Rob Bell's Notes from a Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac

What is Cloud Computing?

The Growth of Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing? It is a revolution that will change your business for the better, letting you work faster, cheaper and better…. and from anywhere, just about.

Cloud Computing is one term for Internet-based software and hardware platforms – basically, instead of installing programs on your own computer, you access them over the Internet – Gmail is cloud computing, in fact most of what Google offers is cloud computing – you access it via a web interface. Are you familiar with Hootsuite, the social networking client? That’s Cloud Computing – also known as a Web Application (Web App). Many of you probably already use Freshbooks (get it free from this link) – one of my favourite apps, that lets you track time and estimate & invoice easily.

It’s cool because it allows for a number of wonderful things – you can access your business information and applications from any internet connected device, so you’re no longer tied to one computer at your desk – PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad etc… You’ve got real-time business information always at your fingertips – which allows you to make decisions based on up-to-date, accurate company data.

Because it’s not tied to one computer, you’re in no danger of losing everything if that computer breaks – your data is stored securely in data centres with backup systems. Plus, you’ve always got your documents to hand, as long as there’s a device with an internet connection nearby.

Because you’re accessing the app over the web, the company that writes the app can quickly correct bugs and introduce new features – so you never have to buy new versions like you do with traditional software. New features to let you do things faster and better are added all the time. Web Apps companies are also very good at supporting their users, in my experience.

Web apps companies also tend to be much friendlier to each other than traditional software companies, even building their systems so your applications can talk to each other, your contact lists are linked to your customer management system, which links to your project system, which also links to your invoicing system which is linked to your accounting system – so you can automate many of your time-consuming tasks, and get a lot more done.

If you have a company, perhaps staff are located in several different locations. Web Apps are great for teams like this, because they easily allow you to collaborate with team members and share documents – you can even work on them in real-time together, despite being miles apart. You can set up and work on projects together, see what’s in the sales funnel, track customer interactions, arrange conferences, training, customer presentations, seminars… in fact any sort of meeting, online. Cloud computing is letting people work together better, faster, cheaper and more profitably.

My company, Ex Ignibus, specialises in web apps (cloud computing) for small businesses – we install Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) as the interface, linked with applications for accounting, invoicing, email marketing, customer relationship management, project management, word processing, spreadsheets – and lots more – for single person businesses up to large, geographically-separate, teams. Web Apps are inexpensive, and can be afforded by any business – it currently costs around $50 per user per year to buy GAPE, and many of the additional Web Apps offered are free as long as they’re integrated with the GAPE solution. Others cost between $10-$25 per month, usually increasing as your requirements increase – so you, as a small business owner, can get a pretty awesome business system for less than $50 per user per month – in comparison to regularly spending hundreds of pounds or dollars buying new software licenses for installable computer-based software. Many Web Apps are also free for micro-businesses (single employee or small team).

So, as you can see, cloud computing offers a new way of working which breaks free of traditional single-computer information and restrictive private networks, offering a secure, simple way for small businesses and teams to enjoy the kind of software that only large corporations could afford previously. The only software tied to my computer these days is Expression Web, Visual Basic and Photoshop – development tools I build sites with that demand higher processing power than most business apps and usually involve large filesizes. To try Web Apps out requires little or no investment, and could have massive positive effects on your business, so why don’t you give ‘em  a try? If you need a bit of help, drop me a line via the contact form at Ex Ignibus.

Take care and have fun out there,

Rob Bell

Another day of snow in Blighty – I woke up (hideously early at 8am!) to go to my first course today – and it was snowing away merrily outside the windows. Shivering, and seriously tempted to get back under the nice warm duvet, I forced myself to adapt to this time I’ve normally seen when going to bed lately, rather than getting up, and make my way into a rather chilly kitchen to put the kettle on.

20 minutes later I’m braving the snow covered roads to travel the couple of miles to the location of my first course today – Book Keeping and Accounts – a Business Link course I’m taking because I haven’t really used the accountancy skills I learned at university since university! I had an awful feeling that the course would either have been cancelled or no one had turned up due to the weather – but to my surprise there were 10 of us there, and the course ran as normal. I wasn’t that big a fan of accountancy in my younger days – at 16 I spent a summer on work experience in a friend of the family’s accountancy firm. This was where I discovered that, although I find working with numbers relatively straightforward, I don’t have any desire to fill my days with number-related work. After 6 weeks I knew I would never be an Accountant!

19 years later, I find myself needing to be more involved in numbers – fortunately technology has come on a long way in 20 years, and I can run all my accounting functions through some nifty software – currently I’m using Freshbooks and TAS, but I’m looking towards some accounting software that integrates more thoroughly with Freshbooks because I am quite literally in love with Freshbooks as my invoicing, time tracking, estimating and customer support tool! Unfortunately, most of the stuff I’ve come across so far is set up for US tax, and I need a UK version!

After the course I made my way over to Hospital for an appointment with my specialist, who has very nicely put me on a course of different painkillers as my current ones weren’t being as effective as they used to… Only time will tell if the new ones are any good – I hope so, I’m sick of cold-weather pain at the moment, and it reduces my ability to get around! I am 37 going on 107 some days!

Then at 6pm I went to my second course of the day – Business Planning. When I’d got home from the hospital I’d got quite comfy so going out again wasn’t the easiest job in the world… However, when you really decide to take control of your life the sofa isn’t the quicksand it once was and escape wasn’t that hard. Now don’t laugh…

I got to the venue and parked up and hobbled up to the door, buzzed and waited for a response. Nothing.
Buzzed again…. and again nothing. So I ambled round the front to the main doors – which had security gates pulled shut and the lights were all off… ‘Strange’ I thought, so I took out my booking form and rang the number. Unfortunately it was after 6 so there was only out of hours cover, but she said someone would call me straight back… 3 hours later I’m still waiting, so I’m glad I decided to drive home rather than wait there for the call!

After making a cuppa, I sat down with my diary and looked at the details again… right time – yes, right place – yes. Hmmmm, so I looked at the booking confirmation email – right time, yes – right places – yes, right month – NOOO!!! Yes, Mr Thicky here turned up a whole 28 days too early for the course, which rather explains the closed building I guess – Oops a daisy Rob! So here I sit feeling somewhat lacking in intelligence for my calendar-ical error. Stupid Stupid Rob! Gotta laugh though, eh?!?!

I’ve been out once this week already with my camera photographing wintry scenes at a Lake nearby, and think I’m going out again tomorrow. After discovering HDR imagery recently, I find myself motivated to go out in the cold to get some rather nice pics, if I do say so myself. Here’s one from Newmillerdam lake, a few miles from here. I’ve applied some HDR effects to create the effect.

Newmillerdam in the Winter

As I was snapping, I was lucky to catch this moment of madness too – I laughed for about 10 mins after it happened, and I’m so chuffed I managed to snap it – do not feed the birds, people! It nearly smacked the guy straight in the face – missed him by millimetres!

Killer Gulls Spotted in Local Beauty Spot!

Rob

Today’s been a bit of a rubbish day – my back has been really painful all day, so I’ve been mostly laid up – it’s 4am here and it’s the first time I been on this today! I’m concious I haven’t posted since my database disaster, so wanted to give you an update.

My book’s about half ready – tomorrow (Thursday) is when it’s supposed to be ready for but I think It’ll be closer to Saturday providing I can sit at this chair tomorrow…

I’ve been experimenting quite a bit more on Squidoo, trying out different modules and developing a few pages… of the 6 that I’ve started this week, only one is published – as they’ve had to take a back seat to my book completion, but you can see that at http://www.Squidoo.com/freshbooks – leave a comment there and let me know what you think. Remember to leave your comment in my debate and vote in the poll.

Do you already know and use Squidoo? Leave a comment with your lens address, and I’ll go look at them and give you stars.

Through my research I’ve come into contact with lots of web applications with fantastic benefits for the users – some will grow to be very useful, but others are already there… They’ll all be in my book – even the ones that are still in beta if they’re next-gen functional and useful for building your business and increasing your subscribers. I’ve been privileged to help test some really excellent stuff, and I’ll tell you all about it.

I didn’t win the TV in the Phase 1 Video Contest for my DotComSecrets challenge, but the winner and his family were very deserving of the award as their video was mint! I’m just really pleased to have been in the top 10, I hate being on film -but the people who voted for me obviously don’t hate me on video, and that feels good.

Right back to bed now – pain stops play!

Rob