My life in the Cloud

I am pretty much 100% in the Cloud now. Here's how I do it.

Services

• Email:  Google GMAIL (with "Tasks")
• Calendar:  Google Calendar
• Documents:  Google Docs (with a sprinkle of DropBox, going away soon enough)
• Music: combination of Rdio and Grooveshark
• Movies: Netflix  (on my Android devices, Apple TV and MacBook Pro)
• Code: Github
• Project Issue Tracker:  Lighthouse

What I gain:

• Mobility
• Availability
• Persistence
• Version Control

I don't need to worry about loosing / forgetting my laptop for work:  I just grab a spare one at work. Hence, business continuity is greatly improved over the traditional Microsoft "stack".

So, on my Linux/OSX PCs, I only need the following installed software:

• Google Chrome  (the auto-sync feature for bookmarks, extensions etc. is way cool :)
• Eclipse (with PyDev, Google Plugin, Egit)
• git

When it comes time to setting-up a complete working environment, I can turnaround one in under 1/2 hour! 

Security

The first reaction I get when I expose my workflow:  is this Cloud stuff secure?  To which I respond with a combination of the following:

• I would rather trust Google and their army of sysadmins than me when it comes to external security threats
• I never write down passwords nor credit card numbers in documents. Period.
• Doing business comes down to trust - being part of society requires trust
• My data is more secure located in the Cloud than on my laptop / desktop : those are too easy to lift

Availability

Another common reaction is about availability. I don't know about you guys, but Internet Access is pretty available nowadays and certainly Google is. For those of you worried about this dimension, consider:

• I have access through my Android mobile devices (carrier #1)
• I have access through my 3G dongle (carrier #2)
• I have access through my Cable Modem (carrier #3)

Yes I subscribe to 3 different carriers - I don't remember the last time I lost connectivity and was out of commission, business wise.

Software based Message Switch

Media-Keys over Web-Socket

My newest open-source project is a Media-Keys over Web-Socket application.  The project's details can be found here.

Application
The main use-case I wanted to address with this component is the ability to control music playback of web-sites such as GrooveShark and Rdio through the keyboard media-keys.

Usage
A Google Chrome extension will follow shortly.

Using Google Sites as Content Management System

I recently had to build a new web site from ground-up.  One thing I didn't want to do is go off installing Wordpress / Drupal etc. on a virtual machine.  As much as I love technology, I can't be bothered anymore with administrative tasks such as backups.
I decided to give Google Sites another go but I quickly was confronted with the limitations of this platform. That's when I decided to couple to great Google products:  Sites and AppEngine.

View the presentation

A Service Registration Web-Service API

It's been a while since I have last blogged... been very busy with my company Data-Tester Inc.

I have the pleasure to announce the immediate availability of another Web-Service hosted on Systemical : ipreg.  This service allows, for example, mobile devices (such as Android) to "discover" available LAN services).
Why is this useful at all you might ask?  For the curious:  it boils down to limitations related to multicast support in mobile devices.  For more details, read the details here.