I have always wanted a Cray computer. Even if it was just furniture in my home. I read today that they have a Windows version. Not that I would want a windows version but check out the specs.
“Each Cray CX1 chassis can be configured with up to
eight blades. Blades can include up to 16 Intel Xeon
dual- or quad-core processors and up to 32 gigabytes
of memory per blade”
After reading this quick article on slashdot I decided to try out Office Live again. I think I had tried it early on when they did a beta our announced it. So this morning I opened up IE on my home computer (which I don’t use that often at home) and went to office live (www.officelive.com). I had to create a new account with my Gmail email vs my hotmail email.
Since I use google apps very frequently I am using that as a start to my comparison. I use google apps for church, projects, and storing info I want to get to anywhere. The first thing I noticed when I opened officelive was that I had to install something. I was missing something called the liveoffice update 1.2. After installing and it trying to reboot I was able to make a new document.
Creating a new word document I was thinking it was all in the browser, but it appears that it uses my local copy of office. This is interesting because if I did not have office how would I be able to use the app. Overall the feel is very similar to sharepoint. Similar to sharepoint the action of creating and saving a document is a bit slow and difficult. I never know when to save or to close the document and if I have to save it locally or on the server. When using liveoffice it then prompted me again for a username and password when I tried to save. Come on.. I had given liveoffice that info when I first logged in.
After my first document I realized that liveoffice is not similar to google apps. The experience you have on google is fast and fluid. On Liveoffice I found that I had to enter in passwords and it opened office and took a while to actually save and use a document.
Overall just my 10 minutes of using liveoffice told me that I probably will not use it again. I know there are some great features above and beyond google apps (screen share, actual office documents, and shared calendars) but these are not refined enough for me to move over.
I often use ISO files (Live Linux cd’s, DVD ISO’s for video, DVD ISo’s for installing software.) In the past I have used tools to burn them or mount them.
Recently I have been using a simple tool called virtual clone drive (http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html) It is very easy to use and does not consume that much resources.
In the past I have used Daemon Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/) to do this but that is a large install and does use a lot of resources.
This is an interesting trend that is happening. Companies abandoning the need to maintain software locally on computers (office, email, etc..) and use a hosted service that only needs an internet connection.
I am still interested in issues such as reliability and security.
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