories of cloud computing that everyone is going to fall into. I’ll make up a third to cover myself and put IT service providers into that basket. But firstly we’ll cover the “average punter” category. The mum, dad, grandma, budgie, and school kid category (although some of these kids are pretty smart, IT wise, these days).
The average punter may already be using some version of cloud computing. GMail or Hotmail are a simple version of cloud computing where your emails are stored away from your computer, in a server farm a long way away. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not really cloud computing but the concept still stands. Your computer/PDA/mobile phone/toaster connects via the Internet to a server that provides you with a little web application allowing you to avoid running outlook at home. Your emails follow you around the world and allow easy access from any web enabled gadget. Your computer explodes, killing the cat, no worries. Your emails are safe.
Take this concept one step further and you have online desktop environments. We’ll focus on one example, Airset, who claim to allow you to “manage every aspect of life with cloud computing”. I’m yet to find the make me spaghetti application but I’m sure they’ll keep their word. Anyhoo, this site, once you’re logged in gives you the appearance of a desktop within your browser. You then have access to a word processor, messaging, calendars, forums, photo albums, ya da ya da. You can also store your files online (1Gb free) and allow access to family members or shady accomplices. The great thing about Airset and the other online desktop environment providers is that you can have access to “your computer” from anywhere around the world.
Lastly we’ll have a chat about another part of cloud computing. Online storage. This is the area that most interests me because, if you’re anything like me you will have had a computer die spontaneously just before you back up that thesis or dodgy photo collection (so I’ve heard). So companies like Microsoft and their Mesh, newcomers Livedrive, and US based Jungle Disk all allow you to backup your data to “the cloud” or server farms in bizarre places around the world. Some offer automatic synchronization of your files (change a file on your pc and the change appears in the remote storage), some offer free storage (Mesh is 5Gb free at this stage), and some offer expandable storage options (Jungle Disk charges per Gb). I think any of these options is far better than relying on the $100 hard drive sitting in your computer at the moment. Just make sure you have a decent Internet plan at home. Providers like iiNet have plans that don’t count the uploads (outgoing data to the remote servers) in their bundled data. Grouse.
Let’s now head on over to the second category. Businesses. They have, in the past spent mega-bucks buying servers, server software, desktops, office applications, ad infinitum. If the business expands so does their IT costs due to upgrading their server capacities, software licenses, and new high end desktops with their office software. But with the advent of cloud computing these businesses will be able to scale to meet demand. How so? Well with services like Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2 for short. What this allows the IT boffin to do is utilise “virtual” servers. Take a peek at the video and then we’ll continue our chat.
Hope that wasn’t too painful. Now, that hopefully explained how the tech boffin created a “virtual” server. His company could then utilise this as their office server. If the business grows then they can just tick another box and get a second, third server online or just get one that’s a little larger. Instead of outlaying thousands and thousands of dollars the company pays a small fee per hour. Talk about keeping control of the IT spend. If your company hits the skids then you can scale back your server capacity. No wasted servers lying around.
So the company has these fantastic “virtual” servers, what next. They can then deploy server based applications including office applications and accounting software. They can also back up to the cloud. Again Amazon provides that service for a fee. All very manageable. Beats paying for racks of hard drives and enclosing them in your office in a dedicated, climate controlled room. Did someone say save the trees?
As a result of outsourcing your servers, storage, and allowing the company to purchase low powered desktops or laptops they have just reduced their carbon footprint and can then save big time on power bills. A climate controlled server room doesn’t run on the smell of an oily rag you know. Big bickies.
So in a nutshell the big or small business, with the help of a savvy tech guy or gal, can utilise a server in the clouds and run all of their applications and storage remotely. All nice and secure. Just find a reliable provider. Amazon have been doing this for a while but there are others. The business has then reduced IT costs, carbon footprints have been slashed and the tech section can expand and contract relatively easily without producing tech waste. Good all round I reckon. One catch – make sure you have a big, fat, super-fast connection to the interweb!
Lastly we have the third group. I won’t spend too much time here but suffice to say this will be revolutionary for the IT sector. It almost creates the perfect business.
Once upon a time an IT provider would build servers, load them with software, build some desktops, load them with software, grab a load of routers, hubs, printers, blah nee blah na, and connect it all up. Hope for the best. Now they can sit at a desk and install servers that are located over the other side of the world. “Hey Bob we need another server”, “No, worries”, CLICK. Done.
The IT business for the 21st century can build and provide products without a warehouse, without cracking open a server case, without leaving their office. What a marvellous world we live in.
Like I said, the computer is dead. Long live the computer. If you have no need for high end CAD work or video editing then get yourself a cheap PC and get your head up in the clouds.
Maybe it’s mental illness, a touch of OCD, but I often lie awake at night and dream up wonderful business ideas. Unique, daring and all unfulfilled.
That’s what I’m doing at the moment. My mind wandered to a great “business” idea and I thought, yeah that one would really work. If only I was commitmentless, unencumbered by debt and had the round dangly bits to do it.
Anyway if you want this great idea drop us a note/comment and I’ll fill you in. You can’t lose. All my business ideas are gold, well in the middle of the night, in my brain, they are.
Take Skinny Corp. They started Threadless, a most amazing website that was born from the humbleness of an internet forum. It now brings together t-shirt designers from around the world and produces unique t-shirts that are shipped to all corners of the globe. Hell, i’m sleeping in one now. What a great business idea. I bet it was born from the bowels of insomnia. Damn them and their cursed courage.
Other great ideas have sprung from what seemed like flights of fancy at the time. Some of them make no money but provide escape for people or just bring a little joy. One great idea has grown to cultish proportions and allows you to unburden your burdened soul. It lets you reveal that inner secret to the world. It lets you say that yes it was you that stole the last choc-wedge from the freezer and you blamed your brother. Its little secret of success is that you do this anonymously, on the web, with only a few words and some crayons and clag. Cruise on over to PostSecret and release the inner demons that plague you.
Damn these clever people and their crazy/great ideas. Now where did I put that Valium.
