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Collaboration cross firewall: I started to get involved in a Cloud project and had to travel to Shanghai every week in past one month. While out of my office during trip, or boarding @ airport, or sitting in cab, I’m out of the company firewall! That means I can’t access BlogCentral. My brain must “stop” in front of firewall. If I want to keep it thinking, I’d switch to public Web2.0 places.
Ease of combination: Have you used Ping.fm ? Or you may ask what Ping.fm is? In short, it’s a hub of collaboration and a practice of innovation. Let’s see a scenario: In a cab, I see a scene. I capture a photo by using my Nokia E71 smartphone (iPhone works too). After shooting, a small icon of mail prompts. Click mail icon, I’m in mail mode with the capture picture as an attachment. I pick an email address from contact list. Such email address is like vfr45t@ping.fm that was randomly assigned by Ping.fm . Whatever message sent to such account will automatically be updated into my accounts @ Twitter, Facebook, del.icio.us, LinkedIn, MySpace, Blogger, Identi.ca, WordPress, Flickr, FriendFeed, Mashable, etc, you name it… All these could be finished within one minute. (Security is another topic though. I’d very carefully post the data in this very web2.0 way.)
Performance: WordPress is good. Working on company’s BlogCentral is a challenge. I lean to write @ twitter.com as I’m lazy and don’t have to write much

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/…1

Author: Jack Wallen

Throughout my 10+ years of using Linux, I have heard about everything that Windows does better than Linux. So I thought it time to shoot back and remind everyone of what Linux does better than Windows. Of course, being the zealot that I am, I could list far more than 10 items. But I will stick with the theme and list only what I deem to be the 10 areas where Linux not only does better than Windows but blows it out of the water.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: TCO

This can o’ worms has been, and will be, debated until both operating systems are no more. But let’s face it — the cost of a per-seat Windows license for a large company far outweighs having to bank on IT learning Linux. This is so for a couple of reasons.

First, most IT pros already know a thing or two about Linux. Second, today’s Linux is not your mother’s Linux. Linux has come a long, long way from where it was when I first started. Ten years ago, I would have said, hands down, Windows wins the TCO battle. But that was before KDE and GNOME brought their desktops to the point where any given group of monkeys could type Hamlet on a Linux box as quickly as they could type it on a Windows box. I bet any IT department could roll out Linux and do it in such a way that the end users would hardly know the difference. With KDE 4.1 leaps and bounds beyond 4.0, it’s already apparent where the Linux desktop is going — straight into the end users’ hands. So with all the FUD and rhetoric aside, Windows can’t compete with Linux in TCO. Add to that the cost of software prices (including antivirus and spyware protection) for Windows vs. Linux, and your IT budget just fell deeply into the red.

#2: Desktop

You can’t keep a straight face and say the Linux desktop is more difficult to use than the Windows desktop. If you can, you might want to check the release number of the Linux distribution you are using. Both GNOME and KDE have outpaced Windows for user-friendliness. Even KDE 4, which has altered the path of KDE quite a bit, will make any given user at home with the interface. But the Linux desktop beats the Windows desktop for more reasons than just user-friendliness. It’s far more flexible than anything Microsoft has ever released. If you don’t like the way the Linux desktop looks or behaves, change it. If you don’t like the desktop included with your distribution, add another. And what if, on rare occasion, the desktop locks up? Well, Windows might require a hard restart. Linux? Hit Ctrl + Alt + Backspace to force a logout of X Windows. Or you can always drop into a virtual console and kill the application that caused your desktop to freeze. It’s all about flexibility… something the Windows desktop does not enjoy.

#3: Server

For anyone who thinks Windows has the server market cornered, I would ask you to wake up and join the 21st century. Linux can, and does, serve up anything and everything and does it easily and well. It’s fast, secure, easy to configure, and very scalable. And let’s say you don’t happen to be fond of Sendmail. If that’s the case you have plenty of alternatives to choose from. Even with serving up Web pages. There are plenty of alternatives to Apache, some of which are incredibly lightweight.

#4: Security

Recently, there was a scare in the IT world known as Phalanx 2. It actually hit Linux. But the real issue was that it hit Linux servers that hadn’t been updated. It was poor administration that caused this little gem to get noticed. The patch, as usual in the Linux world, came nearly as soon as word got out. And that’s the rub. Security issues plague Windows for a couple of reasons: The operating system comes complete with plenty of security holes and Microsoft is slow to release patches for the holes. Of course, this is not to say that Linux is immune. It isn’t. But it is less susceptible to attacks and faster to fix problems.

#5: Flexibility

This stems from the desktop but, because Linux is such an amazingly adaptable operating system, it’s wrong to confine flexibility to the desktop alone. Here’s the thing: With Linux, there is always more than one way to handle a task. Add to that the ability to get really creative with your problem solving, and you have the makings of a far superior system. Windows is about as inflexible as an operating system can be. Think about it this way: Out of the box, what can you do with Windows? You can surf the Web and get e-mail. Out of the box, what can you do with Linux? I think the better question is what can you NOT do with Linux? Linux is to Legos like Windows is to Lincoln Logs. With Lincoln Logs, you have the pieces to make fine log cabins. With Legos, you have the pieces to make, well, anything. And then you have all the fanboys making Star Wars Legos and Legos video games. Just where did all those Lincoln Logs fanboys go?

#6: Package management

Really, all I should have to say about this is that Windows does no package management. Sure, you can always install an application with a single click. But what if you don’t know which package you’re looking for? Where is the repository to search? Where are the various means of installing applications? Where are the dependency checks? Where are the md5 checks? What about not needing root access to install any application in Windows? Safety? Security? Sanity?

#7: Community

About the only community for Windows is the flock of MCSEs, the denizens at the Microsoft campus, and the countless third-party software companies preying on those who can’t figure out what to do when Windows goes down for the count. Linux has always been and always will be about community. It was built by a community and for a community. And this Linux community is there to help those in need. From mailing lists to LUGs (Linux user groups) to forums to developers to Linus Torvalds himself (the creator of Linux), the Linux operating system is a community strong with users of all types, ages, nationalities, and social anxieties.

#8: Interoperability

Windows plays REALLY well with Windows. Linux plays well with everyone. I’ve never met a system I couldn’t connect Linux to. That includes OS X, Windows, various Linux distributions, OS/2, Playstations… the list goes on and on. Without the help of third-party software, Windows isn’t nearly as interoperable. And we haven’t even touched on formats. With OpenOffice, you can open/save in nearly any format (regardless of release date). Have you come across that docx format yet? Had fun getting it to open in anything but MS Word >=2007?

#9: Command line

This is another item where I shouldn’t have to say much more than the title. The Linux command line can do nearly anything you need to work in the Linux operating system. Yes, you need a bit of knowledge to do this, but the same holds true for the Windows command line. The biggest difference is the amount you can do when met with only the command line. If you had to administer two machines through the command line only (one Linux box and one Windows box), you would quickly understand just how superior the Linux CLI is to the vastly underpowered Windows CLI.

#10: Evolution

For most users, Vista was a step backward. And that step backward took a long time (five years) to come to fruition. With most Linux distributions, new releases are made available every six months. And some of them are major jumps in technological advancement. Linux also listens to its community. What are they saying and what are they needing? From the kernel to the desktop, the Linux developer community is in sync with its users. Microsoft? Not so much. Microsoft takes its time to release what may or may not be an improvement. And, generally speaking, those Microsoft release dates are as far from set in stone as something can be. It should go without saying that Microsoft is not an agile developer. In fact, I would say Microsoft, in its arrogance, insists companies, users, and third-party developers evolve around it.

That’s my short list of big-ticket items that Linux does better than Windows. There will be those naysayers who feel differently, but I think most people will agree with these points. Of course, I am not so closed-minded as to think that there is nothing that Windows does better than Linux. I can think of a few off the top of my head: PR, marketing, FUD, games, crash, and USB scanners.

Source: http://www.linux.com/feature/144529

Author: Jack M. Germain

This does not mean that a single cloud computing platform is universally available. But just as some vendors have developed their own proprietary platforms for working in the clouds, so have various open source companies and communities.

“We’re already there. That is the trend I’m seeing,” says Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “Most Web-based startups are not buying hardware or software. They are using open source middleware and programming products like Ruby on Rails and Perl.”

Among the most popular middleware products are JBoss Enterprise Middleware, WSO2, Iona Fuse, and IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition.

What’s in a name?

Cloud computing is more of a process than one set technology. The concept behind what is now referred to as cloud computing has been called a variety of things, including cluster computing, utility computing, grid computing, and on-demand computing.

In its current trappings, the cloud computing model involves distributing computing tasks such as data storage and data center contents to a variety of Internet connections, software, and services accessed over a network. This collection of servers enables users to access supercomputing features. The data is not anchored to one physical location.

The push toward open standards for cloud computing has been going on for some time. This trend toward using open source tools for accessing the clouds is continuing to grow, says Zemlin.

Which path?

Perhaps the most challenging factor for potential adopters of cloud computing services to consider is which path best meets their needs. According to Zemlin, many organizations are integrating open source products to offer choices for accessing cloud computing service.

For example, a team of developers in the Computer Science Department at the University of California in Santa Barbara recently released the Eucalyptus Project, an open source infrastructure for cloud computing that mimics Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2), under the FreeBSD license. The name Eucalyptus stands for Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems. This software infrastructure implements cloud computing on clusters. Its design supports multiple client-side interfaces. Eucalyptus uses Linux tools and basic Web service technologies.

Another example is the 10gen platform-as-a-service technology. Recently released in alpha, it is designed to help developers build dynamic, scalable, mission-critical Web sites and applications. According to the 10gen Web site, its software stack is analogous to Google’s App Engine in that it provides a new stack of database, grid management, and application server tools to run in a cloud environment. The application server supports JavaScript as its first development language. Presently it supports Ruby. 10gen developers plan to build in support for other languages.

Not so fast

Some cloud computing players are not disputing the availability of open source products but question how much of a standard exists yet. They are not sure, for instance, how best to apply data management to the cloud.

“We are all for open standards via open source. But there is no clear path yet to what that standard should be,” says Aaron Darcy, director of product line management for the JBoss Division of Red Hat.

Darcy says his company’s top tier enterprise customers are pushing the envelope on cloud computing. They ask for cloudware and want extensions of existing software and standards.

“Our customers want to leverage cloud computing for its economy and quick deployment to market. But they don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” he says.

Red Hat, like other companies, is rushing products to market to fill customer demands in the clouds. For example, Amazon has worked a deal with Red Hat to run some of its open source products, such as JBoss Application Server, in the clouds. That makes sense, Darcy says, because it reflects a natural extension of what his company is doing on the enterprise level.

The goal of cloud computing should be access through open standards, according to Darcy. That is the only way the technology can adjust to new developments without locking in users to an inflexible platform, he believes.

“With cloud computing standards, no one has it right yet, including us. The market is still so young,” he says.

Rules clouded

The Linux Foundation’s Zemlin does not dispute the growing pains cloud computing is facing. Clearly, it is at an early stage of development. That means the industry has not yet put all of the needed tools in place.

The industry needs to solve a few things, however, he believes. For example, cloud operators need better manageability applications to allow cloud users to understand utilization rates. Numerous open source tools are doing this now, Zemlin says.

To that end, Zemlin wants to see a consistent way to meter and charge for cloud use. Cloud computing is a game of scale. Its real benefit comes from leveraging economies of scale, he notes.

Balancing act

At this point in the growth of cloud computing, companies that want to take advantage of cloud services have to consider whether to build their own computing clouds or subscribe to others’ cloud servers. These decisions often involve guesswork about which platform or cloud service offers the most reliabiilty and longevity. This guessing game in part results from the lack of a clearly defined clud standard supported by both proprietary and open source developers.

“Given budget constraints, customers need to evaluate the trade-offs,” says Red Hat’s Darcy. Cost differences are one of these trade-offs. For instance, potential adopters have to weigh the expenses associated with buying into a proprietary cloud platform or a community-sponsored or paid support open source product. Also, moving to the clouds could entail purchassing both hardware and software that could result in additonal upgrades or existing programs or time and money learning to adopt to new programs.

Another trade-off at this stage of the cloud computing game, Darcy says, is concern about security risks and performance hits. Placing a company’s data in somebody else’s cloud configuration, for instance, raises worries about how secure the data is. Even more troubling may be how the additonal middleware layer’s impact on the corporate computers.

“All of the hidden factors are not recognized yet,” Darcy concludes.

A good amount of the growing pains for cloud computing is similar to what the software as a service (SaaS) industry suffered in that technology’s early stages, according to Zemlin. As he sees it, SaaS was a first-generation technology for cloud computing. Soon, cloud computing may have similar benefits for smaller businesses and consumers.

Source : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/…compute_clouds.php

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