Google has finally released their own online file sync service after years of rumors; Google Drive will primarily enhance the experience for existing Google Docs users but also strikes a blow to some existing file sync and sharing services.It’s not like there isn’t any competition in the online backup and file sync sector with services like Carbonite, Dropbox and Microsoft’s Skydrive. Although it isn’t surprising that Google is moving in to the space it is much less dramatic than most industry “experts” seem to think.Each Google user have to apply for Google Drive before it’s activated, once it is up and running the existing Google Docs directory will become Google Drive. The difference between Google Drive and the old Docs directory is that it is possible to automatically sync files between Google Docs, a desktop/laptop computer and Android devices (Ipad and Iphone apps are on the way when this is written).Syncing from a desktop or laptop is done by downloading an application running in the background automatically syncing selected files. We tested the app with Windows 7 without any issues.Another interesting part of Google Drive is the collaboration options, although they already existed in Google Docs it’s now possible to easily share a document using Google + or even better e-mail a link to a bulky document in Google Drive using Gmail.Google Drive also saves all changes to documents, making it possible to go back to previous versions easily. This makes Google Drive more similar to Dropbox than pure backup services like Carbonite.When we tested Google Drive it was apparent that Google put some time into making the app display different file formats, for example it is possible to view Photoshop and Illustrator files without any third party programs.Google offers 5 GB of free storage, which falls somewhere in between Dropbox (2 GB) and Skydrive (7 GB). It is enough storage for most personal needs, however Google offers up to 16 TB of data. 25 GB of data costs $2.49 / month and 100 GB $4.99, compared to Dropbox which offers 100 GB for 19.99/month this is cheap. When buying Google Drive space, the storage can also be used for Picasa.The ones that should be scared of Google Drive is not Microsoft, because it is not a threat to Skydrive as Microsoft’s alternative is integrated in Microsoft Office, tightly. Instead Google Drive is a direct attack on services like Dropbox and Sugarsync, which has nothing to offer in terms of integration. Overall Google Drive is a good product, it has more value than Dropbox but is also a solid alternative in it’s free version.
Web apps and cloud based computing is here to stay, more and more applications are moving off the desktop and into the browser, and it will continue.
A problem with this evolution is of course that applications will become more difficult to reach than just having a simple icon sitting there on your desktop. Also web apps seldom leverage the whole computing power available in a desktop computer. A US based company named SweetLabs believes that they have the solution to all these problems, Pokki.
Pokki is basically an app store for Windows 7, with various applications and games available. The number of apps and games available is basic but still should cover most user needs. It is possible to install a Twitter client named Tweeki, Facebook and Gmail. There is also a neat music application, Grooveshark. Various games are also included, most of them pretty advanced.
The Pokki apps looks and behaves good in Windows 7, they load fast and often look better than some desktop counterparts. Developers can download an SDK, in which it is possible to develop part of the apps in CSS3 and HTML 5, which in itself is pretty amazing.
Pokki itself sits in the taskbar (it is possible to remove it) and is pretty unobtrusive, especially compared to similar solutions I have tried. A downside with Pokki is the lack of support for other Windows versions and operating systems, when this is written it only supports Windows 7.
The whole idea of an app store alternative for Windows 7 is good, but the question is how long it will live. Microsoft will without a doubt release an app store when Windows 8 is rolled out later during 2012, which may render Pokki useless.
Also Pokki serves no real purpose on other operating systems, Mac OS already have its own app store and Linux have had it for years. However they are not tied specifically to web apps and often have specifically developed apps for Gmail, Twitter etc. The real selling point with Pokki is being light-weight and providing a platform which is easy for developers to grasp and use. It will be crucial for SweetLabs to engage developers in order for Pokki to survive after the Windows 8 app store is launched.
In the meantime Pokki is a nice addition to Windows 7, and does make it easier to quickly access different web-based apps.
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Everything is moving into the cloud and so is the operating system. Previously Microsoft released the Windows Azure Platform, also a number of smaller players such as Good OS (gOS), EyeOS and Glide have hit the market. Google is however surprisingly late to the game with the hyped release of Chromium better known as Google Chrome OS. Why the name confusion? Chromium is the open-source project connected to Google Chrome and Chrome OS.
We downloaded the open-source version of Google Chrome OS, built it and ran it on a netbook using a USB-drive. It was also tested in a virtualized environment (VMWare). The version of Chromium we tested was 4.0.253.0, it is not a finished product so this review is more of a hint of things to come than a complete overview of a finished product.
Building the Google Chrome OS source-code is not easy for everyone; there are a couple of images of the system floating around on the net usually made for USB-drives or a virtualized environment. For example you can download Google Chrome OS image files from: or.
Chrome OS is actually built on the Linux kernel but with its own windowing system. Maybe that's one of the reasons why Google managed to get this product released and working avoiding the hurdle of device drivers that other operating system developers have to worry about.
Starting Chrome OS is very fast, it only took about 10 seconds to bring up the login screen. When launching it on a netbook problems started directly when trying to login, since the Wi-Fi networks password hadn't been initialized it could not login using my Google account. Instead I had to connect it to a cable network, and then it worked fine. The login sequence is probably something Google will have to work on, if I had been on the road trying to connect to a secured Wi-Fi network it wouldn't have worked.
When logging in to Chrome OS you are greeted with a Google Chrome web-browser window launching Google or your Gmail account. There is also a tab in the upper left corner containing shortcuts to different Google and Internet-services, such as Google Docs, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Facebook etc. Very few of the applications in Google Chrome OS is native, most of them are run in a browser window. The calculator is the only app that runs from within Chromium and pop-ups in the lower right corner of the screen. Most cloud applications worked like a charm and they were fast to use. We used Google Wave, Zoho among others without any real issues.
The user interface is very plain and light-weight compared to Windows 7, MAC OSx or Linux. If you compare it to other cloud OS interfaces it still is plain, both gOS and Glide look much better. To enhance the UI there are a number of available themes for Google Chrome and also the Google Chrome OS. In the upper right part of the screen there is a battery indicator, a switch for turning on and off Wi-Fi and Ethernet and an icon for controlling the rest of the OS. The menu-options are a mixture of the ones available in the Chrome browser and operating system specific options available in Chromium.
If you compare Chrome OS to other operating systems on the market it is minimalistic and not very flexible. Google’s intent is that Chrome OS is for netbooks, but there are plenty of situations using a netbook without any Internet access, for example on the plane. Chrome OS also does not give you access to the inner workings of the computer, there are not that many settings that you can change by default. Comparing Chrome OS So what Chrome OS got going for it is that it is minimalistic but it is also what works against it. Linux is so far a much better free alternative for netbooks than Google Chrome OS is. Google have partnered up with netbook manufacturer and we will probably see Google Chrome OS netbooks during 2010.
Another interesting user case for Chrome OS could be in a corporate environment, clients would not need any programs installed and the need for extensive administration would be gone. The problem is that Chrome OS cannot be used in a local network (EyeOS have this capability); it has to connect to Google. There will probably be extensions to get this capability though.
Of course the operating systems of the future will be more connected to the cloud than they currently are, however I think it will be highly dependent on the software and services available in the cloud. Most of the services available work quite well on netbooks (hence the targeting by Google), such as Google Docs and Zoho. But heavier applications and games still remain on the desktop, for example there are many photo-editing apps in the cloud but none with the advanced features seen in Photoshop. Graphics applications such as Inkscape and Google SketchUp also still remain on the desktop, and probably will for some time. However for average novice users requiring a word processor and the occasional web-surfing Google Chrome OS might be it, especially in a year or two when it has been more developed.
Online backup and storage is something we are growing increasingly used to, gone are the days using tape backup and external hard-drives. There are still few services that are focused entirely on backup instead of just storage and portability of files (read our other post for additional cloud storage options), Carbonite is however one of them (the name Carbonite comes from the substance used to freeze Han Solo in Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back).
Carbonite entered the market back in 2006 but has become more popular as bandwidth speeds are increasing; it is one of a few backup solutions that offer unlimited transfer of files and storage. Most other backup solutions such as JungleDisk connected to Amazon S3 charge by the amount of data stored. Carbonite is of course most affordable for people or businesses with large amounts of data; however it is not the amount of data that makes a backup valuable. A lot of users have the need for a simple off site backup solution.
Yes Carbonite is very simple to setup and use, you download and install a client from the Carbonite website when creating an account. When installing the client you can select to backup your whole drive or specific folders of your choice. The first backup obviously takes a lot of time since all the data have to be uploaded to the Carbonite web-drive. However when it is done Carbonite automatically syncs modified or added files quite quickly.
Restoring files is easy, it is possible to restore individual files but also a whole drive if a hard drive crashes. If you decide that you want to access your files from another computer there is also a web-interface.
Putting data in the cloud is both a blessing and a curse, it provides an offsite backup if something happens but it also exposes your data to the outside world. Carbonite has a pretty good security solution, the data-transfer between your computer and Carbonite is secure using a key. Carbonite themselves claim to encrypt your data twice, whatever that means. They also claim that they use the same security procedures as banks. A problem with Carbonite’s security is that their Terms of Service says "Carbonite may have the ability to decrypt your data files", but says that they will only do so in order to troubleshoot or comply with a law. This basically means that Carbonite have the encryption key for your files and can in some cases use it. So if you are storing information that is classified or something similar it might be wise to choose something else (however classified information should not be in the cloud in the first place). For regular users I doubt that the fact that Carbonite have the ability to view data after a subpoena is that significant.
It was not that long ago this kind of backup solution used to cost a small fortune, Carbonite is however very affordable. For $54.95 a year you get unlimited backup. However the license is tied to one computer, if you want to backup several computers you will have to purchase additional licenses. Another limitation of Carbonite is that there is no Linux client, right now it works with Windows XP/Vista and MAC OS Tiger or Leopard, older versions of Windows is not supported either.
Carbonite is a great backup-solution and a good alternative to Amazon S3 based backup solutions for Windows and MAC users. It is light-weight and stays out of your way, it is also surprisingly affordable. However entities handling sensitive or classified information need to find a more secure solution.
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.
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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.
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.
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We downloaded the open-source version of Google Chrome OS, built it and ran it on a netbook using a USB-drive. It was also tested in a virtualized environment (VMWare). The version of Chromium we tested was 4.0.253.0, it is not a finished product so this review is more of a hint of things to come than a complete overview of a finished product.
Building the Google Chrome OS source-code is not easy for everyone; there are a couple of images of the system floating around on the net usually made for USB-drives or a virtualized environment. For example you can download Google Chrome OS image files from: or.
Chrome OS is actually built on the Linux kernel but with its own windowing system. Maybe that's one of the reasons why Google managed to get this product released and working avoiding the hurdle of device drivers that other operating system developers have to worry about.
Starting Chrome OS is very fast, it only took about 10 seconds to bring up the login screen. When launching it on a netbook problems started directly when trying to login, since the Wi-Fi networks password hadn't been initialized it could not login using my Google account. Instead I had to connect it to a cable network, and then it worked fine. The login sequence is probably something Google will have to work on, if I had been on the road trying to connect to a secured Wi-Fi network it wouldn't have worked.
When logging in to Chrome OS you are greeted with a Google Chrome web-browser window launching Google or your Gmail account. There is also a tab in the upper left corner containing shortcuts to different Google and Internet-services, such as 
Carbonite entered the market back in 2006 but has become more popular as bandwidth speeds are increasing; it is one of a few backup solutions that offer unlimited transfer of files and storage. Most other backup solutions such as JungleDisk connected to Amazon S3 charge by the amount of data stored. Carbonite is of course most affordable for people or businesses with large amounts of data; however it is not the amount of data that makes a backup valuable. A lot of users have the need for a simple off site backup solution.
Yes Carbonite is very simple to setup and use, you download and install a client from the Carbonite website when creating an account. When installing the client you can select to backup your whole drive or specific folders of your choice. The first backup obviously takes a lot of time since all the data have to be uploaded to the Carbonite web-drive. However when it is done Carbonite automatically syncs modified or added files quite quickly.
Restoring files is easy, it is possible to restore individual files but also a whole drive if a hard drive crashes. If you decide that you want to access your files from another computer there is also a web-interface.
Putting data in the cloud is both a blessing and a curse, it provides an offsite backup if something happens but it also exposes your data to the outside world. Carbonite has a pretty good security solution, the data-transfer between your computer and Carbonite is secure using a key. Carbonite themselves claim to encrypt your data twice, whatever that means. They also claim that they use the same security procedures as banks. A problem with Carbonite’s security is that their Terms of Service says "Carbonite may have the ability to decrypt your data files", but says that they will only do so in order to troubleshoot or comply with a law. This basically means that Carbonite have the encryption key for your files and can in some cases use it. So if you are storing information that is classified or something similar it might be wise to choose something else (however classified information should not be in the cloud in the first place). For regular users I doubt that the fact that Carbonite have the ability to view data after a subpoena is that significant.
It was not that long ago this kind of backup solution used to cost a small fortune, Carbonite is however very affordable. For $54.95 a year you get unlimited backup. However the license is tied to one computer, if you want to backup several computers you will have to purchase additional licenses. Another limitation of Carbonite is that there is no Linux client, right now it works with Windows XP/Vista and MAC OS Tiger or Leopard, older versions of Windows is not supported either.
Carbonite is a great backup-solution and a good alternative to Amazon S3 based backup solutions for Windows and MAC users. It is light-weight and stays out of your way, it is also surprisingly affordable. However entities handling sensitive or classified information need to find a more secure solution.
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.
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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. 
