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Must read interview. Marc Andreessen explains his five big ideas, taking us from the beginning of the Web, into the Cloud and beyond. Great stuff! ... (1) 1992 - Everyone Will Have the Web ... (2) 1995 - The Browser will the Operating System ... (3) 1999 - Web business will live in the Cloud ... (4) 2004 - Everything will be Social ... (5) 2009 - Software will Eat the World excerpt: Technology is like water; it wants to find its level. So if you hook up your computer to a billion other computers, it just makes sense that a tremendous share of the resources you want to use-not only text or media but processing power too-will be located remotely. People tend to think of the web as a way to get information or perhaps as a place to carry out ecommerce. But really, the web is about accessing applications. Think of each website as an application, and every single click, every single interaction with that site, is an opportunity to be on the very latest version of that application. Once you start thinking in terms of networks, it just doesn't make much sense to prefer local apps, with downloadable, installable code that needs to be constantly updated.

"We could have built a social element into Mosaic. But back then the Internet was all about anonymity."
Anderson: Assuming you have enough bandwidth.

Andreessen: That's the very big if in this equation. If you have infinite network bandwidth, if you have an infinitely fast network, then this is what the technology wants. But we're not yet in a world of infinite speed, so that's why we have mobile apps and PC and Mac software on laptops and phones. That's why there are still Xbox games on discs. That's why everything isn't in the cloud. But eventually the technology wants it all to be up there.

Anderson: Back in 1995, Netscape began pursuing this vision by enabling the browser to do more.

Andreessen: We knew that you would need some pro

The king of clicks returns!  No doubt there was a time when the mere mention of ODF and the now legendary XML "document" format wars with Microsoft could drive click counts into the statisphere.  Sorry to say though, those times are long gone. It's still a good story though.  Even if the fate of mankind and the future of the Internet no longer hinges on the outcome.  There is that question that continues defy answer; "Did Microsoft win or lose?"  So the mere announcement of supported formats in MSOffice XX is guaranteed to rev the clicks somewhat. Veteran ODF clickmeister SVN does make an interesting observation though: "The ironic thing is that, while this was as hotly debated am issue in the mid-2000s as are mobile patents and cloud implementation is today, this news was barely noticed. That's a mistake. Updegrove points out, "document interoperability and vendor neutrality matter more now than ever before as paper archives disappear and literally all of human knowledge is entrusted to electronic storage." He concluded, "Only if documents can be easily exchanged and reliably accessed on an ongoing basis will competition in the present be preserved, and the availability of knowledge down through the ages be assured. Without robust, universally adopted document formats, both of those goals will be impossible to attain." Updegrove's right of course. Don't believe me? Go into your office's archives and try to bring up documents your wrote in the 90s in WordPerfect or papers your staff created in the 80s with WordStar. If you don't want to lose your institutional memory, open document standards support is more important than ever. "....................................... Sorry but Updegrove is wrong.  Woefully wrong. The Web is the future.  Sure interoperability matters, but only as far as the Web and the future of Cloud Computing is concerned.  Sadly neither ODF or Open XML are Web ready.  The language of the Web is famously HTML, now HTML5+

Quick review of different sync-share-store services, starting with DropBox and ending with three Open Source services. Very interesting. Things have progressed since I last worked on the SurDocs project for Sursen. No mention in this review of file formats, conversion or viewing issues. I do know that CrocoDoc is used by near every sync-share-store service to convert documents to either pdf or html formats for viewing. No servie however has been able to hit the "native document" sweet spot. Not even SurDocs - which was the whole purpose behind the project!!! "Native Documents" means that the document is in it's native / original application format. That format is needed for the round tripping and reloading of the document. Although most sync-share-store services work with MSOffice OXML formatted documents, only Microsoft provides a true "native" format viewer (Office 365). Office 365 enables direct edit, view and collaboration on native documents. Which is an enormous advantage given that conversion of any sort is guaranteed to "break" a native document and disrupt any related business processes or round tripping need. It was here that SurDoc was to provide a break-through technology. Sadly, we're still waiting :( excerpt: The availability of cheap, easy-to-use and accessible cloud file-sharing services means users have more freedom and choice than ever before. Dropbox pioneered simplicity and ease of use, and so quickly picked up users inside the enterprise. Similar services have followed Dropbox's lead and now there are dozens, including well-known ones such as Google Drive, SkyDrive and Ubuntu One. cloud.jpg Valdis Filks , research director at analyst firm Gartner explained the appeal of cloud file-sharing services. Filks said: "Enterprise employees use Dropbox and Google because they are consumer products that are simple to use, can be purchased without officially requesting new infrastructure or budget expenditure, and can be installed qu

Odd that the reporter mentions the importance of security near the top of the article but gives that topic such short shrift in his evaluation of the services. For example, "secured by 256-bit AES encryption" is meaningless without discussing other factors such as: [i] who creates the encryption keys and on which side of the server/client divide; and [ii] the service's ability to decrypt the customer's content. Encrypt/decryt must be done on the client side using unique keys that are unknown to the service, else security is broken and if the service does business in the U.S. or any of its territories or possessions, it is subject to gagged orders to turn over the decrypted customer information. My wisdom so far is to avoid file sync services to the extent you can, boycott U.S. services until the spy agencies are encaged, and reward services that provide good security from nations with more respect for digital privacy, to give U.S.-based services an incentive to lobby *effectively* on behalf of their customer's privacy in Congress. The proof that they are not doing so is the complete absence of bills in Congress that would deal effectively with the abuse by U.S. spy agencies. From that standpoint, the Switzerland-based http://wuala.com/ file sync service is looking pretty good so far. I'm using it.

"What is Cloudpaging? Cloudpaging is our successor technology to application streaming and virtualization. It can deliver huge applications from the Cloud between 20x to 100x faster than downloads and execute them natively without installation."

Excellent stuff from HubSpot "Visual content is in high demand. Just about every type of content we marketers create can be enhanced by some kind of visual element. And in social media? Visuals pretty much make or break your presence. In fact, photos on Facebook generate 53% more Likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more clickthroughs than the average post. And if you need more evidence to convince you visual content is essential to your marketing, just consider all these stats! But honestly ... who's got time for all that? And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly have a degree in graphic design. Or the budget to hire someone who does. So, what's a design-impaired marketer to do? Luckily, over the past several months, we've been on a mission to make visual content creation much less of an obstacle for the average marketer. How, you ask? Templates, my friends ... templates. And what's great about these templates is they're all for software you probably have loaded onto your computer already: PowerPoint. And PowerPoint is such an accessible piece of software for non-designer folks like you and me. In fact, we use it all the time at HubSpot when we don't have a designer handy.  I'm going to walk you through the visual content templates we have available for free download, and show you how we've used them ourselves to create awesome visuals right in PowerPoint."

Jailbreaking vs. Unlocking Jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone are two different hacks which allow you to take control of your mobile device in different ways. Jailbreaking is a type of hack that lets you install unapproved third-party applications on your iPhone or iPod Touch from searchable repositories provided by apps like Cydia and Icy. Unlocking, on the other hand, is a hack that lets you use your iPhone on another cellular network. Here in the U.S., that means you can use the iPhone on T-Mobile instead of AT&T. You have to first jailbreak your phone before you can unlock it, but you don't have to unlock a phone in order to jailbreak it. How to Jailbreak the 4.0 Software for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch Second Generation The "Redsn0w" jailbreak software has been updated to support iOS 4.0 on both Mac and Windows and works for iPhone 3G and the iPod Touch, second generation. This jailbreak is especially helpful for for iPhone 3G owners as the new OS won't offer the much sought-after multitasking feature on their devices. A jailbreak application called multifl0w will, however, provide an alternative. Another jailbreak app called WinterBoard offers a way to customize the iPhone's background even though that too is disabled for 3G owners running the latest OS 4.0 update. This jailbreak guide assumes you've already downloaded and updated your phone or iPod Touch to the latest software, iOS 4.0, and have backed up your device. If you are looking to unlock your phone in order to run it on a network belonging to another carrier, this is not the guide for you.

Great links to HTML5-CSS tools and tricks excerpt: 3. Use Multiple Stylesheets for Device Support Including a mobile-specific stylesheet on your main site with certain parameters that add or subtract features, based on what device is being used, can be an elegant and effective way to serve content across multiple devices. Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote a great article for A List Apart last year that covers some of the basics and also links to some of the most common parameters for handheld support. Dave Shea included his own solution back in 2008 that is still pretty usable for lots of devices. More recently, Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks discussed how to add in screen size and browser support via CSS or jQuery, and he includes his own downloadable examples. Dave Calhoun has some excellent suggestions in his series on mobile web development.

Interesting discussion about SVG, and the push Google is making with their SVG Conference. excerpt:  Vector graphics describe imagery mathematically with lines, curves, shapes, and color values rather than the grid of colored pixels used by bitmapped file formats such as JPEG or GIF widely used on the Web today. Where appropriate, such as with corporate logos but not photographs, vector graphics bring smaller file sizes and better resizing flexibility. That's good for faster downloads and use on varying screen sizes.

The Future of the Open Web You're right that the browser wars do not matter - except for this point of demarcation; browsers that support HTML+ and browser that support 1998 HTML. extensive comment by ~ge~ Not all Web services and applications support HTML+, the rapidly advancing set of technologies that includes HTML5, CSS3, SVG/Canvas, and JavaScript (including the libraries and JSON). Microsoft has chosen to draw the Open Web line at what amounts to 1998-2001 level of HTML/CSS. Above that line, they provision a rich-client / rich-server Web model bound to the .NET-WPF platform where C#, Silverlight, and XAML are very prominent. Noticeably, Open Web standards are for the most part replaced at this richer MSWeb level by proprietary technologies. Through limited support for HTML/CSS, IE8 itself acts to dumb down the Open Web. The effect of this is that business systems and day-to-day workflow processes bound to the ubiquitous and very "rich" MSOffice Productivity Environment have little choice when it comes to transitioning to the Web but to stay on the Microsoft 2010 treadmill. Sure, at some point legacy business processes and systems will be rewritten to the Web. The question is, will it be the Open Web or the MS-Web? The Open Web standards are the dividing line between owning your information and content, or, having that content bound to a Web platform comprised of proprietary Microsoft services, systems and applications. Web designers and developers are still caught up in the browser wars. They worry incessantly as to how to dumb down Web content and services to meet the limited functionality of IE. This sucks. So everyone continues to watch "the browser wars" stats. What they are really watching for though is that magic moment where "combined" HTML+ browser uptake in marketshare signals that they can start to implement highly graphical and collaboratively interactive HTML+ specific content. Meanwhile, the greater Web is a

Aspose.Words Product Family Save any Document from Microsoft Word 2007 to EPUB using a Free Add-in from Aspose We are happy to announce the first release of a free add-in that allows you to convert any document opened in Microsoft Word 2007 to EPUB. To download goto http://www.aspose.com/community/files/69/free-microsoft-office-add-ins/aspose.words-for-microsoft-word/default.aspx. Below are excerpts from the user's guide that is included in the installer. Introduction Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word is a free utility that allows converting any document opened in Microsoft Word 2007 to the EPUB format. Microsoft Word 2007 can load documents in many formats including DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, ODT etc and you can now easily convert them all to EPUB using Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word. About the EPUB format EPUB is an XML-based distribution format for eBooks that is rapidly gaining adoption by publishers and distributors. EPUB is an open standard supported by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) organization. See also the Wikipedia article. To Save as EPUB After you install Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word, the EPUB format will be listed in the Save As dialog. Saving to EPUB is just as simple as saving to any other file format available in Microsoft Word. 1.      Open any document in Microsoft Word. 2.      From the Save As menu select "Aspose.Words - EPUB (*.epub)", and then click Save. You can save any document from Microsoft Word to EPUB using Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word.

Quest Software, Inc. (QSFT 25.89, -0.08, -0.31%) today unveiled 11 technology predictions for 2011 based on results of its annual survey conducted at The Experts Conference (TEC) U.S., hosted earlier this year by Quest. Survey results were analyzed by Quest experts to extract key insights and compelling trends. Based on analysis of this year's TEC conference survey responses from in-the-trenches IT practitioners, as well as historical perspective gleaned from conducting annual surveys, Quest offers the following 11 predictions about key technology trends and practices. To download the complete description of the predictions or to view the full survey data, please visit

I left a lengthy comment on this very good article. excerpt: According to the latest study from Juniper Research, the market for cloud-based mobile applications will grow 88% from 2009 to 2014. The market was just over $400 million this past year, says Juniper, but by 2014 it will reach $9.5 billion. Driving this growth will be the adoption of the new web standard HTML5, increased mobile broadband coverage and the need for always-on collaborative services for the enterprise. Cloud Apps in your Pocket Mobile cloud computing is a term that refers to an infrastructure where both the data storage and the data processing happen outside of the mobile device from which an application is launched. To the typical consumer, a cloud-based mobile application looks and feels just like any app purchased or downloaded from a mobile application store like iTunes. However, the app is driven from the "cloud," not from the handheld device itself. There are already a few well-known mobile cloud apps out there including Google's Gmail and Google Voice for iPhone. When launched via iPhone homescreen shortcuts, these apps perform just like any other app on the iPhone, but all of their processing power comes from the cloud. In the future, there will be even more applications like these available, but they won't necessarily be mobilized web sites like those in Google's line-up. Cloud-based mobile apps are perfectly capable of being packaged in a way that allows them to be sold alongside traditional mobile apps in mobile application stores, with no one but the developers any wiser. HTML5 Paves the Way for Mobile Web's Future

Flow is the latest in the line of Hexxeh's hugely popular ChromiumOS builds. Flow is the most exciting version yet, bringing even more hardware support, an auto-updater, webcam support and an improved application menu & directory. All this, requires only a 2GB USB drive (download size is 327MB) ChromiumOS is a lightweight, lightning-fast operating system for your netbook, laptop or even desktop. With the familiar environment of Chromium/Chrome, the entire web is at your fingertips in seconds. HTML5 & Flash are fully supported, allowing you to enjoy the very best that the web has to offer.

With Office 2010 already available to corporations, documents you can't quite open in Office 2007 are soon to appear in your inbox. If you're not upgrading, or never use Office anyways, TextMaker Viewer is a light, snappy document viewing option. TextMaker Viewer actually opens a huge range of word processing files, including Office, OpenOffice.org, the TextMaker app this viewer derives from, and all the standard low-tech formats like HTML, TXT, and RTF. Microsoft offers its own viewers, but only the PowerPoint Viewer has made it up to 2010 compatibility so far. Beyond that, TextMaker is a very lightweight application, so opening huge files likely won't choke up your system as thoroughly. TextMaker Viewer 2010 is a free download for Windows systems only. There does seem to be an issue with registering the free version to turn off the "nag" screen on launching, but after a few starts, a checkbox to hide that screen does appear.

H.264, Ogg Theora, MP4, Xvid, MKV, FLV: The world of online video can be pretty confusing. Not only are there tons of different formats and acronyms, but various devices and services actually have vastly different requirements. A video you downloaded via BitTorrent most likely won't play on your iPhone, and the software that comes with your Flip camera won't be of much use to prepare an upload for Wikipedia. Tools to convert videos have been out for a while, but many of them used to be fairly complex, asking for detailed settings about bit rates, audio codecs and interlacing. However, there have been a number of new applications released in the last couple of months that make converting and even transfering clips and movies between devices much easier. Here are five great free tools to check out: Miro Video Converter - free, supports Google V8 DivX Plus RealPlayer DoubleTwist - 200 compatible devices Vuze - free bittorrent client also converts video files

First, what is a "cloud OS" and why should I want one? Actually, I don't even know if anyone calls it a "cloud OS", but I couldn't find a better generic term for something like ChromeOS. The basic idea is that apps and data all live on the Internet, which is has been renamed "The Cloud" since that sounds cooler, and your laptop or whatever is basically just a window into that cloud. If your laptop is stolen or catches fire or something, it's not a big deal, because you can just buy another one and nothing has been lost (except your money). Many people characterize this approach as using a "dumb terminal", but that's wrong. Your local computer can still do all kinds of smart computation and data manipulation -- it's just no longer the single point of failure. To me, the defining characteristic of cloud based apps is "information without location". For example, in the bad old days, you would install a copy Outlook or other email software on your PC, it would download all of your email to your computer, and then the email would live on that computer until Outlook corrupted its PST file and everything was lost. If you accidentally left your computer at home, or it was stolen, then you simply couldn't get to your email. Information behaved much like a physical object -- it was always in one place. That's an unnecessary and annoying limitation. By moving my email into "the cloud", I can escape the limitations of physical location and am able to reach it from any number of computers, phones, televisions, or whatever else connects to the Internet. For performance and coverage reasons, those devices will usually cache some of my email, but the canonical version always lives online. The Gmail client on Android phones provides a great example of this. It stores copies of recent messages so that I can access them even when there is no Internet access, and also saves any recent changes (such as new messages or changes to read state), but as soon as possible it sends those chang

Good explanation of how Bump and PayPal work together. People have predicted the death of cash and checks for a long time. But there are certain transactions - like paying a friend back for dinner or buying vegetables at the farmers' market - for which they remain essential. ¶PayPal's new iPhone application could finally change that. It promises to let you quickly divide a restaurant bill and send a friend the portion you owe just by bumping your iPhones together. ¶The application is free to download from the App Store. Users log in with their PayPal credentials or with their cellphone number and a numeric PIN, and they can send or request money and manage their account on the phone. ¶To send money, users choose a recipient from their cellphone contacts or bump two phones together. For that, the app uses technology from Bump Technologies, which developed it to swap contact information between two phones. The money is transferred immediately