With the emergence of the iPad, there are many trends changing and many ideas developing around an old but finally well-developed phenomenon: the tablet computer.

Although I am somehow late giving my opinion on the subject, I think it is worth the try.

One of the areas cloud computing can be very useful and extremely capable is on the thin clients. Despite the fact that definition of a thin client nowadays is quite different than few years ago (take iPad and compare it to any of the “revolutionary” J2ME enabled devices) they are still far less capable than conventional computers, i.e. laptops and desktops.

iPad (as a good example and so far the best in the segment) is fairly powerful by itself and offers decent performance in doing resource-intensive tasks like 3D game rendering. But there are times that its processing power and storage capacity is not sufficient for certain tasks. You might say, well turn to a more powerful computer then. The price of such move could be sacrificing the super cool and useful features like ultra-portability and modern human user interface of the iPad.

Think of a university class in which all students bring along their iPads (or a similar tablet computer). Such device is more than enough for day to day tasks like note taking, voice recording, web surfing, and email. But when a resource-intensive task is needed, e.g accessing a huge archive of files and resources that needs a powerful processor for search and a big disk to store the data, the students can easily connect to the (private or public) cloud of the university and let the powerful servers do the job for them. The result is then transmitted back to the device without using extra battery or other resources. In the case of iPhone OS platform with SDK 4 it is even possible to do it in the background while doing other stuff.

You might ask how such an obvious case for the benefit of cloud computing is related to Flash on iPad?

Flash is a resource-hungry technology by nature and any device planning to support it, will sacrifice a considerable amount of battery life for the sake of more compatibility. And everybody knows how important batteries are for portable devices.

Noting that Flash-based applications do not necessarily have a better representation of data (being a front-end technology) and most of the features provided by Flash are easily doable with a mix of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, why employ a technology that will waste the precious battery life? A device like iPad is thin enough to rely on the cloud and stay cost-effective as well, while is powerful enough to perform the majority of daily tasks without external help.

Elasticity is essential for the cloud software, in which the software can use as much expensive resources as needed, for a limited period of time and then release them when the resource-hungry jobs are done. Why not keeping the less powerful devices as they are and instead putting the extra and occasional tasks on the datacenters shoulders?

Now in the middle of Apple-Adobe war, and apart from the usual corporate stuff, the question is that how this could affect cloud-based apps.

It is not hard to guess that there is no immediate and direct impact, but in longer run manufacturers will need to make more powerful and obviously more expensive devices to cope with technologies like Flash. This means less people and companies will afford to use such devices, which will eventually make an impact of the total number of thin cloud users.

Either Adobe will have to redesign its beloved platform, or it will have to be abandoned for a better technology. I believe Adobe can pull this off if it feels the pressure, because now it’s not just a small number of Mac users complaining about lousy Flash performance. We are talking about 10s of millions of mobile device users. Let alone the manufacturers.

On the other hand, we have to wait and see how well will Android do with its Flashy promises. If they could find a way to do it cheap, then Apple should think of a better solution than banning Flash.

Sometimes we become so obsessed and dependant to technologies like Flash that we can’t even imagine a world without them. It is true that it is a major part of the business model of a software giant, but so was the MS-DOS. Nobody believed back in 1995 that they could live without MS-DOS and now the younger generation doesn’t even know what it is.

After moving to Vancouver (yeah baby), one of the things I want to do is to apply for UBC graduate program. No, MBA is not what I have in mind, MIS is a better choice for me. Although I’m still finishing my MSc in SBIT, I think this degree will help me better in accomplishing my goals, none of which involves taking over the world. So worry not.

After weeks of “research” I contacted Sauder School of Business and they just enlightened me with the information I already knew: “You are late for fall 2010 and you have to apply after September with all supporting documents including a GMAT score.

Well, I have got enough time to study Math again (tickles some old nightmares) but to get a better chance to be admitted and hopefully get an scholarship, I need to be really good at GMAT.

There are 12 books to start with, 3 official books and 8 from Manhattan. There are also classes to attend. I guess I’ll start with the books because I’m good at self-paced studying. After taking a sample test or two I can decide whether to go to a real class as well or not.

There are many (I mean it) resources to study for GMAT and these 3 websites are must-check:

• www.mba.com
• www.beatthegmat.com
• www.gmatclub.com

Companies like Manhattan offer online classes for the busy applicants, but you can still attend UBC classes to have better and real connection with your classmates (aka competitors).

Well, I’m still at the beginning and I can’t advise anybody about anything. This is briefly the data I collected so far and I’ll update the post if I find something worthy in the future.

So good luck if you are in the GMAT game too.

P.S. Obviously some of the information mentioned above applies to Canadians only. I am sure you can find plenty of resources online of and test center near you.

This is an unusual topic to be discussed in my software-oriented blog, but this morning I was staring at my wireless keyboard and I just thought how it (along with its companion mouse) made my life easier.

I use a wireless keyboard and a wired mighty mouse (broken 3 wireless mice already and I can’t afford it anymore) with my laptop. The tiny size of the keyboard allows me to easily use it on the go as well. If you are worried about the battery, the 3 AA Energizer batteries last for weeks (if you turn the keyboard off when you are not using it for a long time).

But a quick review is not why we are here, so let’s see why you should get yourself an external keyboard and mouse.

1. Less heat under fingertips

Boy, my MacBook Pro gets hot when I make her angry. With fans hitting 4000 rpm while working on something resource-intensive you can literally melt cheese on the touchpad. Living in the city of Summer, Dubai, makes it even more unbearable to work. It’s not hard to guess that the external companions are the only solution.

2. More distance from the screen

They say you should keep your distance from the screen, a minimum of 40 cm. But how is that possible when you are checking the latest tweets of your buddies (or something hotter), leaned toward the screen, like the letter C? Well, you know my answer: Get yourself external input devices.

3. More flexible screen positioning

People who use computers for a long time, tend to sit in weird positions, often in funny postures. That’s very wrong, you should sit correctly (no one sees me) all the time.

The point is that it helps a lot if you can put your laptop in a position higher than your hand, say 10-20 cm, to create a much better angle between your eyes and the display. There are many laptop stands that do the job for you, but I use a paper tray (works as a storage too) and I’m happy.

On the other hand, having a keyboard and a mouse, especially wireless, helps big tim in presentations where you don’t have access to a big screen. Just put your laptop on the table and let the people watch your jaw-dropping presentation while you are showing a lot of skill using your keyboard across the room.

4. Lowering the risk of CTS

Here comes the enemy of typaholics, CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome). There are ways to avoid CTS, but for the average user, being careful while typing may be the most important thing to consider.

In my experience (suffering from some minor pain in my wrists) the external keyboard could help relieve the pain. You can easily position the keyboard (and the mouse) right, but the laptop itself is less flexible.

5. More hygiene

Did you know that the toilet (a public toilet to make it more disgusting) is more likely cleaner than your laptop? It is in fact 5 times dirtier than a typical toilet.

I’ll make it quick by saying that cleaning external peripherals is way easier than cleaning the laptop itself. And if you are obsessive about it, just throw them out and buy new devices. Easy.

6. Increased productivity

For some mysterious reason, I can work faster and type better using my external devices.

7. Better resale value for the laptop

This one has nothing to do with health, but when you make more money reselling your laptop, you automatically feel a lot better.

One of the ugly things about second-hand laptops is the shiny stains on each and every key, especially the space bar. Depending on the quality of the laptop, there can even be a bigger spot on the touchpad. Not nice at all. If you see my laptop (purchased and used passionately since Oct. 2007), there is no spot, stain, or anything like that. It’s all on my external keyboard. So a cleaner laptop means an easier sale, and hopefully a better price.

Most people use versioning systems like Subversion, Mercurial, and git to maintain their code while working on software and web projects. There are also hosted solutions like github and bitbucket providing developers with more features than a traditional version control environment.

But sometimes you just want to keep your code in a safe place and make sure you have reliable backup of the different versions, and that’s it! For smaller (or personal) projects especially, using versioning systems is an overkill. But what could be the solution?

If I want to summarize it quickly, the ideal solution will be a one that:

• Is hosted in the cloud (online)
• Is easy to setup
• Works without you doing any administration work
• Is cheap and preferably free
• Keeps you productive
• Keeps coding synchronized on multiple workstations
• Allows you to maintaing other related material, like PDF documentations, next to your code.

I think I found how to answer all these questions with one answer, let’s see how.

Storage as a service

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage service that keeps your files safe and in sync between multiple computers. It is basically created for backup and file synchronization, but I use it for coding and maintaining other contents like my web projects, and the book/article drafts including the drafts of this very article.

You will get 2GB of online free space which is pretty enough for many purposes, but it is always possible to upgrade to bigger plans.

Getting started

First create a Dropbox account and install the application (Windows, Mac, Linux) on all the computers you are working with. It is good to take a tour before , to check out the features.

Dropbox creates a local folder on your computer that is synced to your online folder. A mirror in the cloud, literally.

The solution I am proposing would work the best if all your computers run the same operating system, because you should set an identical path for the local folder on all computers. For example if you have a Mac and a PC, the folder structure difference will cause 2 different Dropbox folders (e.g. /Users/user/Dropbox and C:\MyDocuments\Dropbox\).

In my case, I set it to /Users/ali/Dropbox/ on both my home Macbook Pro as well as on my office Mac Pro. When I work at home (on my MacBook Pro) I store my ongoing work and it syncs with the remote folder. When I’m at work it sync back with my workstation and I can continue the work with no interruption.

The reason behind having similar folder structures is that when you are programming, you often use absolute file and folder references in the development environment. So having all computers using the same folder structure will guarantee you won’t face any silly issues in the code testing procees.

Using Dropbox

Now that you installed Dropbox and setup the folders, move a working folder or file, e.g a web project or a document you are working on, to the Dropbox folder. It will automatically start to synchronize the contents of the local folder with the remote folder (in the cloud). As you update the files, Dropbox will synchronize it with the remote folder and the good news is that it keeps a copy of every single version of the files as backup.

For the free plan the versions older than 30 days will be deleted, but in the paid version they will stay forever! so you will have all the earlier versions of your files.

On the other hand, when you open the other computers (that are configured), the local folder of Dropbox will be automatically synced with the remote folder, updating all files that have been updated in other computers. Then you can continue working on your project from the line you have left on the other computer, without carrying USB sticks around.

That was easy.

Happy yet?

Dropbox offers an intuitive web access interface to all versions of your files, so you can restore or download any older version. You can also setup a shared folder between you and other Dropbox users (say, your colleague) to exchange data in a productive way.

I am happily using Dropbox for syncing my files and it didn’t let me down even once. It also helps me keep the older versions in case I messed the current version. Every save you perform on your files is stored in Dropbox, so it is as if you have a live history of your work bit by bit.

This article was originally posted on CloudAve.

Security remains as one of the biggest challenges in adopting and spreading cloud computing. But there is an even bigger concern that could threaten the existence of clouds in a bigger picture.

Read the story to find out what this threat is and what could be done about it.

Many people use RSS news feeds to read the latest updates from their favorite websites synchronized in a single place. It is much more productive than surfing around and reading content surrounded by ads and useless stuff.

With the subscription list increasing in number, having a powerful new reader with a good set of features is a must. There are a lot of news reader clients  available for all operating systems but many people still prefer the one and only Google Reader.

Google Reader offers you a host of features in an easy to use light-weight UI and is accessible from everywhere since it runs online. But still Reader users miss the luxury of having a desktop application that runs from the local computer.

With SSB (Site Specific Browser) application that create a standard application based on a website, it is possible for you to create a desktop application of Reader. Prism and Fluid will do the job for you just perfect.

However you can enable this feature in Firefox 3 in few simple steps. No need to install any other application.

1. Run Firefox and logo to Google Reader.
2. Click Tools > Add-ons and install Prism. You need to restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.
   
3. Click Tools > Convert Website to Application.
   
4. The URL is entered automatically. Simply type in a name and check the options as you wish.
   
5. Click OK and wait a few seconds for the application to be created.

If you chose to have Dock or Desktop shortcuts you can click them right away to run the Reader application, otherwise find it in the Applications folder.

Similar approach applies to Linux and Windows users (if they have this option available).

Note: Chrome users can enjoy this feature too. But since Chrome is still not supported on Mac OS, I focused on Firefox.

I bet you have now a list of eligible websites in your mind that can transorm into desktop applications.

This is an article posted on CloudAve.

As you might know the Open Cloud Manifesto debuted on March 30st.

It outlines the pillars of Cloud Computing as well giving a brief on what the possible threats and weaknesses could challenge the early and future adopters.

The manifesto declares 4 major goals of an Open Cloud:

• Choice; to give total freedom to the cloud clients in choosing between different cloud providers with no barriers
• Flexibility; to maximize the interoperability between Clouds and organizations on different Clouds.
• Speed and Agility; to employ open interfaces to allow organizations to build solutions that easily and quickly integrate

Read the full story

Middle East is usually behind when it comes to the bleeding edge technology. Clearly because we don’t build bleeding edge technology unless we are US or EU residents!

One of the greatest aspects of Cloud Computing is SaaS (Software as a Service). With the current credit crunch creeping all over the world, this might be biggest chance for SaaS to take a big leap and make itself ahead of the game.

However is it like that everywhere? Or is it just in US and Canada?

The point is that Middle East market is so overwhelmed by Microsoft supplied software that there seem to be no room to breath for alternatives. Windows is a reigning champ on both client and server systems, Exchange is there with no competitor, and Office is a no-brainer choice. In higher market levels you see Oracle and SAP ruling.

You might say, duh, this is pretty much the case everywhere, the situation here is more intense. The local market is so addicted to such products that I think it will take another 2 to 3 years for it to wake and see the world is a better place with SaaS.

However there are some constraints too. In a perfect world, SaaS applications would work just fine replacing the sluggish, pricey, and hard to maintain  applications.

But here is the thing: What if we can’t rely on the local Internet connection? UAE (where I currently live) has the best Internet facilities and biggest user share in the region, but we experience total blackouts one or twice a year due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

Well, I don’t need to say that what will happen to my cloud-based business if my US-hosted SaaS application goes down for a day.

In the other hand, there a lot of political and economic tensions between this part of the world and the rest of it! The security risk does matter and if a Middle Eastern firm totally relies on an overseas SaaS platform, what could be the guarantee for this not be used as a potential pressure factor?

Perhaps local and private SaaS platforms could be the best solution, but Private Clouds have their own merits and demerits.

Whatever the ups and downs of moving to the Cloud could be, the companies in the region, especially government and enterprises should have a close look at what is currently happening up in the Cloud.

In the previous post, I talked about EventBox and how it can make your feed-loaded life easier. But here’s the thing: It’s again skimming through 100s of feeds. Could I be lazier?!

Well, there is a way that you can merge all (or a particular group of them) together and filter them against some keywords.

So what? Then you have a SINGLE feed filtered based on the topic you want to read about. Imagine you are interested about what is happening to GM and you check CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and millions of other feeds everyday. What if you could just check one single feed?

Getting Started

All you need is a Yahoo account. Yahoo has a brilliant tool, Yahoo! Pipes, that will let us create what we want. Actually Pipes can do much more than what we need and you can check it out if you are interested.

OK just login to Pipes page at pipes.yahoo.com to start creating your first pipe. There are useful demos and documentation for you to get into the details.

Click on “Create a pipe” to go to the design environment.

It might look a bit scary for newbies but it’s extremely easy to use.

Start with dragging a “Fetch Feed” component from the right sidebar and dropping it to the work area.

Suppose you want to focus on the “Large Hadron Collider” that CERN built to find out about the begining of the cosmos.

So we need to search in news and scintifics sites. If you don’t have any particular sources in mind, just create a related Google News feed and add it to the “Fetch Feed” component.

I added 2 more feeds (you can add as much as you want) from Reuters and Science Magazine to enrich my search scope. Try adding more sources yourslef.

Note: Don’t forget to save your work regularly or you lose your beloved pipe!

Now drag a “Filter” component from the sidebar and drop it below “Fetch Feed”. It’s in the “Operators” section.

Well, now to make the work flow to make sense, try to connect the output of the “Fetch Feed” (the circle on the bottom of the dialog box) to the input of the “Filter” (the circle on the top of the dialog box).

We need to put something in the “Filter”. Try “Large Hadron Collider” for the title of the feed. To make sure we won’t miss anything, enter “LHC” for feed title as well as “Large Hadron Collider” for the description.

don’t forget to change “Block” to “Permit” AND “all” to “any” at the top of the dialog box, otherwise you’ll see everything but what you were looking for!

Now it’s time for the output. Just connect the output of the “Filter” to in put of the “Pipe Out” and click on the “Pipe Out” itself (or click on “Refresh” in the debugger area down below the screen) to see the results of your very first pipe.

There’s one more step to go. To use the output of the pipe you need to add its RSS feed to you favorite news reader. Click on “Run the pipe…” on top of the screen. A new window/tab opens that has loads of options and tools like publishing tools and etc. All we care is to get the output as RSS. By clciking on “Get as RSS” you can add the feed to your reader and save time by checking ONLY one feed about a topic.

Just note that this pipe is very basic and you can fine tune it with other tools like Regular Exressions and etc.

All that buzz and the load of information attacking us by social media and news aggregated from different sources, seem overwhelming.

One of the greatest inventions of the internet age was news feeds (Atom, RSS, …) that help us avoid navigating through 10s and soemtimes 100s of websites everyday. It is sometimes really hard to skim the news when you are browsing in a poorly designed crowded web site filled by silly Flash adverts, so RSS enters and solves it all for you!

However, when you have your RSS list growing ridiculously and you have Facebook, Digg, Twitter, and a bunch of other social media oblgations added to this missery, there should be something, a tool that can help you with all that icoming data!

EventBox

EventBox from CosmicMachine is a very easy to use tool that does it all for you. It acts as an information aggregator and becomes the single platform you use for news feeds, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Redit, Flicker and Pownce.

You can also submit posts and contents centralized in one platform.

You can try EventBox for almost 2 weeks and if you liked it, buy it for only $15. It’s totally worth it

Missing Features

There are however few missing features that EventBox developer team promised to address. What I personally miss is the ability to interact with Tumblr and WordPress. that would make it unbeatable!

It would be also great if they make an iPhone version of the application as free bonus for those who purchased the software. Too much expectations?!

More features on Facebook front-end will be awesome too.