Biz Geek » hsetty

Taxonomizing the Cloud – CloudTaxonomy.com

hsetty — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:31:46 +0000

Last year McKinsey published a report Clearing the Air on Cloud Computing that received a lot of press. (Examples here, here). Its been over a year since this report was published and contradictory to what McKinsey published, things are looking only up for Cloud Computing across the various IT spectrums for small, medium and large enterprises. There are signs everywhere that the benefits of cloud computing are outweighing its costs. Some recent posts I have read that are worth noting,

Cloud Computing ROI Is Sky-High For One SMB
Cloud computing ‘to overtake desktop by 2020′
Tim O’Reilly explains the Cloud

There are still issues to be resolved around SOX, privacy, audits and control where solutions will be built in due time. Jen Boden from Amazon sums it pretty nicely in this post, Amazon.com attempts IT switch to cloud computing.

So why do we need a Cloud Computing Taxonomy? Forrester recently released an updated report on “The Evolution Of Cloud Computing Markets“. As part of the abstract on the report, “most customers are suffering from cloud confusion as vendor marketing stretches the term ‘cloud‘ across a wide variety of capabilities and, worse, fails to explain the potentials and the limitations of cloud computing in a well-structured way.” While Forrester’s report can help vendors position their offering, we at OpenCrowd believe this should be open community based approach. By reaching out to vendors, developers and customers we can foster further understanding and adoption of cloud based solutions.

This month we launched Cloud Taxonomy at http://www.cloudtaxonomy.com

Cloud Computing Taxonomy

You can find more details on our website, here. We encourage you to check it out and send us feedback at cloudtaxonomy@opencrowd.com on this initial launch. You can also follow us on twitter @cloudtaxonomy. We’re excited about the opportunity to work with vendors, developers and customers to advance cloud adoption and make cloudtaxonomy.com a valuable site.

Victoria Falls

hsetty — Sun, 09 May 2010 00:05:03 +0000

After 20 or so attempts I was able to capture the lightning right above victoria falls. It was funny watching 8-10 people with DSLRs, all tourists by the way, waiting to capture this moment.

1/4000 – f/3.5 – ISO 1600

I did not know there were leprechauns in Africa:) I did manage to find gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately they were Zimbabwean dollar.Maybe next time I can find some USD or EUR:)

1/1250 – f/8 – ISO 1600

Elephant Close Up

hsetty — Sat, 08 May 2010 23:53:00 +0000

This is the closest I have ever come to an elephant. I was able to get this amazing headshot!

1/250 – f/6.3 – ISO 400

Intangible benefits of cloud computing

hsetty — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:45:16 +0000

: Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr

One of the best arguments against the McKinsey article posed back in April. Andy states in the last section:

NoMoreServers.com | McKinsey Challenge: Part 1.

‘While McKinsey is looking only at the price alternatives, the intangible benefits do have real cost implications. This should not be underestimated because these “intangibles” are in fact the key driver of businesses to embrace cloud services regardless of the price and cost findings.’

I believe the intangibles needs to be strongly characterized in cloud adoption. For example, in the post, DOD Shows off Real Cloud Platform, it outlines huge savings in in-tangible asset costs and not to mention a more responsive military.

Lifehacker – Top 10 Productivity Basics Explained – Productivity

hsetty — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:50:29 +0000

Lifehacker – Top 10 Productivity Basics Explained – Productivity.

I recommend Inbox Zero and Quick search to anyone trying to be more productive.

Long Tail of iPhone Apps Is Extra Long — and Not In a Good Way

hsetty — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:43:52 +0000

Long Tail of iPhone Apps Is Extra Long — and Not In a Good Way.

Only 19 percent of iPhone/iPod Touch applications in the AdMob network had more than 10,000 users in May, and a mere 5 percent had more than 100,000 users, according to the mobile ad network’s latest Mobile Metrics report. With more than 50,000 apps available on the iPhone, the long tail is in full effect — but even so, the steepness of the curve is impressive. More than half of the apps in the AdMob network had fewer than 1,000 users in May.

How the OAuth Security Battle Was Won, Open Web Style – ReadWriteWeb

hsetty — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:53:11 +0000

How the OAuth Security Battle Was Won, Open Web Style – ReadWriteWeb.

Ditch YouMail for Google Voice

hsetty — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:01:26 +0000

I have been a happy camper with YouMail for a while now and recently they started charging for their subscription service. I have not had the volume really needed to start paying for the transcription service and reconciled with the free plan. But Google Voice was released last week and the new features are pretty good.(Really good infact). I did not want to start giving away my Google voice number as I have used my cell phone number for years(Like many people).

I discovered a really simple solution to

1) get all the features I wanted from YouMail,

2) use Google Voice as my voicemail manager and transcription service

3) STILL keep my existing number.

From your cell phone just dial this exactly as you see it
*004*1XXXXXXXXXX#
where the X represents your 10 digit Google Voice number.

That’s it. You are done. All calls are forwarded to Google Voice and it acts as your voicemail inbox and transcription service.

Please Note: This worked for my iPhone. Please let me know in the comments if it worked for you or not.

[Updated:] This will not work if you have your Google Voice forwarding back to your cellphone. I did not realize it at first but my Google Voice was forwarding to my land line.

OpenCrowd and Jive Software Partner to Provide Social Business Software to Customers

hsetty — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:21:32 +0000

OpenCrowd and Jive Software Partner to Provide Social Business Software to Customers.

We are in the news!!

That Was Fast: Kindle, Meet the iPhone

hsetty — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:43:19 +0000

I think this is an amazing strategy by Amazon. Buy books on the Kindle iPhone which will increase demand for Kindle book and hence demand for the device (which is way overpriced I think.. see Jon Stuart’s take on it if you don’t believe me). Short term cannibalization, leading to long term profitability.

via That Was Fast: Kindle, Meet the iPhone. | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD.

Now we know. As of today, you can now read Kindle titles on your Apple iPhone AAPL.

The free Kindle for iPhone App is just what it sounds like: It lets you read e-books that you’ve bought from Amazon AMZN. It won’t let you actually buy the titles from the online bookseller, though. To do that, you will need to use your Kindle or a Web browser.

But since you can use the iPhone’s built-in Safari browser to buy a Kindle book, that’s a fairly minor distinction. More important: Once you own a Kindle title, you can sync the titles between your iPhone or iTouch and your Kindle.

Wait a minute. Aren’t Amazon and Apple competitors when it comes to music and video sales? And won’t they be competing for years to come for all sorts of digital content sales?

Sure. But Apple’s Steve Jobs has been publicly dismissive of the e-book market, and Amazon clearly sees the Kindle as a superior e-book reader to the iPhone — it imagines that the iPhone, or any other non-Kindle device, will be something you use to read an e-book when you can’t actually get your hands on a Kindle.

The bigger picture: Apple is still, for the moment, a hardware company that uses content to make its gadgets more attractive. And Amazon is basically the inverse: It wants to sell a lot of Kindles so it can sell a lot more Kindle e-books. So the detente here makes plenty of sense.

Which is probably what Walt Mossberg had in mind when he reviewed the Kindle 2.0 last week:

Amazon says it is working to make the Kindle e-book catalog available on other mobile devices, such as smart phones, that people already own. The online merchant, which is so secretive it makes Steve Jobs seem like Joe Biden, isn’t saying which devices will get the Kindle service or when. I would bet it will be sooner rather than later.