Lala

As everyone who uses lala knows it will be closes at the end of the month. What does this mean for itunes? is there a new cloud based streaming itunes on the way? Is there an alternative to lala that could be just as good? Searching around the internet I have found nothing like lala, it was by far the best service. The social aspect combined with uploading your own music to the fact you could listen to a song once through for free, there is no other service like it. There are a few good services though for just streaming music. Pandora is a great website and app for mobile phones. Most of the phone OS's have an app for Pandora, I have a motorolla droid and I use the app on a daily basis just on my way to work or walking around outside during the day. It works awesome on 3G networks even on the T in the tunnels it works 80% of the time. But the one thing that you cant do it control what songs you will actually listen to. If you want to make a playlist then this is not for you but its a great way to listen to almost commercial free radio based on music you pick. Grooveshark is the other great streaming service. I used this before lala about 8 months ago. I havent used their upload feature but it looks promising. They also have a radio feature like pandora but you can see the songs being added to your playlist and edit them on the fly. Grooveshark seems to be everyones favorite streaming player right now. It has a great selection of music and you can upload your own music. While it is not as good at uploading as lala was its not too bad if you have patience. You have to upload only a few files at a time but it works none the less. It has a great radio feature like pandora has and you can just search for "that" song you want to hear. You can also make playlists and save them for future use. Grooveshark has a social feature as well where you can follow people and it will actually recommend people to follow as well. Sharing playlists isnt as easy as lala because you can only email them but at least there is a feature for it. There is mobile app but its available for people with jailbroken iphones, android phones, palm and blackberries and you have to have a VIP paid membership. A VIP membership gives you a bunch of options including a desktop client which looks to be a great option. If you want an alternative to lala it seems grooveshark can help you out.

Google Docs

Documents, Presentations and Spreadsheets are now in the cloud and can be edited from your web browser. Google Docs allows you to upload any files to your account for ultimate portability. You no longer have to worry about whether you brought files or printouts with you or if they will be corrupted on a flash drive. One great feature is that you can invite people to view and edit your documents if you wish. The first time I used this feature was last year for my basketball league stats. I had set up the spreadsheet online and invited my friend to edit the document so that we could take turns updating it every week. Another feature is the template gallery. There are numerous templates for resumes, budgets, invoices, schedules, etc. You can link to these documents as well, meaning that you can send out a link to people and while they wont be able to edit it, they can view it. It was usful for the basketball stats as I could just post a link to the sheet for up-to-date stats. Google Docs is a great service that allows you to keep everything organized wherever you go.

This is a short post as I am gearing up to make the leap onto google voice and that should be a great post, trying to get it up next week.

Social Networking

Social Networking is part of everyone's daily life. We might not think that we rely on it, but we do. While I was thinking about the sites I use on a daily basis, I kept going back and adding to the list. You can join a social network for just about anything now. Personally, I belong to the most common ones along with some that pertain to specific hobbies I have. The giants of social networking are Facebook and Twitter. Anyone who is anyone has and uses Facebook and/or Twitter on a daily basis--whether it's to keep in touch with friends and family or just to let everyone know what is going on in their lives. While these may be the giants and possibly the most popular, they are still behind LinkedIn in terms of number of members.
LinkedIn is a great tool for connecting people that work together and gaining contacts for job openings or filling positions. It is great for when you want to get your resume out there or want to look for a new job. You can upload your resume and LinkedIn will fill in your profile. You can make status updates just like Facebook and Twitter. You can also link your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account to make the same status updates. Instead of followers or friends you have connections and they can make recommendations about you. There are a lot of employers out there that use this as a tool to see what you have worked on and for who. It can be a great tool for employees as well to get to know people they work with.
Flickr is a big network for photographers, but they are not the only ones on it. All types of photographers are on it from amateur to professional. I like to use it so I can have a backup of my photos, but also for the integration with flash to actually use my photos as content for a slideshow. It is also one of the biggest sources for stock photos. When you post your pictures you can add locations to where you took them and also group them. The groups are locations and categories of photos so that others can look them up and see what else is out there. You can comment on others photos and give them tips or ask them for tips. It is a great community for people to converse about photography.
Foursquare is a social network with a points system. It has you "check-in" when you travel to a new place, whether it be a gas station, restaurant, museum, etc. If you are the one who travels to that place the most then you become the mayor. You can have friends and send messages to them through foursquare, but the nice thing about it is its full integration with Twitter and Facebook. When you check in anywhere you can have Twitter and Facebook mirror the post. Every place you check-in to, you get points--bonus points for multiple stops in a day. It will keep track of your total points and has leader boards. The feature I enjoy most is that with each post, it will have a link to your location in case anyone wants to join you. The downfall is that people will know where you are/were, so check in to public places and not private ones.
Lala, as I talked about already, is a great social network for music lovers. You can have friends and send messages just like any social networking site, and it is also intergrated with Twitter and Facebook. The unique thing about Lala is the ability to share music with people and the fact that you can listen to any album all the way through without buying it. If you only use lala to play your music and don't want a copy on your hard drive you can buy web albums which are only 99 cents. This is a great website to discover new music you never knew about along with telling your friends what they should listen to.
The final social network I will touch on is Deviantart. This is a social network for artists of all kinds--from photographers to traditional and digital artists. You can follow people and also have "collections" of people's art. You can get a gallery for your own art as well. This is a great site for inspiration and finding people with the same interests. There is no intergration with other social networking sites, but it is a great site to join if you enjoy art of any sort. This is an excellent network to show people what you are doing and get suggestions on where to go with what you are working on.
All of the listed social networks are the ones I belong to. Facebook and Twitter I user on a daily basis and I have intergrated them both. Whenever I post to Twitter, my Facebook status updates. My Foursquare account is linked to Twitter so therefore my Facebook updates as well. I use all 3 of these social networks when I'm on the go. I use LinkedIn more as a professional tool and I don't link that to my Twitter or Facebook accounts because I think it's a good idea to keep your professional and personal lives separate. Flickr and Deviantart are where I display my artwork and also follow others that I know or whose work I like.
Social networking isn't just for recreational purposes anymore. While I mostly network to stay in touch with friends, family and acquaintances, programs like LinkedIn and Deviantart allow me to have online representation for professional growth.

Social Bookmarking

Have you ever wanted to take all of your bookmarks on the go with you? Even if you only have one computer, there's a simple and useful way to keep them organized. Social Bookmarking has grown over the past few years with sites such as digg.com and stumbleupon, but there is a new, more useful website for bookmarking purposes. Delicious.com has become a large "database" for bookmarks. You create an account and upload your bookmarks from your browser. The site will tag your bookmarks if you had them in folders and will also tag them as imported. Once they are on the website you can edit them. Tags are great on here because you can categorize them according to the subject of each bookmark and they can have multiple tags if you wish. You can also add people to your network on the site and share websites with each other. Delicious also has twitter integration where you can share any bookmark that you add. However, you don't have to share all of your bookmarks. There are privacy settings you can choose so only you can see your bookmarks. The great thing about it is that most browsers have plugins to integrate delicious. I currently use chrome and there are a variety of plugins, I can access all my bookmarks just like they were bookmarked on my computer. Another reason I am a big advocate of this website is that I use 3 computers consistently and there would be no other way to have them all synced to the same bookmarks. Wherever I am or whatever computer I am on, I have access to my bookmarks. My Music and Bookmarks are now in the cloud, what is next?

Your Music Library in the Cloud

What is the best service to use for transferring and using your music collection in the cloud. I have found 3 services that look promising. Echodio (http://www.echodio.com/), Zumo Drive (http://www.zumodrive.com/) and Lala (http://www.lala.com/). Echodio and Zumo Drive you have to pay for while Lala is free. Echodio is only for macs and is only used with itunes (limited to 3 different machines) while I have no tested it out, it did not appeal to me because I have a PC at home and mac at work. Zumo Drive is a cloud storage server for all media types not just music. They offer 2gb for free and then a monthly fee for more space. The service works as a virtual drive so it seems that you can use any music player software that you want. I have no personally used this because I have a giant library and dont want to pay for storage space at the moment. Lala was the most promising and seems to be the best way to go for music. The only limitation that it has is you have to be connected to the net to be able to listen to your music. There is no monthly fee and you have unlimited storage. The website has its own built in player and it works similar to any music player except there is a social aspect to it. You can follow people and also have followers like twitter, you can also recommend people songs artists and albums. One of the best features is the store. You can buy an entire album to download or just to have on the web for a discounted price (usually 99 cents). If you are looking to have your entire library on the net and not to backup on your computer then this is the way to go. Recently Lala was bought by apple, only time will tell on what they will do with them but it seems like itunes could be going in this direction. The only downfall right now is mp3 player integration, there is no iphone/ipod touch app and all other mp3 players cant grab the music from the website. If they can somehow come out with the technology to have the songs be playable on mp3 players than it will be the best service out there. Out of the three is you are looking for a free way to have all of your music on the web then Lala is the way to go. If you want to pay a free to keep all of your media on the web then Zumo Drive is your best bet. For me Lala is my choice and my first step into cloud.

What is the cloud?

In order for someone to understand how the cloud is taking over, we need to first define it. A technical definition is "a computing capability that provides an abstraction between the computing resource and its underlying technical architecture (e.g., servers, storage, networks), enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction." In other words, all of your data isn't stored on your computer anymore but rather on a server somewhere on the internet and therefore you can access it anywhere you go. This blog will focus on myself using resources around the internet to be completely in the cloud. I will try and have everything from my music collection, to do lists, health tracking and even my phone number on the internet to be access where ever I may be. I will try and update this blog every other day and update what websites and software I am using in order to become fully immersed in the cloud...