Google have launched their latest app sites.google which should now be included with out Google Apps package, so jotspot has resurfaced.
This should help us with our collaboration as usual I’ll let you know how it goes.
Reading this story about the Mafia getting into online gambling on the BBC reminded me of some research I did back in 2003 into Trust and Privacy in e-commerce.
One of the findings we had was that no matter how good the technology it is just an intermediary, and you need to know who is on the other end. The web can be more secure than post and telephone but if you’re registering for an online gambling site which is run by a criminal gang (it’s not just gambling and it’s not just the Mafia) then no matter how secure the technology is, it is just an intermediary, you are giving your data to an untrusted party. Yes, you it’s not the web or the Internet’s fault.
As part of my ongoing investigation into online collaboration and remote working tools I have assembled a list of web based desktops.
These give you the ability to log in to ‘your system’ from any web enabled computer, some allow you to share as well. Not just useful for collaboration but also for hot desking. A problem I’m facing at the moment is having machines at work, home and visiting client sites, yeah I have a laptop, but I still regularly hop between three different machines using two different OSs (XP and Ubuntu, I have OS X as well but it doesn’t get the usage it deserves, It needs some more RAM before I can upgrade to Leopard).
So whatever kind of machine hopping, hotdesking, cybernomad you are these may be of interest, you can access your desktop from wherever; Internet cafes, hotel access points, home, work or at a clients.
http://www.jooce.com/
http://g.ho.st/
http://desktoptwo.com/
http://www.startforce.com (this doesn’t explain itself very well, but it is an online desktop!)
There are many others, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtop for a full comparison.
Your obviously not going to be fully tooled up as you would be on your own machine… yet.
Whoo! I sold my first picture through iStock!
I don’t think I’m ever going to make a living through selling stock I’d need to be a lot better and much more prolific to do that, and that was never my intention, but still a sale in my first week, I’m pleased.
What I’m not sure about though is the etiquette, people have rated my pictures which again is brilliant, but I’m slightly confused, how do I thank them? should I? they have great pictures too (this is one of them; portishead1) but I feel guilty rating their pictures now like it’s just because they rated me…. Although that may be more telling about me!
I also need to make sure I don’t get carried away trying to take pictures that I think will sell. I take pictures I like and I need to keep it that way. I realise that might sound a bit arrogant, but for me its more about taking the picture, if I smile after I’ve pressed the shutter then its a good picture, frequently not worth showing anyone though.
I thought the decision on what tools we would use for collaborating would be the problem, once we’d chosen all would be easy, I mean we were all involved in the decision process so it’s not like we’re forcing it on anyone.
I didn’t expect my main problem to be Google! having registered for the Google apps small business package you have to verify your domain. no problem upload an HTML file click the link to check it’s there, bobs yer uncle.
Hmm, no not quite. ‘sorry we are unable to verify your domain….’ what? are you trying to tell me after Google checkout couldn’t process our order (yeah we got an error there too ‘this page has been moved…’) we then register only to find out that Google of all people cannot read a simple HTML file which is in exactly the location they asked for? Well it seems not.
I checked their forum and it seems I’m not the only one (now I look like I haven’t done my research) everyone else posts their question and the nice people at Google fix it. but why does it take human intervention? I’m undecided as to whether to name the domain I’m trying to get working. I should just be able to say, I followed your instructions so you’d better do it right, not go in and fix it up by hand. If your product doesn’t do what it says, if your help is wrong then I’m having second thoughts.
Seth had this to say about communication which seemed to ring true with me.
The reason we chose these (google and clockingIT) were because of googles size, well theya ren’t going under anytime soon. and clockingIT being open source (and free) so we can run it. but now, the amount of time I have spent geting these solutions up and running would probably mean another of the solutions would have already paid for itself (until the day we can’t get your data out anyway…)
APOLOGY:
It seems google has now fixed the problem and my site has been verified, it just took a lot longer than they said it would… now it’s all going swimmingly…. well, i’m moving the MX records over the weekend so we’ll see!