VanishingPoint

Well it is a new day, and we have “Sprung Forward” (Day Light Savings Time, US) so I am continuing my adventures in the cloud… I almost feel like I am renewing a new year’s resolution.  Interesting feeling…

Im my press forward to continue my adventures, I recently needed to do a clean install of my OS as, even against Microsoft’s own recommendation, I upgraded my Tablet’s Vista Ultimate install to Windows 7.  While the Upgrade went very smoothly, I had a some software that just did not want to play well in the Win7 environment… Also, it just reinforced why I never recommend a upgrading an OS, ALWAYS do a clean install!  Interestingly, one of Microsoft’s own packages (Live One Care – AV-Firewall-Anti-Spam) in not compatible with Win7 and it let me know that all the time.

So last week, I migrated all of my data to my 16GB Corsair USB Drive, and performed a clean install of Windows 7.  Ok, well I actually did the install twice. The first time, I upgraded to the 32bit version and it only took about 15 minutes total (now that was pretty cool).  However, I have a 64bit Intel Core2Duo processor, and I wanted to try out a 64bit OS, so I went through the OS install again with the Windows 7 64bit installer this time.  It took about 25 minutes for the 64bit install (again not to shabby).

Now, up into the “Clouds.”  I am really working hard NOT to install Microsoft Office 2007 at this point.  As I know that this will force me to truely use an online office suite.  My choice (not any big guess for this choice for those of you who know me) for an online office suite is Zoho.com.  While there are a number of reasons or this choice, Number 174 is blogging right from Zoho Writer, and Zoho’s use of Google Gears for “offline” editing and document creation, and Number 190 Zoho’s support for the iPhone which gives me access to almost ALL of Zoho’s application suite right on my iPhone! That said, to simplify my life a bit, I am using Outlook 2007 because it is allowing me to leverage Apple’s Mobile Me application to join my corporate email / calendar to my iPhone. I tried hard to use Zoho’s business suite (with mail and calender), but I found that I need my phone to “ping” me when I have an upcoming appointment… if it doesn’t, I sometimes don’t get where I need to be :0( I have put the word out to Zoho that I would really appreciate it if they could develop a true iPhone application that would sync with the iPhone mail / calendar / contacts… for now, I check my Zoho Business account regularly, but not enought to keep me from missing meetings.

Tomorrow will be a real test for me I think.   am going to be converting my current inventory database into Zoho DB and Creator so that I can begin running reports against the data to start planning for my technology bid and summer moves and technology repurposing. With the clean install of Windows 7 and Zoho Business Suite, so far I can say, the air is fine up here “in the cloud” want to come up and join me?

Photo Attribution: People, Clouds, and Triumph by cuellar