eyeOS was first released in 2005; it is open source and has a pretty vibrant community behind it. The latest version when this is written is 1.8 named Lars. While Glide (previously reviewed) runs on Flash eyeOS use PHP and stores information in XML on the server. Using PHP means that it is easy to customize eyeOS, if you are a business and want to develop additional features it is easier in eyeOS compared to Glide. There is also an eyeOS toolkit for developers with functions and libraries available.
Thanks to the toolkit and the community behind eyeOS there is a number applications out-there. Of course the number of apps is nowhere near as many as for Windows or Linux, but it still looks very promising. However all of the applications are on eyeos-apps.org, it would be nice with a package installer integrated into eyeOS.
The interface in eyeOS is very easy to grasp, it is more oriented towards Linux than Windows so Linux users will feel even more at home. The terminology is also standard OS language, there are no newexpressions unique for eyeOS, folders are called folders etc.
The desktop in eyeOS is very much like any other OS. At the top of the screen there are a number of tabs; Favorites, Office, Network, Accessories, Games, System and Places. In the lower right corner of the screen there is a traditional start menu with applications, system preferences and a command line option.
In the system preferences it is possible to change the look of the desktop, there are about five themes to choose from. The desktop background can also be changed. It is also possible to change password and language (a surprisingly number of languages are available) from the system preferences dialog.
eyeOS comes with an integrated office suite, including a word-processor, a spreadsheet program and a presentation program. The OS also have an e-mail client, calendar and a contact manager. Surprisingly eyeOS also comes with a web-browser, considering that you access the OS in a web-browser it is a bit strange. There are however advantages if you for example decide to lock your computers web-browser to the eyeOS site only in a business or public environment.
I have often missed to be able to access FTP on the go to be able to edit websites. Eye OS takes care of that with the built in FTP-client. It is pretty basic but does FTP uploading and downloading pretty good. Both surfing and FTP is of course slower in eyeOS than on a regular desktop.
eyeOS is primarily intended to be hosted on a server; however there is a public demo server where anyone can setup an account for personal use.
Installing eyeOS on a server is pretty straight-forward for experienced users, the server needs PHP 5 and preferably Apache web-server. This enables any business or organization to setup their own free cloud operating system. The eyeOS team mentions schools and public libraries as example users of the system, but a medium sized business can almost certainly use the OS in certain settings.
All cloud operating systems seem to have issues with connecting with other popular cloud apps, eyeOS has the same problem. However chances are that as more apps become available from the community, hopefully we will see integration with Gmail, Amazon S3 and other popular cloud services. Until then users will be locked in, but compared to Glide users of eyeOS seem to have a brighter and more open future ahead.
It seems everything is moving on to the web, even photo-editing. Adobe recently released an online edition of Photoshop but one of the longest running photo-editing cloud services is Picnik. We used it to see if Picnik still got it.
While most cloud apps require you to sign-up in order to do anything Picnik gives you the opportunity to just use the basic service without any sign-up process. This is great when you just want to edit something quickly on the go and then posting it online.
Picnik also have a number of other features. For example it is possible to crop, resize, sharpen or rotate photos. Picnik also have nice options for adjusting colors and exposure, it is also possible to correct red-eyes by just clicking a button.
Adjusting colors in Picnik is pretty easy, but of course with less options than in Photoshop or Gimp. It is possible to change the saturation and color temperature. You can also pick a neutral area in the image and use it as a base for adjustment.
Adjusting the exposure is one of the most important features in photo-editing software. In Picnik it is possible to change the contrast and exposure. The more advanced options allow you to change brightness, the exposure of shadows and lighter areas. Picnik also have a histogram so that you can more easily adjust photos the way you want them.
The red-eye reduction works pretty well, there are different options for human and pet-eyes. If you do not want to go through all the editing options manually there is a auto-fix option, Picnik will then automatically adjust your photos applying all the options mentioned above.
Most of us have played around in Photoshop and Gimp with the different effect filters. Picnik have a set of its own, by selecting the Create tab you get a surprisingly high number of different effects. You get the usual soften, greyscale and sepia effects. But also some really nice ones, such as snow, 1960s colors and a favorite from Photoshop, the pencil sketch. The effects really look great, and there is no difference really from desktop software. They are also easy to apply and manage if you have used similar features before.
Picnik also includes features for working with text and applying it to images and photos. There are a number of different fonts available, since Picnik is in the cloud it is impossible to add your own fonts as would be possible in Photoshop or Gimp.
A new addition in Picnik is the touch-up feature. It a set of effects aimed at touching up photos of humans. For example there is a lipstick effect and a feature where you can change the weight of the person in the photo. Most of the other touch-up options are available in the premium version (for $2.08 a month).
Picnik comes with different frames that you can apply around your photos, such as a stamp effect and rounded edges. There is also an interesting feature in Picnik; called Sandbox, where users have made their own effects using flash scripting. The scripting makes it possible to bend photos in different ways, not possible before (according to Picnik).
Overall Picnik is a great photo-editing tool, the free version goes a long way and the premium version is pretty cheap compared to Photoshop and other photo-editing software. For people who want basic photo-editing software with a few advanced features Picnik is perfect, I even dare to say that it beats Gimp in some areas such as ease of use. Picnik is also surprisingly fast, even though it runs in the cloud it starts faster than Photoshop and Gimp does on my machine. For Adobe Picnik is a very dangerous competitor for the online version of Adobe Photoshop.
[ad#Content Adsense]
Google recently announced the release of Google Chrome OS, which will be an operating system in the cloud. Glide is a fully functioning cloud OS from a company named Transmedia, it is already on the market, and it is even free. We decided to try it; can it replace everything you do on your client desktop? Read on to find out.
Cloud operating systems is more than hype, they make sense. Netbooks which is a best-seller are not that powerful, so a desktop solution in the cloud would enable you to sync your Netbook with your desktop. It would of course give you access to your desktop from anywhere, and it would always be backed up.
Glide OS is designed to be used in a web-browser, which is achieved by using Flash. I am not a great fan of flash as it back in the day often was used to make overdesigned websites with little content or function. But Glide uses Flash beautifully; it even runs in older web-browser such as Internet Explorer 6. All it requires is Flash version 9.0.124.
Glide OS is basically a desktop environment which you can access from anywhere. It can be used from any web-browser, but also have client software for Windows, MAC OS, Linux and Solaris. Even more interestingly there are mobile versions of the client for the Iphone but also for Android, Palm OS, Symbian and Windows Mobile phones. It means that you will have access to Glide from any device.
At first glance Glide it resembles Windows or any other operating system a lot, except that it is in your browser. A Windows user would instantly feel right at home in Glide, and so would a Linux or MAC user.
The Glide OS Desktop has a number of different features by default, such as Email (yes you get your own e-mail @glidefree.com), Calendar, word processing and so on. At the top of the screen there are three tabs, Desktop, Glide HD and Portal. Clicking Glide HD will bring the user a file view with music, videos, documents, pictures but also RSS-feeds and a Calendar. The portal part of Glide is basically a flash based directory of websites mixed with stock quotes and chat features.
For some remote reason folders in Glide OS are called containers. Clicking a container will list all files located in there, clicking the small “Go” text in the icon will give you the bubble navigation. This basically gives you other options directly, for example if you want to upload files to the container. This is actually a bit unique, but partly resembles right clicking in Windows.
Glide OS comes with a surprisingly wide array of features and products. Most of them are consumer oriented, such as a media player or online photo editing software. The media player makes it possible to access your music collection from anywhere. Well not your entire collection since there is a 10 GB storage cap, but the favorite parts could easily be uploaded.
The Cube is another media sharing tool where users upload their videos, music or whatever and you can browse it in a Cube-type interface. It looks very neat but there isn’t a whole lot of stuff in there, and to be quite frank there are better online applications out there for media sharing.
A neat feature, which I have been missing in every Windows version, is a sticky note feature. It is easily accessible in Glide OS from the menu in the footer, complete with color coding, take that Windows 7.
Glide has a number of features built in for collaboration. For example it is possible to share documents, setup online meetings and much more. The only down-side with the collaboration features is that all users engaging in meetings will have to have a Glide account; if you have client meetings it might be a little bit much to ask them to get Glide. It would have been neater if it was possible to use an existing account, with for example Google or Open ID.
Glide can connect with your PC using a desktop client, it is a lot easier than just using the web-interface, especially when uploading files to Glide as you just have to drag and drop the files to your Glide.
The Business side of Glide looks depressing; there are simply not that many features in there. Sure some of the consumer oriented stuff such as word processing and e-mail goes for businesses as well. But all the media and music features are pretty much useless for a business. However one business application is Glide Crunch, a spreadsheet program. It is a weird application since it is not supported in the web-version of Glide, but it can be use from the client side on a local machine. Glide OS features documentation, it is both a manual and a quick intro to the desktop, both in PDF.
Glide is ahead compared to the giants like Google and Microsoft when it comes to cloud operating systems. I think Glide is not far from what it should look like, but something happened along the way that makes it very confusing. It is absolutely packed with features, yet I can’t seem to figure out what I should use it for. One answer would be everything, just like Windows. But the point with desktop operating systems is that I can add applications as I want, in Glide I either just create links to other external webpages or use Glides built in apps.
For example I know that there are better cloud word processing alternatives out there, such as Zoho Writer. Yet I cannot use it in Glide, so what is Glide really good for? I love the effort that the Glide team has put in; it is really ground-breaking. But in order for Glide to be great it has to have some kind of main focus, right now it is all over the place doing nothing exceptionally good.
For consumers there is probably more value in Glide than for businesses. It still has a long way from replacing the desktop operating system, but it still serves as a model for what a cloud operating system could look like.
Foxit is the most widely spread free alternative to the massive Adobe Acrobat Reader. It is said to be more light-weight and faster than the Acrobat Reader, of course we wanted to find that out.
For reading PDF files Adobe Acrobat Reader takes up 230 MBs, that is a lot of space compared to Foxit, which does the same thing only taking up 7 MB. Hard drive space is not really an issue today, but it does make you wonder what Adobe put in their reader that Foxit did not.
Installing Foxit is a breeze, the executable is just 3.6 MB and the whole installation process takes about 30 seconds on a reasonable fast machine. After install you get the option of installing different plug-ins, for example there is a plug-in for Firefox (which we will get back to).
The interface in Foxit is less cluttered than Adobe Acrobat Reader but looks a bit dated. However if you worked with Adobe Acrobat Reader you will feel at home in Foxit. While Foxit features the standard array of tools and features it brings nothing new to the table. From a feature stand-point users will do just as well with Acrobat Reader.
Foxit is pretty fast, we have not done any scientific tests but viewing a 25 MB PDF-file with a lot of images was surprisingly fast. Even the Foxit PDF viewer in Internet Explorer is much faster than Adobes.
Foxit also came with a Firefox plug-in, which we did not have any luck with. When opening a PDF file in Firefox the browser notified us of that the server was busy, and then the browser crashed. Then we tried again and it happened all over again.
In other third party PDF readers the files often looked differently than in Acrobat Reader, Foxit does a great job rendering PDF files and we could not tell any difference between the two readers.
Adobe Acrobat Reader have a number of different features to sign documents digitally, this is very handy if you or your business is using one of Adobes lifecycle products. Foxit has no similar features built in, which makes it less useable in an already established Adobe environment.
What does the Foxit people make money on if their PDF reader is free, there has to be a catch, right? Indeed, Foxit has applied the same business model as Adobe, to get the Pro version of Foxit you have to pay. The pro version contains the possibility to draw in PDF files, attach files and save them without evaluation markings. However commenting works fine in the free version.
For small businesses and individuals Foxit is a very good alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader, it is overall leaner and faster. However in a business setting with clients using extra Adobe unique features (such as document signatures or security options) Adobe Acrobat Reader is a better choice.
Daily the media features people who have gotten their credit card numbers stolen on the net, or companies who have been hacked and lost sensitive information.As more applications move into the cloud, security will be more vital than ever.
HotSpot Shield from Anchor Free protects you and your network while surfing the net. The program creates a Virtual Private Network (VPN) between your network and Anchor Frees servers, which is connected to the Internet. The VPN prevents hackers and other parties to intercept data that you submit; it also ensures anonymity when surfing.
HotSpot Shield is perhaps best used in a public Wi-Fi hotspot (hence the name), where security threats often are more severe. However since the service connects to Anchor Frees server it basically means that you are trusting them, and we have no idea who they are. We are not saying that they can’t be trusted but users would do best in not trusting HotSpot Shield completely.
Also do not buy the hype that you need this product to be completely secure on a public Wi-Fi, yes it helps but virtually all online banks and PayPal already have encrypted services. So HotSpot Shield adds an extra layer of security for your e-mail and general browsing.
HotSpot Shield is free and available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS. There is currently no Linux version, which might be a drawback for some.
How does a company like Anchor Free finance a free product like HotSpot Shield? The business model is very 90s; HotSpot Shield is financed by pop-ups and advertisements. However we didn’t find them that annoying. Anchor Free also collect and store information about your usage (according to their privacy policy).
HotSpot Shield has a bandwidth cap of 3 GB per 30 days for HotSpot Shield, this means that watching video or listening to music is out of the question. But for general browsing the cap should be fine.
HotSpot Shield is slow from the get go and at certain periods it is painfully slow making it almost impossible to use. The service also gives you a US based IP-number, this means that some have used it for getting access to US-only services such as Hulu or Pandora. Hulu have however closed that hole, so if you are looking at this service simply for getting access to Hulu you are out of luck.
For power-users travelling a lot and connecting to public Wi-Fi networks on airports etc, this product is good to have installed but should be a last resort when everything else fails. There are better and faster alternatives out there. However for the occasional traveler HotSpot Shield is a neat product.
Online storage, or storage in the cloud as the marketers would call it has been around for a while (one of the first services to my knowledge was Yahoo Briefcase, now discontinued). However because of increased bandwidth and Internet penetration the popularity of online storage products has risen dramatically. There are several benefits of having your files stored online, they can be accessed from any computer you happen to be at and they are backed up so if your house burns down or your computer fails you still have your precious files.
There are probably a gazillion of storage products out there; we have chosen to review the ones that we have used previously. They have all been reviewed from a consumer / small business stand-point, larger enterprises would of course have different needs. We have only chosen to review free alternatives.
Microsoft Skydrive
Skydrive is Microsoft’s attempt to conquer the online storage segment, which actually isn’t much to conquer since most larger players got rid of their similar solutions (AOL, HP and so on). Skydrive is pretty basic; you can upload files in a web-browser from any computer.
It is possible to create public folders, but maybe more importantly share them with selected groups (synced with your MSN Messenger account) or individuals.
Skydrive offers 25 GB of storage, which should be enough and is considerably more than what other storage services offer. For example Dropbox offers only 2 GB in their free (basic) account.
The limitations on Skydrive becomes pretty clear after a while, most other cloud storage services have a client or the possibility for the user to mount the service as a drive on their computer. Skydrive has no such functionality, which means that you have to open a browser window every time a file has to be uploaded. It can’t be used as a good backup solution either, since it has no ability to automatically sync files. Skydrive has however one advantage, you do not need a separate login since your Windows Live ID can be used.
Skydrive folders
Skydrive’s web interface.
Web interface for Dropbox
Dropbox as a folder in Windows 7.
The Dropbox Client in Windows 7 alerts of updated files.
Ensnips web interface.
Dropbox
Dropbox has been around for a while, the free version offers a limited 2 GB but if you fork $19.99/ month you get 100 GB. The whole point with Dropbox is storing and sharing files in work-groups. Dropbox is tightly integrated with the Dropbox client, available for Windows, MAC and Linux. The client sits in your tray but also enables you to upload files using a drive mapped on your computer.
There are several options in the client such as audio notifications as soon as someone in your work-group updates a file. It is also very easy to just open an edit a file directly without having to login to a web-interface. Sometimes it’s almost too easy, if you have a large work-group or a novice work-group there is a risk that files get involuntarily replaced. Dropbox also has a web-interface, very similar to Skydrive. Unlike Skydrive Dropbox has the ability to automatically sync documents, making it a perfect backup solution.
Esnips
Esnips is more community oriented and wider in scope than most other online storage services. It is for example possible to create profiles with pictures and info about yourself. Esnips even have a marketplace where designers, photographers and others can sell their content files. The storage itself is however pretty basic, 5 GB with a web-interface and a toolbar client allowing you to upload files directly from your computer more easily. However the client is not as easy to use as the one from Dropbox.
Apart from the community and storage the solutions Esnips has some unique features, such as the ability to take snippets from web-pages and directly import them into Esnips. Esnips also has a post to Twitter feature, which works quite well.
Box.net
Box.net offers 1 GB of storage for free, although you can get 30GB for $15 per month and user. The service is more oriented towards small businesses than individuals. Box.net has a desktop client, collaboration workspaces, versioning, mobile access and a lot of other business oriented features. For example it is possible to view CAD-files without using a CAD program etc.
Opera is creating their own interpretation of cloud computing with Opera Unite. While most other companies are creating gigantic server networks for users to upload their information to, Opera is going the other way and opening up client computers for peer to peer file sharing.
Opera Unite is actually a set of different services, all turning your computer into a file-sharing or web-server. The services include photo and file sharing, a media player, a chat client (hosted on your own computer) and the fridge (a bulletin board system where anyone can leave messages for you).
Although Opera Unite is in early Beta we tried all the available services out to see what the fuzz was about. Unite lives in your web-browser, so the first step is to download the Opera 10 browser and install it. Then you will need an Opera account, which can easily be created.
Perhaps the most interesting feature in Opera Unite is the file-sharing capabilities. There have been many times where you just want to e-mail a file to someone, but because of all the spam-filters and file-size limitations it is not that easy.
When installing the Opera Unite file-sharing service you simply select a directory that you want to share with the outside world. It is possible to share the folder with everyone making it public, but also to password protect the folder so that only selected users can view the contents in it. When a folder has been configured you get a URL, for example xxxxx.operaunite.com/folder/file-sharing/. Then it is a matter of sharing the URL with the people you want to be able to access the files.
It is also possible to create a completely private folder, just for yourself. This might be suitable for when you are on the road and need access to your files.
Another interesting service is the Fridge, where users can leave messages in the form of post-it notes on a fridge. To be quite honest it is difficult to see any real use for it though, most people would text, send an e-mail or use discussion groups or other collaboration environments. But it is nevertheless fun.
Media Player is another Opera Unite service, it resembles WinAmp Remote. It works basically the same-way as file-sharing with some added capabilities like shuffle and repeat.
The web-server service is quite handy if you just want to use it as a test-environment, especially if you are designing web-sites and want to give your clients an easy way to look at the sites. However the Opera Unite web-server does not contain any support for PHP or databases, which I thought was the whole point with having a web-server for test-purposes.
Opera Unite also has a photo sharing capability. I was in a meeting and wanted to share some photos of a project we had been working on, sending them by e-mail turned out to be a nightmare because of spam-filter and file-size limitations. So I used Opera Unite, with little success. I shared a folder and directed the meeting participants to my URL, the service just sat there and loaded, nothing happened. After my third attempt I just uploaded the photos to my Smugmug account, worked like a charm. The Opera Unite service is a bit quirky and does not always work, which can be expected since it is in testing.
Opera Unite is sort of a borderline product, one side of the story is that it is brilliant. For files that you want to share fast without uploading them somewhere it is great. For small businesses that does not trust cloud storage services it is also great. However it comes with limitations, first of all the client computer has to be on all the time. If the client computer gets lost you do not have the natural back-up as regular cloud services provide.
Another issue is security; I cannot help feeling worried when I create public folders and services on my own computer. Opera Unite is not something I dare to make permanent on my systems since it is not a finished product, and I can imagine that there are quite a few exploits and other security issues hidden in there, as in most other new beta software products.
Opera Unite is easily accessible from Opera 10; however Opera 10 excites me more than Unite. The product is a good start and it will be interesting to follow, but as of right now it is nowhere near finished, cloud sharing services still have the upper-hand.
Microsoft has obviously felt pressure from all the online office suites out there in the cloud. Last year the Redmond company launched Microsoft Office Live Beta to get their foot in the door. But why should Microsoft bother about small-time cloud applications when they have by far the largest market share with in the business application segment? And making tons of money?
The answer is really that the future of software will be in the cloud, client installed applications such as Office 2007 will not be as popular or frequently used as today. Right now cloud based applications are usually used by small businesses and individuals; they are also often tailored for those particular groups.
Microsoft Office Live Beta is no exception, when you register with the Beta-program you get the basics; Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Office Live interface resembles a lot of other Microsoft online applications, it is easy to work with and the interface is after all something you recognize. The concept is that you create a workspace, add or create documents and then share it with friends or colleges. That is basically how all other online collaboration apps work.
Editing a document in Google Docs or Zoho is easy, you do it in your web-browser from any computer in the world. To my surprise Microsoft Office Live works differently, first of all you have to download a setup file, which renders it useless in public environments. Then you have to go through an installation that requires you to restart your computer. It is a long way from the simplicity in Zoho.
After the restart you are good to go, but documents can only be edited in their native applications. It means that you will need Office installed and when you open a document from Office Live it will launch Microsoft Office on your desktop. I like Microsoft Office 2007, but I think the whole point of office suites in the cloud where the ability to edit the documents from any computer anywhere. Redmond does not seem think so, their vision of cloud computing is collaboration. So what Office Live adds to Office 2007 is the ability for other users to comment or view your documents.
Office Live is very simple and it works great as a collaboration tool for Office users. But it can’t live up to the competition since it is not possible to edit documents in the web-browser, probably because Microsoft operate under the illusion that they are defending their Office market by forcing customers to buy a copy of Office.
Despite the web 2.0 and cloud computing craze most online services are about taking notes or sharing 140 character posts. Springbase is however an interesting application from a business and developer stand-point. In short Springbase is an alternative to Zoho Creator, it has less features but behaves a lot more like Microsoft Access.
The licensing agreement in Springbase is very favorable; it is free for developers and costs for businesses when the application grows in volume.
Compared to Zoho Creator Springbase has very few features. However it makes it very simple to create a database quickly and integrate it into an existing website. For example I created a contacts database in just 15 minutes. Of course it helps if you have worked in Microsoft Access a lot before, since the interface in Springbase works the same way. The properties window is the same as in the Microsoft product, but with fewer options. The Table, Query, Report and Page sections are also influenced by Access. Springbase also has a pretty neat tab-system, which makes it easy to change between tables, queries and reports.
If you or the company you are working for have an old Microsoft Access application lying around it is possible to import it into Springbase. The feature works but the database imported can sometimes be altered, for example after importing a database with a table with one ID column Springbase added an additional ID column. The Databases in Springbase can be edited by several administrators; it is possible to invite additional people to the database easily.
[ad#Content Adsense]
As with most other cloud computing applications it is not clear if the data uploaded to Springbase is secured. Since Springbase is not as well known and does not appear to have any backing of big Internet players, it has to be considered a risk to use it for business critical applications.
A great thing for Springbase would be to take advantage of other cloud computing services, such as Amazon S3. Then the data security issues would be gone. However Springbase is very good for putting up a database fast and also for experimenting with databases. It could also be used in an educational setting as it resembles Microsoft Access and the OpenOffice alternative, but requires no installation or licensing.
Google Earth version 5 is here, what’s new you ask? Well if you ever wondered what the ocean-floor look like or what New York look liked five years ago you will love Google Earth 5. But we don’t stop there; we also take a look at all the other features in Google Earth in this walkthrough.
I was always a sucker for Microsoft Encarta’s map features back in the day when compact discs where all the rage. Google Earth is basically an enhanced version of that, with satellite imagery, embedded photos, live updates and thousands of other features.
The satellite imagery in Google Earth varies in quality, all world cities are modeled in great detail, and in some cities it is even possible to view photorealistic 3D-buildings and sights. Google Earth also has street views, which is a 360 degree panorama of a bunch of intersections and streets in world cities such as New York, Tokyo, London and so on.
Rural imagery is however limited in comparison, and is usually looks like a grey slurge with black dots. This is also true for a lot of smaller countries in Europe, such as Scandinavia. Even-though the region has one of the highest Internet penetrations in the world.
It is possible to apply certain information on most map-views. For example street names, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, sights tagged by National Geographic and so on. This makes Google Earth usable when on the road, hook the program up to a GPS device and you got a neat navigational system in major cities. Google Earth is also available for the IPhone and Symbian enabled phones, such as Nokia. There is also the Google Maps application for JAVA-enabled phones, Maps is less resource intense since it contains less features than its big-brother.
Google beefed up the ocean part of Google Earth in release 5. Now you can travel below the high-seas and look at ship-wrecks, Cousteau’s ocean world and so on. The maps of the ocean floor are surprisingly good, but the use for them will mainly be in educational contexts.
Another interesting feature in Google Earth 5 is the ability to turn back time by using historical maps, the maps and imagery is not that old since most views will only date back to 2000 or 2001. It is interesting to watch some cities growth but for this feature to be really useful the maps would have to go back much further.
Google Earth is not just about Earth, the program also features neat views of the sky and universe. It is not as in-depth as Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope, which has superior written and video content. However for just a quick-tour of the universe Google Earth will do.
The advantage of Google Earth is the community behind it. There are several websites with interesting sights in Google Earth, and there are forums where people share what they have discovered in the Google Earth imagery. It is also possible to record your trips in Google Earth 5, share them with friends and family or save them for other occasions.
Google Earth is a great piece of educational software, it tries to be a lot and succeed in many areas. However the rural map areas are not that great making Google Earth unusable as a navigational tool in some areas and countries. The sky feature is great but there are programs that simply do a better job of describing our universe.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
Thanks to the toolkit and the community behind eyeOS there is a number applications out-there. Of course the number of apps is nowhere near as many as for Windows or Linux, but it still looks very promising. However all of the applications are on eyeos-apps.org, it would be nice with a package installer integrated into eyeOS.
The interface in eyeOS is very easy to grasp, it is more oriented towards Linux than Windows so Linux users will feel even more at home. The terminology is also standard OS language, there are no newexpressions unique for eyeOS, folders are called folders etc.
The desktop in eyeOS is very much like any other OS. At the top of the screen there are a number of tabs; Favorites, Office, Network, Accessories, Games, System and Places. In the lower right corner of the screen there is a traditional start menu with applications, system preferences and a command line option.
In the system preferences it is possible to change the look of the desktop, there are about five themes to choose from. The desktop background can also be changed. It is also possible to change password and language (a surprisingly number of languages are available) from the system preferences dialog.
eyeOS comes with an integrated office suite, including a word-processor, a spreadsheet program and a presentation program. The OS also have an e-mail client, calendar and a contact manager. Surprisingly eyeOS also comes with a web-browser, considering that you access the OS in a web-browser it is a bit strange. There are however advantages if you for example decide to lock your computers web-browser to the eyeOS site only in a business or public environment.
I have often missed to be able to access FTP on the go to be able to edit websites. Eye OS takes care of that with the built in FTP-client. It is pretty basic but does FTP uploading and downloading pretty good. Both surfing and FTP is of course slower in eyeOS than on a regular desktop.
eyeOS is primarily intended to be hosted on a server; however there is a public demo server where anyone can setup an account for personal use.
Installing eyeOS on a server is pretty straight-forward for experienced users, the server needs PHP 5 and preferably Apache web-server. This enables any business or organization to setup their own free cloud operating system. The eyeOS team mentions schools and public libraries as example users of the system, but a medium sized business can almost certainly use the OS in certain settings.
All cloud operating systems seem to have issues with connecting with other popular cloud apps, eyeOS has the same problem. However chances are that as more apps become available from the community, hopefully we will see integration with Gmail, Amazon S3 and other popular cloud services. Until then users will be locked in, but compared to Glide users of eyeOS seem to have a brighter and more open future ahead.
While most cloud apps require you to sign-up in order to do anything Picnik gives you the opportunity to just use the basic service without any sign-up process. This is great when you just want to edit something quickly on the go and then posting it online.
Picnik also have a number of other features. For example it is possible to crop, resize, sharpen or rotate photos. Picnik also have nice options for adjusting colors and exposure, it is also possible to correct red-eyes by just clicking a button.
Adjusting colors in Picnik is pretty easy, but of course with less options than in Photoshop or Gimp. It is possible to change the saturation and color temperature. You can also pick a neutral area in the image and use it as a base for adjustment.
Adjusting the exposure is one of the most important features in photo-editing software. In Picnik it is possible to change the contrast and exposure. The more advanced options allow you to change brightness, the exposure of shadows and lighter areas. Picnik also have a histogram so that you can more easily adjust photos the way you want them.
The red-eye reduction works pretty well, there are different options for human and pet-eyes. If you do not want to go through all the editing options manually there is a auto-fix option, Picnik will then automatically adjust your photos applying all the options mentioned above.
Most of us have played around in Photoshop and Gimp with the different effect filters. Picnik have a set of its own, by selecting the Create tab you get a surprisingly high number of different effects. You get the usual soften, greyscale and sepia effects. But also some really nice ones, such as snow, 1960s colors and a favorite from Photoshop, the pencil sketch. The effects really look great, and there is no difference really from desktop software. They are also easy to apply and manage if you have used similar features before.
Picnik also includes features for working with text and applying it to images and photos. There are a number of different fonts available, since Picnik is in the cloud it is impossible to add your own fonts as would be possible in Photoshop or Gimp.
A new addition in Picnik is the touch-up feature. It a set of effects aimed at touching up photos of humans. For example there is a lipstick effect and a feature where you can change the weight of the person in the photo. Most of the other touch-up options are available in the premium version (for $2.08 a month).
Picnik comes with different frames that you can apply around your photos, such as a stamp effect and rounded edges. There is also an interesting feature in Picnik; called Sandbox, where users have made their own effects using flash scripting. The scripting makes it possible to bend photos in different ways, not possible before (according to Picnik).
Overall Picnik is a great photo-editing tool, the free version goes a long way and the premium version is pretty cheap compared to Photoshop and other photo-editing software. For people who want basic photo-editing software with a few advanced features Picnik is perfect, I even dare to say that it beats Gimp in some areas such as ease of use. Picnik is also surprisingly fast, even though it runs in the cloud it starts faster than Photoshop and Gimp does on my machine. For Adobe Picnik is a very dangerous competitor for the online version of Adobe Photoshop.
[ad#Content Adsense]
Cloud operating systems is more than hype, they make sense. Netbooks which is a best-seller are not that powerful, so a desktop solution in the cloud would enable you to sync your Netbook with your desktop. It would of course give you access to your desktop from anywhere, and it would always be backed up.
Glide OS is designed to be used in a web-browser, which is achieved by using Flash. I am not a great fan of flash as it back in the day often was used to make overdesigned websites with little content or function. But Glide uses Flash beautifully; it even runs in older web-browser such as Internet Explorer 6. All it requires is Flash version 9.0.124.
Glide OS is basically a desktop environment which you can access from anywhere. It can be used from any web-browser, but also have client software for Windows, MAC OS, Linux and Solaris. Even more interestingly there are mobile versions of the client for the Iphone but also for Android, Palm OS, Symbian and Windows Mobile phones. It means that you will have access to Glide from any device.
At first glance Glide it resembles Windows or any other operating system a lot, except that it is in your browser. A Windows user would instantly feel right at home in Glide, and so would a Linux or MAC user.
The Glide OS Desktop has a number of different features by default, such as Email (yes you get your own e-mail @glidefree.com), Calendar, word processing and so on. At the top of the screen there are three tabs, Desktop, Glide HD and Portal. Clicking Glide HD will bring the user a file view with music, videos, documents, pictures but also RSS-feeds and a Calendar. The portal part of Glide is basically a flash based directory of websites mixed with stock quotes and chat features.
For some remote reason folders in Glide OS are called containers. Clicking a container will list all files located in there, clicking the small “Go” text in the icon will give you the bubble navigation. This basically gives you other options directly, for example if you want to upload files to the container. This is actually a bit unique, but partly resembles right clicking in Windows.
Glide OS comes with a surprisingly wide array of features and products. Most of them are consumer oriented, such as a media player or online photo editing software. The media player makes it possible to access your music collection from anywhere. Well not your entire collection since there is a 10 GB storage cap, but the favorite parts could easily be uploaded.
The Cube is another media sharing tool where users upload their videos, music or whatever and you can browse it in a Cube-type interface. It looks very neat but there isn’t a whole lot of stuff in there, and to be quite frank there are better online applications out there for media sharing.
A neat feature, which I have been missing in every Windows version, is a sticky note feature. It is easily accessible in Glide OS from the menu in the footer, complete with color coding, take that Windows 7.
Glide has a number of features built in for collaboration. For example it is possible to share documents, setup online meetings and much more. The only down-side with the collaboration features is that all users engaging in meetings will have to have a Glide account; if you have client meetings it might be a little bit much to ask them to get Glide. It would have been neater if it was possible to use an existing account, with for example Google or Open ID.
Glide can connect with your PC using a desktop client, it is a lot easier than just using the web-interface, especially when uploading files to Glide as you just have to drag and drop the files to your Glide.
The Business side of Glide looks depressing; there are simply not that many features in there. Sure some of the consumer oriented stuff such as word processing and e-mail goes for businesses as well. But all the media and music features are pretty much useless for a business. However one business application is Glide Crunch, a spreadsheet program. It is a weird application since it is not supported in the web-version of Glide, but it can be use from the client side on a local machine. Glide OS features documentation, it is both a manual and a quick intro to the desktop, both in PDF.
Glide is ahead compared to the giants like Google and Microsoft when it comes to cloud operating systems. I think Glide is not far from what it should look like, but something happened along the way that makes it very confusing. It is absolutely packed with features, yet I can’t seem to figure out what I should use it for. One answer would be everything, just like Windows. But the point with desktop operating systems is that I can add applications as I want, in Glide I either just create links to other external webpages or use Glides built in apps.
For example I know that there are better cloud word processing alternatives out there, such as Zoho Writer. Yet I cannot use it in Glide, so what is Glide really good for? I love the effort that the Glide team has put in; it is really ground-breaking. But in order for Glide to be great it has to have some kind of main focus, right now it is all over the place doing nothing exceptionally good.
For consumers there is probably more value in Glide than for businesses. It still has a long way from replacing the desktop operating system, but it still serves as a model for what a cloud operating system could look like.
HotSpot Shield from Anchor Free protects you and your network while surfing the net. The program creates a Virtual Private Network (VPN) between your network and Anchor Frees servers, which is connected to the Internet. The VPN prevents hackers and other parties to intercept data that you submit; it also ensures anonymity when surfing.
HotSpot Shield is perhaps best used in a public Wi-Fi hotspot (hence the name), where security threats often are more severe. However since the service connects to Anchor Frees server it basically means that you are trusting them, and we have no idea who they are. We are not saying that they can’t be trusted but users would do best in not trusting HotSpot Shield completely.
Also do not buy the hype that you need this product to be completely secure on a public Wi-Fi, yes it helps but virtually all online banks and PayPal already have encrypted services. So HotSpot Shield adds an extra layer of security for your e-mail and general browsing.
HotSpot Shield is free and available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS. There is currently no Linux version, which might be a drawback for some.
How does a company like Anchor Free finance a free product like HotSpot Shield? The business model is very 90s; HotSpot Shield is financed by pop-ups and advertisements. However we didn’t find them that annoying. Anchor Free also collect and store information about your usage (according to their privacy policy).
HotSpot Shield has a bandwidth cap of 3 GB per 30 days for HotSpot Shield, this means that watching video or listening to music is out of the question. But for general browsing the cap should be fine.
HotSpot Shield is slow from the get go and at certain periods it is painfully slow making it almost impossible to use. The service also gives you a US based IP-number, this means that some have used it for getting access to US-only services such as Hulu or Pandora. Hulu have however closed that hole, so if you are looking at this service simply for getting access to Hulu you are out of luck.
For power-users travelling a lot and connecting to public Wi-Fi networks on airports etc, this product is good to have installed but should be a last resort when everything else fails. There are better and faster alternatives out there. However for the occasional traveler HotSpot Shield is a neat product. 
The satellite imagery in Google Earth varies in quality, all world cities are modeled in great detail, and in some cities it is even possible to view photorealistic 3D-buildings and sights. Google Earth also has street views, which is a 360 degree panorama of a bunch of intersections and streets in world cities such as New York, Tokyo, London and so on.
Rural imagery is however limited in comparison, and is usually looks like a grey slurge with black dots. This is also true for a lot of smaller countries in Europe, such as Scandinavia. Even-though the region has one of the highest Internet penetrations in the world.
It is possible to apply certain information on most map-views. For example street names, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, sights tagged by National Geographic and so on. This makes Google Earth usable when on the road, hook the program up to a GPS device and you got a neat navigational system in major cities. Google Earth is also available for the IPhone and Symbian enabled phones, such as Nokia. There is also the Google Maps application for JAVA-enabled phones, Maps is less resource intense since it contains less features than its big-brother.
Google beefed up the ocean part of Google Earth in release 5. Now you can travel below the high-seas and look at ship-wrecks, Cousteau’s ocean world and so on. The maps of the ocean floor are surprisingly good, but the use for them will mainly be in educational contexts.
Another interesting feature in Google Earth 5 is the ability to turn back time by using historical maps, the maps and imagery is not that old since most views will only date back to 2000 or 2001. It is interesting to watch some cities growth but for this feature to be really useful the maps would have to go back much further.
Google Earth is not just about Earth, the program also features neat views of the sky and universe. It is not as in-depth as Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope, which has superior written and video content. However for just a quick-tour of the universe Google Earth will do.
The advantage of Google Earth is the community behind it. There are several websites with interesting sights in Google Earth, and there are forums where people share what they have discovered in the Google Earth imagery. It is also possible to record your trips in Google Earth 5, share them with friends and family or save them for other occasions.
Google Earth is a great piece of educational software, it tries to be a lot and succeed in many areas. However the rural map areas are not that great making Google Earth unusable as a navigational tool in some areas and countries. The sky feature is great but there are programs that simply do a better job of describing our universe.