Previously, I explained what “The Cloud” is. Today, I’m going to explain some great cloud computing resources for end users as well as addressing some of the concerns from last time.
Netbooks
HP just released their Mini 1000 series netbook, one in a long line of smaller, lighter laptops. The early reviews have been very favorable, but there are a couple of main points that are appealing to myself and those I’ve spoken with about this computer.
- It starts at $400!!!
- Weighs less than 3 pounds!!!
- Energy Star Certified!!!
- Powerful enough to run Firefox and Google Chrome!!!
The last point is what makes cloud computing so incredible. Although this laptop is by no means a powerhouse, it is powerful enough to run every single one of the cloud services I’m about to mention.
Word Replacement
I love Office 2007 and the ribbon, but many people haven’t become comfortable with the new user interface. If that’s you, you should love Google Docs word processor. It has toolbars far more similar to those found in Office 2003. I consider myself to be an expert-level Word user and Google Docs does 99% of everything I want to do, including saving as a PDF. The number one complaint I receive is that there aren’t enough fonts. This is a document, it should be easy to use, which doesn’t require thousands of fonts.
- Price: Free
- Offline Access: Yes (via Google Gears)
- Ease of Use: Very Easy
Excel Replacement
Google Docs for the win again! Again, more similar to Excel 2003 than 2007, but a very robust package. Here’s a disclaimer about Excel: most people use less than 10% of the true functionality of Excel. Excel was not designed to be a database, but most people use this to track their contacts – first name in one column, last name in the next, email in the next and so on. THIS IS NOT THE NATURE OF THE BEAST! But if this is all you use it for, that’s perfectly fine, Google Docs spreadsheets will do the trick perfectly. Again, 99% of the advanced features I use can be found here including your charts and graphs. BONUS TIP: you can use this service to create EASY, FREE survey’s!
- Price: Free
- Offline Access: Yes (via Google Gears)
- Ease of Use: Easy
PowerPoint Replacement
This is a tricky one for me all of a sudden. I used to love SlideRocket, but they went out of beta and are now charging “from $10/month” for the version that is a must-have. Why not use the free version, you ask? You don’t get the offline player, which for me is the single must-have feature. I’m cheap. I already have PowerPoint, so I’m not sure I’m willing to pay $10/month. Google Docs has a presentation tool, but right now it’s not very impressive. So for me, since I do a ton of presentations, I’ll just bite the bullet and pay my $10 per month, but I’m not happy about it. So about SlideRocket…
AWESOME! Far better than PowerPoint! Better transitions, template systems and image tools! Import your old PowerPoint presentations easily.
- Price: Free (with paid options)
- Offline Accesss: with $10/month paid upgrade
- Ease of Use: Very easy
Photoshop Replacement
This is a tough one, mainly because there are so many options. My current favorite is Picnik. It’s very easy to use and integrates with my favorite online photo sharing/storage sites. It allows for all of the basic tools needed to fix photos (crop, resize, brightness, contrast and color correction) as well as quite a few creative tools.
- Price: Free (paid upgrade available and worth it, only $24.95/year)
- Offline Access: nope (the only real downside I’ve found)
- Ease of Use: Very easy
Your Calendar Program Replacement
Thanks again to Google, this is an easy one. Google Calendar is easy to use, fast, syncs with several devices and can easily be shared with others. Just try it, you’ll be happy.
- Price: Free
- Offline Access: nope (but can be synced with several mobile devices)
- Ease of Use: Very easy
Outlook Replacement
Made you look! Sorry folks, right now there isn’t anything I’ve found (and I’ve been looking for a long time) that can reasonably expect to replace Outlook.
Those are the main programs I run into people using daily and have thoroughly researched, but if you have additional requests, please let me know in the comments.
Concerns about Cloud Computing
- What do I do with my old data?
- In some cases you can sync it, in others you can import it and yet in others, you have to recreate it. This is an apparent concern of all of these developers and will become a mandatory feature for new offerings.
- Is my data safe?
- As safe as logging into your bank account online or even calling your credit card company. All data can be hacked. If you really want to be “safe”, you need to go completely off the grid ala Gene Hackman from Enemy of the State.
- How can I be sure my data is safe?
- I still don’t store credit card numbers or logins/passwords in the cloud, but then again, I don’t store then on my desktop either. My credit cards are stored in my wallet and my usernames/passwords in my head. If you have something truly sensitive, many of these services offer secure connections. With Google, change the “http” of your web address with “https” for a secure connection. As I mentioned in my previous piece, major healthcare companies are trusting Google and Microsoft to store your medical documents in the cloud, all of my financial information is stored in the cloud on services like Mint, so why can’t I store a class presentation online too?
- How is cloud computing superior to what i’m already using?
- Save hard disk space, which allows you to use the new SSD (solid state drive) hard disks that typically have smaller storage volume, but better speeds and battery life.
- Updates are almost always included. Adobe just released Creative Suite 4 and to UPGRADE it’s going to cost me at least $899.99! Picnik, SlideRocket and Google Docs are constantly adding new features for FREE to compete with their desktop counterparts.
- You don’t need your computer! You can access these sites from any computer, so you don’t have to lug yours around.
- Computer horsepower requirements are less. So if you decide you do want to carry around your computer, it can now be less than an inch thick and weigh less than 3 pounds.
- Isn’t storing personally identifying information in the cloud is a liability if my clients don’t provide consent?
- Do you send emails with customer information? Do you EVER let customer information out of your sight? Do you ever discuss customers and transactions over the phone? If you answer YES to any of these, cloud computing is perfectly safe for you.
Like last time, please ask your questions in the comments below. The last article in the series will be a bit shorter, I promise.
Ben Goheen
October 30, 2008 at 11:38 pm
It’s not an Outlook replacement – but Thunderbird does a much better job at basic email. I moved backwards (from Thunderbird to Outlook) for my email and it’s quite the learning curve.
Thunderbird EASILY out-performs Outlook with regard to a spam filter and IMAP accounts.
Nick Bostic
October 31, 2008 at 8:04 am
I love Thunderbird too, but if you’re looking for spam filter, IMAP-like control AND The Cloud, GMail and/or GMail Enterprise are the winners in this arena. The only real reason they can’t take over Outlook for the entire function set is the contact management is really basic. Once contact management is more robust, GMail plus GCal will replace Outlook for me. Good to see another Thunderbird user!
Chris de Jong
October 31, 2008 at 8:10 am
Great article – I absolutely love learning about the future of the cloud and the concept of ubiquitous computing.
Another category to possibly consider is music. Cloud services like LaLa and BlueTunes are making it incredibly simple to take your entire library with you where ever you go.
I know personally that nothing helps me decompress like listening to some great tunes!
Mark Eckenrode
October 31, 2008 at 9:56 am
started playing with an extremely powerful photoshop replacement (not just image touch-ups like Picnik)… check out https://www.aviary.com
there’s a learning curve but it’s probably the nicest and most complete replacement service i’ve come across yet
Mitch
October 31, 2008 at 10:03 am
I’m glad you like SlideRocket and I’m sorry it bums you out to have to pay for some of the advanced features. Unfortunately, I think the days of advertising-supported web apps are numbered (unless you are the GoogleMonster) and we are a business that needs to make money to survive. We’ve positioned SlideRocket has a premium presentation tool with tons of great functionality at the cost of what you probably pay for lunch once a month so we think it’s a pretty fair deal…
Matthew Hardy
October 31, 2008 at 10:59 am
You really should study this more. Software as a service (aka “the cloud”) is supremely more attractive to the vendors demanding never-ending monthly payments than it can ever be to customers trapped in their systems. Yes, I said trapped. In nearly all cases, vendor-hosted, subscription-model vendors make it either impossible or painful to get all your business data out of their system when you decide to leave. Oh, and ask your clients if they mind if you load important data on them on website after website. The tragic reality is that many agents find that important business data is strewn amongst all the sites they been “trying” while the intrinsic value of their real estate business has been undermined. And consider the people whose data your handling: you might just find that one day a seller is handing you and NDA (non disclosure agreement) mandating that data you collect on them is NOT submitted to yet another website.
Missy Caulk
October 31, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Nick, I am enjoying your posts on this topic. I used SlideRock when Lani challenged us to. I loved it, I did a blog presentation in about 30 minutes.
Started using Google Doc’s for all our transactions with the Buyer Agent and Assistant and Google Calendar.
I’ve looked at a few things for Outlook, but can’t find anything I like any better at this point. I guess you could say I am addicted to Outlook, I use it A L L day long for everything NOT just email.
Linsdey
November 2, 2008 at 11:17 am
I us? Google Doc’s for all transactions with the Buyer Agent and Assistant alongwith Google Calendar as well. You know I am quit ehappy about it
Nick Bostic
November 3, 2008 at 5:44 pm
@Mark – Aviary is pretty cool although I’ll admit I forgot about it to a degree because of all the similar products that launched right around the same time. I guess I’ll need to revisit it.
@Mitch – I understand the need to make money, but for myself (and I would imagine others), while the economy isn’t doing so hot, the choice to pay extra or just use PowerPoint that I already have is the question on my mind. There are several features of SlideRocket that PPT doesn’t have, but the ones I’ve discovered are all appearance tools, which I can live without.
@Matthew – “Study this more”, I like that idea! However, I’ve been following and studying SaaS (Software As A Service) since before 2000 when family members at some of the largest tech companies out there were heading up divisions developing the earliest models. I can’t see how customer data would be loaded on website after website. A customers name on my online calendar isn’t something to worry about. Their listing flyer created in a photoshop replacement isn’t something to be scared of. People bank online, pay their bills online and frequently/unfortunately share sensitive data via IM and email all day long, I would be very surprised to start seeing NDA’s flying around. As for data lock-in, I can’t agree with you more. Services like Facebook and Top Producer are two of my favorite examples of over-the-top data lock-in that is very unfortunate.
@Missy – I’ve been forced to become less reliant on Outlook since my company doesn’t officially support Vista or Outlook 2007, so my new laptop has been without Outlook since the beginning of the year. I use Outlook Web Access which is terrible, so I’ve been using Google Calendar (synced to my BlackBerry, synced to my Enterprise Server), but still don’t have a good contact manager integration.
Missy Caulk
January 10, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Hi Nick, I know this is an older post, but since you wrote it my team has started using WiseAgent. It is very affordable, 25.00 per month. I brought all my outlook contacts into it and it is very user friendly unlike TP.
It manages each transaction from start to finish. We tested it for 30 days, free without entering our cc. took the online training and signed up.
I don’t think you are a Realtor so it might not work for you but for our team and my Assistant who manages all the transactions it works.
I just bought a MacPro at Christmas, got Entourage and it is not as good as Outlook, so I will just use mail. Mail actually functins more like outlook than entourage.
Nick Bostic
January 11, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I’ll definitely check out WiseAgent, thanks for the tip!
Real-TechGuy.com
February 25, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Are you still using MS Office? Get with the times and move to the cloud. https://budurl.com/DitchMSOffice