“I want to be an extreme coupon-er…”

My first thought: I don’t want to be behind you in line. My second thought: How do I solve this problem?

The Proposed Solution

The solution I’ve come up with is a smartphone app that lets you photograph coupons. It scans the photos, and credits them to your online account as available discounts, and automatically removes them when they expire.  Of course, you’d also be able to share the coupons with your friends as well. You then take your phone with you to the store, and pull up the app. It displays a scanable barcode for the clerk. When scanned, the store’s system contacts the cloud-based coupon-holding server, deducts the coupon values from your total, and they are then removed from your account.

No more waiting behind that one person who brought 30 coupons to the store. No more keeping up with which coupons are still valid/newly expired. Just a smooth shopping experience for everyone in line.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, coupon, evercoupon, ideas, iphone app idea, phone app idea, technology

Over the course of the last couple weeks with the Chrome OS netbook, my file synchronization setup has come to this:

• Intranet web server runs Windows Live Mesh 2011 – syncs website files & database to Skydrive
• Work PC runs Windows Live Mesh 2011 and pulls files from Skydrive. It saves them in a DropBox subfolder, and sends them up to the DropBox server.

A couple things about why my configuration is the way it is:

• I use Windows Live Mesh 2011 for two reasons: the remote desktop feature and the fact that it doesn’t care where the folder you want to sync is, you can sync it right there.
• I only recently started using DropBox for the potential of its API functionality. However, not many people are using the API, and it’s only available in certain programming languages.
• I do use WAMP on my intranet server, so I am capable of moving the website’s files out of the www drive and into a DropBox subfolder and creating an alias in the Apache config for the new location. I haven’t done it yet, because I hadn’t found a web-based code editor that works with DropBox to provide a compelling reason to make that change – until now.

On to the good stuff.

For my web-based editing, I have decided to use a relatively new app from DropBox‘s own app site called: TextDrop. (Update, the app is no longer listed in the DropBox app site. The Link now goes directly to the app’s site.)

TextDrop - First Run

At first glance, this is a very basic text-editor. I do all my web coding in Notepad++, so using a notepad-type app is not an issue for me. If this is not the case for you, you may be better off using Kodingen.com or Bespin from Mozilla.

Also, right now, if you create a new page with the app, it is unable to save that back to DropBox. I don’t know what the status of this issue is, but at this time, it is only a minor annoyance as I’m not creating files usually, I’m editing existing ones.

TextDrop - Open files

The opening page has a Log In link, which gets you set up with DropBox to authenticate the app and give it permission to access/edit your files. Once you’ve granted TextDrop permission, you’re all set. Choose the Open button and you’ll be presented with the top-level directory of your DropBox cloud storage. Open up any text-based file, and you’ll be able to edit it right there, and save it back.

Since I only just found out about this app recently, I’m by no means an expert on it. However, Monday when I return to work, I will give all the pieces of my Living in the Cloud configuration a shot to see how productive I can be with only an internet browser.

Another web-based app that I’ll be keeping an eye on (which is being actively developed as of a couple days prior to this posting) is SourceKit. Right now it doesn’t get past the login screen – apparently the developer is working on getting it approved as a Production Application from the DropBox folks (API Key requirements, etc., if you’re familiar with how all that stuff works). It will have a tree-structure file list, and include the Bespin code editor along side it – essentially a light-weight Kodingen setup, using the DropBox storage instead of an FTP backend. The author has released some updates and looks like everything is ready to go. I’ll be working on a blog post after I’ve spent some time with it on my web development projects. It might even become my de facto code editor.

There will be more Living in the Cloud posts to come as well, with some Google Chrome OS features, functionality examples, and hardware demonstrations, some of which will also have videos. But for now, this is a promising step in the right direction to make this a viably productive utility.

Technorati Tags: bespin, chrome os, cloud code editing, cloud coding, cloud computing, cr-48, cr-48 code editor, dropbox, dropbox app, file sync, google chrome, google chrome os, kodingen.com, living in the cloud, notepad++, textdrop, web-based code editor, web-based text editor, windows live mesh

Here’s my dilemma:

• I’m creating a web-based application for my company’s intranet. We’ll call the application “Jada”.
• Jada is hosted on a computer that has a one-way connection to the internet: out. No one can get in from the internet.
• I sync my files to the cloud with Windows Live Mesh 2011 on Jada, and that gives me a real-time backup, as well as a copy on my computers at home.
• Windows Live Mesh 2011 does not have the ability to edit files in the browser. DropBox does not have the ability to edit files in the browser. But DropBox has an API.

My requirement:

• I have a Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook, and must edit my codes inside a browser. When I save the file, it must automatically end up back on the Jada server, without installing software (since I can’t, on this laptop).

The file-editor of choice for my codes is to host them on Kodingen and use their Bespin integration (as the actual Bespin site doesn’t have an import/upload feature yet). I have uploaded a copy of the files via FTP, however, that is a single instance of those files…thus any changes I make there must then be downloaded onto the Jada server via an FTP client, or pushed. Either way, that would happen at intervals, and not instantly, and definitely not from the Chrome OS laptop.

The concept of webhost sync would be similar to this:

• A user would set up their DropBox folder so that the files they want would be scraped up by the software, and sent to the DropBox website.
• A user would then authenticate to Dropbox on the editor (Kodingen in this example), and then map a folder created on the Kodingen FTP server to say “this folder is where I want the Selective Sync of that DropBox store to be located” or a new folder option would be offered to say “make this a folder in my dropbox account, and sync it.”
• Every X minutes of inactivity to the files (no files have been edited or modified), or the user being logged out/session expiration, the Kodingen would poll DropBox’s file metadata to see if any files have changed. If so, pull them over to Kodingen’s store.
• While inside the editor, a Save action on the file being edited would activate a hook to sync that file and any other files that have been changed.
• There would also need to be a manual sync button for posterity in environments where multiple people would be working in other locations. Such changes could exist in the span of X minutes between CRON jobs to sync the server, and one would want to make sure they have the latest version of the files before they get started.

This is a general overview of how I would envision something like this working – and would definitely be a huge step in the right direction for programmers who wish to keep all their files in the cloud, but don’t have direct access to the computers they are developing for…especially if the Cr-48 is going to be as limited as it is when it comes to file editing.

Technorati Tags: chrome os, cloud computing, cr-48, dropbox, file sync, file synchronization, ftp server, google chrome os, kodingen, programing, webhost sync, windows live mesh

Source: flickr/oskay

I didn’t start using a computer full-time until 2001 when I landed in the college dorms back at East Texas Baptist University. I immediately set out to create something memorable for the university in the form of student communication: an instant messenger based on school emails. That never took off, as I barely understood how to set up my email account in Outlook Express. Instead, I focused more on a social network (before that term existed), and running a web server from my PC in my dorm room.

Fast-forward 4 years.

The social network I started in college migrated to a global website. I also now owned a PocketPC, a laptop, and had a corporate desk job. During my off time (and sometimes my “on time”) I would work on the code for the web pages. The biggest problem I had was making sure the files I changed in one place were propagated to all other places.

It was just my luck: I became a beta tester for Microsoft Office. My favorite office program for that suite: Groove. Microsoft Groove was the very, very early fore-runner of what is now known as Windows Live Mesh. It was a desktop client that sync’d your files to the Groove Server. From there, conflicts were resolved, you could chat with other people in the work-group, and everything stayed in sync.

Fast-forward another 4 years, and you’d find me keeping my bookmarks sync’d with Del.icio.us, my web pages with Windows Live Mesh, my email in Thunderbird, my finances with Microsoft Money, and my IM contact lists with Digsby.

The one thing all those have in common: they all require a piece of software to keep them sync’d to the cloud. Over the last 2 years, I’ve been migrating as much as I can to the cloud, and exploring the available software replacement options as I find them.

So in making this transition to Living in the Cloud, first things first: cut the cord. Figure out what you do on a daily basis, and how you’d go about doing it if your only software was the Google Chrome OS.

Luckily for you, you can also experience the Chrome OS experience, even if you didn’t get one of the Google Laptops:

Imagine starting up your computer, logging in with your Google Account, and the first and only thing that opens is your internet browser: Google Chrome. Now, try to work. Attempt to go about your daily routine without access to any Windows network shares, Microsoft Office programs, an abhorrent collection of randomly placed desktop icons, or really anything you would normally launch from a taskbar/start menu/icon on your computer. Everything you do must be done in the browser.

Once the stress of not being able to minimize the browser has subsided, then start thinking about where the data is stored that you want – and where you can put it online to get it. So, first things first: start finding online resources to store all the things you think you have to have software to use.

I’ll start documenting my changes once I’ve picked them. I have a few resources I’m currently testing, but I may have to create my own solutions to actually achieve what I want in the end.

Technorati Tags: chrome os, cloud computing, cr-48, digsby, google chrome, living in the cloud, microsoft groove, microsoft money, microsoft office, migrating to the cloud, netbook, outlook express, pocketpc, thunderbird, windows live mesh

Source: admintell.napco.com

Monday, I got an unexpected surprise on my doorstep: a Google Cr-48 Chrome OS Netbook (youtube video). From the video, you can see that it’s nothing more than a Chrome Browser with a keyboard and Wifi/3G internet access.

After spending a day getting it set up and testing the battery life with some moderate usage throughout the day, I’m going to start writing some blog posts related to what it takes to cut the cords and transition the daily routine of a programmer into the cloud.

Generally, netbooks aren’t for people who use a computer for things as computer-intensive as programing or graphic design, and are really optimized for journalists, bloggers, and people who like to waste time on social networking sites. In this blog series, I’m going to describe the software needed (or created in some cases) to turn a netbook into a productive tool for people who generally need software on a daily basis.

I’ll also describe what it’s like to use Google’s Chrome OS: the good, the bad and the ugly. There will be more videos about the device, the hardware itself (which is sure to change), and the software apps needed to make the transition.

Technorati Tags: 3g, chrome os, cloud computing, cr-48, google, ground computing, living in the cloud, netbook, productivity, Programming, wifi, wireless

It was thought that IE9 beta and Live Mesh beta don’t like to play well together, but I started experiencing this way before I ever put IE9 on my Windows 7  laptop.

Instead, I’m more inclined to believe that Microsoft is phasing out the old Live Mesh and trying to get people to move over to the new Live Sync/Live Mesh 2011, as part of the Windows Live Essentials package.

Either way, if you had the same errors as I did, then you’re also probably having trouble uninstalling Live Mesh beta from your computer as well – and Live Sync/Mesh 2011 won’t install until Mesh beta is gone, and there aren’t any pending system reboots/uninstalls still in the registry.

Well, here’s how to Uninstall Live Mesh beta from your system…

To remove Live Mesh Beta…

If you can’t uninstall Live Mesh beta the normal way  (through the Control Panel > Programs & Features) you’ll need to disable/delete 3 things: 2 registry entries, and 1 service.

Live Mesh Remote Desktop service

1. Click on the Start menu orb, and type “services.msc” in the search box (or open a Run prompt and type it there)
2. Scroll through until you find “Live Mesh Remote Desktop” in the service list
3. Right-click on it, and choose Properties.
4. Change its Startup type from “Automatic” to “Disabled”
5. Stop the service.

Windows Registry Entries

1. Click on the Start menu orb, and type “regedit” in the search box  (or open a Run prompt and type it there)
2. There are two entries to delete:
   1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\<your SID>\Products
      • Find the folder named “9D1E4BCD781B45B479E1418784C5A935″ beneath the Products directory and delete it.
   2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products
      • Find the folder named “9D1E4BCD781B45B479E1418784C5A935″ beneath the Products directory and delete it.

Reboot the system…

Disabling the service will prevent it from starting up with your computer, and deleting both registry entries will remove it from the Control Panel > Programs & Features list. Once you have rebooted, this should let you install the Live Mesh 2011 software.

Setting up Live Mesh 2011

Once you’re done installing, you now have to log in with your Windows Live ID, and choose the folders you want to sync again.

You’ll want to install Live Mesh 2011 on all your computers on which you previously used Live Mesh beta, and sync the folders from their respective master copies accordingly. In addition to peer syncing, the files are now stored on Skydrive instead of the Live Mesh beta desktop. This is the same location that Office Live files and Windows Live Mail attachments are stored, and you’ll be able to access all your files (sync’d, saved, and uploaded) from this web site. In addition to desktop files & folders being sync’d you can now include Internet Explorer Favorites and your Microsoft Office styles, templates custom dictionary and email signatures.

Once your other computers have the software installed, be sure to navigate to the Remote page in the application, and choose “Allow remote connections to this computer” in order to use the Live Mesh 2011 Remote [Desktop] Connection feature.

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Well, I have an answer – and this example will use the Digsby Instant Messenger client. (I’ll get technical after the story below.) Here’s a little background…

I’ve been using Trillian for my instant messaging software of choice since it was version 0.74a back in 2001. And I have never had any problems with it. It’s been a great tool to keep the 20-odd screennames I had back in the day all organized with their appropriate buddy lists joined or separated as necessary. Fortunately, I was invited to use their new Trillian Astra beta program for the past couple years. Using the Astra alpha/beta releases has been nice, as all the features from the Pro accounts were available for testing – that was, until Build 98, when they turned on the Basic/Pro distinction. Much to the chagrin of the beta testers, there was a major uprising because of this, with a lot of focus by the users being put on Chat Logs and server-side synchronization. To the praise of Cerulean Studios, they reinstated the Pro functionality until they gave fair warning in Build 99.

One user mentioned Digsby as an alternative to Trillian. I’ve used other clients like meebo.com as a cross-platform web-based chat, and Pidgin when I used Linux on my laptop (and even tried the Windows version recently). However, Digsby is the only one that provides the closest functionality to Trillian with the many social networks that it connects you to – with the somewhat-noticeable lack of MySpace IM. (But who really uses that anyway?)

Ultimately, I gave Digsby a shot on my laptop, running Windows 7 Beta 1, and it seemed to serve its purposes very nicely. I don’t use the laptop for anything beyond quick internet checking with Google Chrome, collecting my emails in Thunderbird, an alarm clock using Songbird, and sending IMs.

Later, when Trillian released Build 99, I wasn’t thrilled about the limited Basic functionality I was relegated to – but also am not prepared to spend the nominal $25 to upgrade to Pro just yet. (Maybe I will this summer.) So, I installed Digsby at work, and on my desktop computers, and was back in business.

I noticed that once I installed Digsby on the other computers, it migrated my accounts, buddy lists configuration (i.e. meta contacts), and most of my preferences over. It wasn’t until I discovered there were also customizable themes and when I had to look through chat logs on 3 computers, that I noticed a need for further synchronization.

So I set out thinking of a way to do this…and that’s where we start.

I’ve been using Live Mesh since it was Microsoft Groove in Microsoft Office 12 Beta 1. And I thoroughly enjoyed the functionality of being able to keep a single copy of my website code (since I run multiple sites on the-spot.network), and be able to work on them at work, at home, or with my laptop outside of Jamba Juice in Sundance Square, Fort Worth, TX.

You can do this with both Groove or Mesh, but for the purposes of this article (since I don’t have Microsoft Office installed on the laptop), we’ll do it with Mesh (plus Mesh is free, Groove is part of Office 2007).

Warning: Please read before you proceed.

I had to do this SEVERAL times before it actually worked. By “SEVERAL” I mean that I had to reinstall Digsby a LOT because I didn’t do it correctly, or the permissions weren’t setup properly before I tried syncing. If I were you, I’d try something simple first, like creating a folder in Program Files, and sticking a txt file in it, and see if you can get it to sync. Once you’ve followed the instructions and learned how, give it a shot with the program you have in mind.

Ok, you can continue.

Step 1: Sign up for Mesh.com

Step 1: Sign into or up for Mesh.com

Assuming you’ve already got a Windows Live Account, sign into the  Live Mesh website, with your Windows Live ID. Once you sign in, you’ll be taken to your Live Mesh Devices page.

Step 2: Add your computers to Mesh

Step 2: Add your computer to Mesh

From the Devices page, click Add Device. Use the drop-down menu to select your computer’s operating system, and then click Install. This downloads the Live Mesh software to your computer. Once you’ve installed the software, you’re ready to begin synchronizing folders between: your computer and your Live Desktop, your computer and other devices in your mesh, or your computer and a friend’s computer.

Step 2a: Your Live Mesh device window

Do Step 2 on all the computers you wish to sync.

Step 3: What do you want to sync?

Mesh gives you about 5GB of cloud storage space. Because everything you sync between computers is also stored in at the Live Mesh website on your “Live Desktop”, the cumulative sum of all the files you want to keep synchronized cannot exceed 5GB.

For my example, I want to sync my Digsby themes so that I can use my them on whatever computer I am using. So, I navigate to the Program Files folder, and find the Digsbyresskins folder.

Step 4: Setting the right permissions

First things first though – if you’re using Windows Vista and have the User Access Control activated, then you’re not going to be able to write anything to this folder without giving Administrative Privilages. This will prevent Mesh from syncing the files and folders to anything your Program Files directory. So let’s fix it…

1. Right click on skins, choose Properties
2. Click the Security Tab, and hit the Edit button
3. Hit Continue on the UAC window, click the Add button
4. Type your username and domain if needed, and hit OK
   
5. (***If, in Step 8, you don’t see any files showing up, you might need to start over and add the “all user accounts” to have full permissions by selecting “<localhost>users”, and giving it Full Control. Otherwise, go ahead and set that permission now, if you don’t anticipate any security issues in doing so.***)
6. Check the Full Control checkbox, and hit OK, and hit OK again to close all the windows.

Do this same thing on the other computers you’d like to sync with, adding the appropriate username for your account on that particular computer. Now you should be able to write files to that folder without needing approval.

Step 5: Add your folder to your Live Mesh

Step 5: Add the folder to your Live Mesh

Now you’re ready to add your folder to your Live Mesh:

1. First, remove everything in the folder you want to use. In my case, I cut all the theme folders in skins.
2. Right click on skins, choose Add folder to Live Mesh.
3. You’ll get a window that pops up, asking what you’d like to name the folder. I just used “Digsby-skins”. Hit OK.
4. Paste the themes back into skins and let them sync.

Step 6: The progress meters

Step 6: Let the folder Sync to Live Desktop

My entire Digsby installation is about 60MB, with the themes making up about 3MB of that. Depending on what you’re actually syncing, this size will vary greatly – and so will the time it takes for everything to upload. If you open the folder you’ve chosen to sync, you’ll see a sidebar pop out of the right hand side of the window that shows the progress of your device.

Note: You’ll only see the devices that you’ve told to sync with this folder. Mine shows my laptop because I’ve already done this, we’ll get to adding the other devices next.

Step 7: Icon to setup new Mesh folder

Step 7: Setting it up on the other computer.

For this to work, you should have the same program installed on the other computer. This is not meant for sharing a program from computer to computer – just accessories like themes, plugins, settings, etc.

To set up your other computer, start over with Step 1 – install Live Mesh, add the computer, configure the Security settings, cut the contents from the folder you’re going to sync.

Once you’ve added this computer to Live Mesh, you’ll see a desktop icon, in my case “Digsby-skins”.

1. Double click the icon to get the setup window
2. Click Browse and Navigate to the directory you want the sync’d files stored in and hit OK

You’ll want to give it some time to download the files that the source computer has put up on the Live Desktop. You can base that timeframe by the activity of the Progress Meters on the right of the directory window, as the image in Step 6 shows.

Step 8: Conflict Notification

Step 8: Add any files from the secondary computer to be sync’d

Once you have finished syncing the files from the source computer, you can cut/paste the files you moved on the secondary computer, back to their original location. This allows you to Overwrite any files that might be duplicated on both machines, instead of having to resolve any conflicts manually.

After you have copied the files on the secondary computer back to their original location, check to see that they are showing up on the primary computer. If they are, then everything is working like it should.

Step 9: Testing the synchronization

When everything is finally sync’d back between both computers, give it a test. You should now be able to load your program in both places, and if you happen to add a new plugin in one location, it should be available on the other computer soon thereafter.

That’s that…

That is how I have set up my Digsby installation to share Themes, and how I will instruct one of my coworkers to sync her Photoshop brushes between office and home. Let me know what you’re using it for in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, computer, digsby, how do i set up live mesh, How To, internet, live mesh, microsoft, network, plugins, sync, synchronization, theme, Windows