8 Killer cloud apps you can't live without!
A while back, I subscribed to the idea of The Cloud, cloud computing and living a digital nomadic lifestyle. Well, like you I subscribed to many web2.0 services - some really didn't serve my purpose (despite being cool ideas) and some... well they just couldn't get my attention and so I just unsubscribed form their spamming/mailing list!
Here's the result of what's left in my bookmarks...
Let me just take a minute to explain why I use these services:
It's pretty clear that Gmail is the killer app, my digital nervous system (and with the overload of email, I'm having a nervous breakdown!!) All in all, its the central hub now, I use it for blogging, contact management, chat and other linked services such as calendar, docs, reader. (Willing to pay.)
37 signals rocks! The software is simple to use, well thought out. They're not cheap. But there never was such a thing as a free lunch! I use the Highrise web app to stay in touch with my network, as a deal maker - their cases and deals feature has really helped me! (Paid.)
Easy. That's the single word that describes how blogging should be. Ever since I started experimenting with them - I'm lov'in it! I went to the extent of setting up this site / blog / lifestream to replace my old blog. (Hope you're enjoying it!) Features like posting from email (in my case Gmail), the Posterous bookmarklet to share clippings from the web, the ability to just attach photos and have a gallery - and on top of all this, post to various other web 2.0 for sharing. (Willing to pay.)
Twitter is a great communication tool. However, it becomes just a broadcasting tool once you cross over 100 followers. Today, I use twitter, to shout to the world - share with them great stuff (through url shortners). Some live and die by twitter. But to me its Instant Messaging broadcasting!
Ever since my Mac's hard disk crashed (yes, Mac's do have that problem - occasionally) - I learnt a lesson. Backup. Backup. Backup. But it's a nuisance to do this every day, with Dropbox - everything is synced in the background - and they're fast! (yes, there's a difference between backup and sync). (Willing to pay.)
I recently joined Evernote because of their Blackberry app. It's like your online virtual mind. Whatever you see or want to remember, just clip it to Evernote - it organizes and you can even searches images (OCR) for a particular text. Great potential. (Paid.)
This is one thing Yahoo got right! I upload all my pictures here for backup. But I'm now questioning the usage of this, particularly when Dropbox almost does the same thing (showing picture galleries, albeit with much lesser functionality - but hey, do you really need that many functions? where's the time!?). (Paid.)
I kept this last, because I'm getting pissed by their copyright protection. Always tagging things are copyright protected, banning IP addresses. Nevertheless, its a promising company that uses a special e-paper technology (almost like PDF). Posterous uses them. I use them.
Yes I do use facebook, orkut and linkedin - but that's for a later discussion.
Comments [0]