Is it possible to go without Windows and fulfil all your computing needs using a Chromebook or Chromebase machine? The answer might surprise you! Read the full article here.
Secondly, both Intel and Google have announced USB stick computers - complete computers contained in the equivalent of a USB memory stick or thumb drive. You have to provide a screen, keyboard and mouse of course, and to this end the sticks features HDMI, wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. The Intel device runs Windows 8.1 and should sell around the $150 mark. The Google device - initially manufactured by Asus - runs Chrome OS and should sell for $100 or less. Whilst the specification of both devices is modest, it is sufficient for browsing and basic document creation, with files stored on the cloud.
Such low-cost computers open up a number of possibilities. They are expected to sell well in the education market and in developing countries, as well as to individuals who simply want something cheap and cheerful they can carry around with them. Another possibility, given the HDMI connection, is to plus one into a television to make it even 'smarter'. Whilst we continue to keep a general eye on consumer cloud services, it’s been a little while since we did a proper comparison. As there have been a number of developments this year, particularly in terms of falling prices, it’s a good time to step back and look at the wider picture.
Firstly, let’s clarify what we mean by ‘cloud consumer services’. What we are talking about here are widely available file sharing, syncing and backup services. They use a client program on the computer or mobile device; when a change is made (such as a new document being created) it is ‘synced’ to a secure area on the cloud, from where it can then be accessed by any other device the user may have. Alternatively, it can be considered as a (hopefully) safe backup location, from where the data can be recovered in the event of problems. For inclusion here, the service should have a basic free offering, along with a low-cost option for additional storage. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of such services. As the market continues to mature, there will be a shakeout and many of these services will vanish. Some will simply go to the wall, whilst others will be taken over and absorbed by competitors. Many PC vendors currently offer proprietary cloud services to their customers – these too can be anticipated to go. For this reason, we suggest sticking to the big names who are committed to this game and who are likely to be around in years to come. The candidates here (in no particular order) are Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Apple iCloud, Box and hubiC. Several months ago, both Google and Microsoft (OneDrive) slashed the cost of their cloud storage offerings (see http://ctacs.weebly.com/news--articles/big-increase-in-onedrive-cloud-storage-from-microsoft and http://ctacs.weebly.com/news--articles/google-cut-prices-clouds-for-all). Finally, Dropbox have followed suit. Sort of. As in: they haven't actually reduced prices, but you now get a lot more for your money. Previously, the Professional version of Dropbox provided 100MB storage for £7.99 / US$ 9.99 a month, whereas that has now increased by a factor 10, giving 1TB (1000 GB) for the same price. However, the free version of Dropbox remains at a rather paltry 2GB, compared with the free 15GB available from both Microsoft and Google. Many people are suspicious of computer "experts" and perhaps here is one reason why. PC World are currently selling the Packard Bell EasyNote ME69BMP netbook for £199.97. It's a compact, modest little machine with a 10.1" touchscreen, running Windows 8. What makes it even better value is that it comes with a copy of Office 2013 included, giving the Word, Excel and PowerPoint software that people need.
Underneath the advert on their website is a section entitled "Our experts recommend this pack" - a bundle of additional items that supposedly make it an even better deal. For £278.97 you get the aforementioned netbook, along with a copy of Office 365, 500 GB cloud storage, plus a copy of McAfee LiveSafe anti-virus/security software. But hang on a minute... the computer already comes with Office 2013, so why would you need a copy of Office 365 (which is the subscription version of Office 2013)? And just suppose you did want Office 365, which comes with 1000 GB cloud storage, why would you then want a separate 500 GB cloud package elsewhere? Come to that, as Windows 8 already comes with a very capable security package built-in (Microsoft's own Defender-stroke-Security Essentials), why would you want a separate one from McAfee? Okay, McAfee has a few more bells and whistles, but it also runs very slowly on a computer of this specification. Doesn't sound the "Experts" know what they are talking about, unless the expertise is in getting people to spend more money than they need to! Competition in the cloud market continues to hot up. Microsoft have increased the amount of free space with OneDrive to 15GB, thereby matching Google Drive and greatly surpassing Dropbox, which offers only 2GB of free space (although it is possible to claim extra free space with Dropbox). For Office 365 subscribers, whether personal or business, it gets even better. From now on they receive a massive 1TB of storage. To put it in context, that amount of storage would cost US $9.99 a month with Google, whereas Dropbox charges US $9.99 a month for just 100GB. When you consider that an Office 365 subscription includes a full copy of Microsoft Office as well, it is a tremendous price. At their Worldwide Developers Conference on June 2nd, Apple announced the forthcoming launch of iCloud Drive. As the name suggests, this is a cloud-based service. It extends Apple's current iCloud offering - which is mainly used for backing up iPhones and iPads and for syncing data across them - into a general purpose "disk" that can hold any type of file. As such, it is pitched against the likes of Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. In fact, it's arguably a case of deja vu. More than a decade ago Apple had a similar offering called iDisk. It went through several iterations before Apple finally killed it in 2012. However, one important difference is that it was restricted to Mac OS X, whereas iCloud is cross-platform: OS X, Windows, iOS (highly unlikely it will ever appear on Android, though). It is priced competitively, with the first 5GB free and with paid plans starting at 20GB for 99c a month (possibly 79p in the UK). Competition continues to heat up in the consumer cloud business. In recent months, both Google and Microsoft have improved their services and lowered prices. iCloud Drive will prove a powerful competitor, with special appeal to the Apple faithful. The biggest potential loser is Dropbox - actually considered the best of the bunch by many people - which offers the least free space of all and the most costly paid plans. Google have made dramatic cuts to the price of their cloud storage offering, Google Drive. Previously, 100GB storage cost $4.99 a month, but is now down to $1.99. 1TB storage, previously $49.99 a month, falls to $9.99. For users with less demanding requirements, the free allowance of 15GB remains. One effect of these changes is that the use of Google Drive for offsite backup storage becomes a lot more viable for individuals and small businesses. For instance, many NAS systems now have the ability to store data on commercial cloud services, a case in point being the newly released DSM 5 from Synology. Whilst local backup to an USB drive or another NAS remains the best way of achieving a comprehensive backup, the cloud provides a useful second tier of protection. It will be interesting to see if perceived market leader Dropbox now follows suit, as it's 100GB offering is twice as expensive as Google's old pricing anyway. A home network is a great way of sharing all your photos, music and videos among family members. Imagine – all your DVD movies ripped and available to be watched from any computer at any time. But what if your needs are a lot more modest, such as sharing a few photos and documents? And you don’t want to spend any money on NAS or a file server? Plus you’ve only got 10 minutes or so to spare on setting it up? Sound impossible? Not at all!
The secret to doing all of this is to use Dropbox. Dropbox is a popular cloud-based service; place files in the Dropbox folder on your computer and they are automatically copied (synchronised) to a private, corresponding folder on the internet. Now install the Dropbox client on another computer; as if by magic your files start to appear there. Add a third computer and they appear there, too. At the most basic level, one of the main purposes of a network is to provide a shared area in which items can be stored and Dropbox constitutes that shared area. Assuming you are starting from scratch, the first thing to do is to create a Dropbox account, which you can do by going to the Dropbox website. Then, install the Dropbox client on all your devices - Windows PCs, Macs, iPads, Smartphones etc. Decide which items you want to share and copy them into the Dropbox folder on your computer and shortly thereafter they will appear on all the other devices. On the PCs and Macs, make sure that LAN sync is turned on, as this will improve performance. To do so, choose Preferences and go to the General tab of the Dropbox clients. What are the possible pitfalls? Well, keep in mind that the files in the Dropbox folder are 'live'. That is, if someone deletes a file on one machine then it will shortly vanish from all the others. For this reason, be sure to keep separate copies of important items outside of Dropbox. The other main consideration is storage space: this is not a solution for people who want to share movies and stuff. With the standard free Dropbox account there is just 2GB of space (but if you haven't got an account yet send an email here with the word 'Dropbox' as the subject and we'll send you a link to start off with 2.5GB instead). Once you are up and running you can obtain additional free space by recommending your contacts and by linking your Twitter and Facebook accounts, up to a maximum of 16GB. Thereafter you would need to pay for space, but at that point you might be better off considering a proper NAS system. Leading NAS supplier Synology have announced the latest version of their acclaimed DiskStation Manager operating system, known as DSM 5. Likely to ship during the Spring, the UK launch of the beta version took place in London on 16th January and CTACS were in attendance. DSM is a highly regarded piece of software and is considered to give Synology a huge advantage over other NAS suppliers. Most NAS systems are controlled using static web pages and as such are rather clunky to use. In contrast, although accessed within a browser, DSM provides an experience much like using a regular computer, complete with a Desktop, multiple windows plus a drag-and-drop interface. Synology were the first to do this and although other manufacturers such as QNAP and Netgear have been playing catch-up, Synology remain ahead of the curve. DSM 5 features a new interface. The fashion these days is for simplified, cleaner look, as seen in Apple's iOS 7 and Microsoft's Windows 8 and DSM 5 is very much within this vogue. But it is more than a pretty face - a lot of effort has gone into making it easier to install, configure and manage the system. As it is still early days, it's probably inappropriate to run through all the changes in detail, particularly as things are still subject to change. But one very useful new capability is the so-called "hybrid" cloud. Most people will be familiar with public cloud services such as Dropbox, SkyDrive and Google Drive. Synology have Cloud Station, which provides a totally private cloud solution. But DSM 5 supports both, offering the best of both worlds plus providing a means to backup key data from the DiskStation to Dropbox, Google Drive and Baidu (the latter is a sort of Chinese equivalent to Google). This is a very exciting development indeed. We will provide more information on DSM 5 as the official launch date approaches. |
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