In the most basic sense, cloud computing means hosting files or applications, including custom-built applications, on virtual, online servers that you access via the internet. A familiar example of this would be using web-based Gmail versus your Outlook server at the office. Gmail is hosted in the “clouds” while Outlook is probably hosted on a server inside your organization’s network. With cloud computing, there is a significant shift in workload from local computers, which no longer have to do all the work and host applications we use everyday.

This video does a great job giving a fun and basic explanation of cloud computing in just a few minutes:

Using cloud technology makes sense for many organizations and there are several advantages:

1.    Upgrades are faster and easier to implement

2.    Quickly scalable

3.    Lowers costs

4.    Frees up IT resources

You may be scratching your head and wondering if this is even pertinent to you or not. However, if it isn’t today, it probably will be soon. Many studies have been done and most estimate that about a third of U.S. firms are using cloud computing in some way. So even if IT or a technology isn’t part of your job function, you should at least be familiar with this business buzz word.

App: ESPN Sports Center

Who’s using it: Mark Towler

Why: According to Mark, “This app lets me pick which teams in which leagues I want to follow (Go ASU Mountaineers!) Plus, it can send scoring updates on specific teams so I don’t have to keep checking my phone to see how bad my Dallas Cowboys are doing when I’m not watching them.”

App: T-Pain Auto Tune

Who’s using it: Brett Taylor

Why: Brett says this app will auto tune your voice to make you sound like a karaoke superstar.

“To date this has given me the most fun of any app,” said Brett. “Plug it into your home theater system for a great night of family fun.”

App: WeatherBug

Who’s using it: Heath Clinton

Why: Heath says he uses WeatherBug before making workout plans or making outside plans with the kids.

“I can see what’s going on with the weather and especially the wind with a high degree of accuracy,” commented Heath.

App: Twitter

Who’s using it: Shane Kempton

Why: Shane says he likes this app because it’s well designed and does a lot of things right in terms of the user’s experience – from the now ubiquitous “pull down to refresh” user interface, which its designers invented, to the very natural navigation.

Shane adds, “The other reason is because of how useful it is to me. Being able to tap into the thoughts of my chosen community of people at anytime and anywhere would have seemed like either science fiction or magic just 15 years ago. Yet, that’s exactly what I’m able to do with the app. In a device that neatly fits in the palm of my hand I can find out if my friends liked the new Tron movie, how the Thunder played tonight including a picture of Kevin Durant dunking on the Cavs, what my wife thought about the car dealership, the most important issues on the minds of leaders in my industry and what Olivia Munn thinks about the weather in L.A. today. And all of this is not coming from a second hand account but from the very thoughts of each of those people. To put it mildly, that’s amazing! So for this week at least, that’s Twitter’s app is top of my list, but there are some contenders hot on its heels.”

App: GunsNGlory

Who’s using it: Colbey Chittenden

Why: GunsNGlory

According to Colbey, GunsNGlory is a tower defense game with a twist The creeps are on a set path for the most part but your towers are moveable so not only picking the right tower is important, you also have to pick the proper position and occasionally move them.

Colbey says, “It’s my current favorite app because I am a sucker for TD (tower defense) games, and think that Steve Jobs must be as well. Why else would he have made the iPad in the first place? GunsNGlory is a unique TD game because of how you can manipulate the “towers” and that fact makes me like it a little more. If only it had some sort of space theme, it would be perfect.”

App: Swype for Android

Who’s using it: Jeremy Kuhlman

Why: Swype is a keyboard replacement app for the android that allows words to be inputted by “Swyping” them out and not having to lift your finger off the screen for each key press. Click here to see an example.

According to Jeremy, “Swype would be one of my favorite apps because it gives users the ability to type words on their phone using only one hand and not requiring someone with larger hands (like myself) to try and hold such a small device and actually type on it. Using the “Swyping” technique also helps prevent fat-fingering keys when typing as you never have lift your finger off the screen and as a result increase how fast you can type words. One of the newer features of the Swype keyboard that has also impressed me considerably would be the voice to text functionality which is amazing quite accurate.”

App: Ebay

Who’s using it: Steve Crosthwait

Why: According to Steve, “This app allows me to manage every aspect of buying and selling. I can easily bid and purchase nearly any product I want. Save it to a watch list, search other products and I can sell a product all from one device.”

App: Instapaper

Who’s using it: Andy Morris

Why: This app let’s you quickly and easily save links to read later, across different devices.

According to Andy, “It’s super easy to save links for later on my laptop, and then when I find myself with a few free minutes I can read them on my iPhone. Instapaper formats the content as well to make it nice and easy to read.”

QR codes are modern day bar codes that can be scanned using your phone’s camera. However, these little bar codes are packed with a lot of data and might include information like a URL, links, geo coordinates or text.

So what’s the point of a QR code? First of all, convenience for the user. You can transfer a lot of information in a QR code and save someone a lot of typing on a little, mobile keyboard. For example, the QR code on the back of book might actually be the link to the book’s web page or, in the case of a museum, link to an audio file about an exhibit or piece.

Secondly, QR codes are a marketing director’s dream. They are yet another way to get your target audience or customer to take action or interact with your organization. In an increasingly mobile world, these codes are like giving your audience or customer an easy button to reach you. Here are just a few simple examples:

• Put a QR code on an event flyer that takes registrants directly to a registration page form
• Add a QR code to an ad that takes customers to a special coupon or offer
• A QR code could launch a video with more information about your product
• Use a QR code to play a testimonial or other audio file about your product or service
• Embed a map on your business card with a QR code

Lastly, QR codes can bring efficiencies to businesses. For example, museums are able to stop investing in audio equipment for visitors if they can instead offer QR Codes that play audio files. Even airport screenings are going high-tech and hopefully speeding up thanks to QR codes. The possibilities are limited only by your ingenuity.

Your turn. Have you started using QR codes in your business or seen some great uses of them? I’d love to hear your ideas and comments. My prediction is they aren’t part of your life today, they will be in 2011.

HTML 5, along with new versions of CSS and JavaScript are the standard platform developers use to create rich Internet software. IE 9 is Microsoft’s first (mostly) HTML 5 compliant browser. The software giant had classically resisted, or at least been slow to adopt, general Internet standards and preferred to push their own technologies. However, IE 9 marks the first product launched to the general public showing their full support for the standard, which has pulled in an improbably large amount of press lately.

A few months ago the tech world was buzzing over the sharp exchange of words between Apple and Adobe. Apple’s Steve Jobs in no uncertain terms said that Adobe’s Flash product would never be available on any iOS device, which includes the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Apple had committed to HTML 5, in lieu of Flash, as the way to deliver rich web content on its hottest selling devices. Those sentiments were backed by a number of other large industry players, including Microsoft and Google.

Microsoft jumping on board with Apple to take a dig at Flash seemed obvious as it has a competing product, Silverlight. However, it’s clear there’s more to the story than was obvious at the time.

The two most interesting new technical elements of IE 9 are the hardware acceleration for HTML 5 graphics and how each tab runs in a separate application process. The hardware acceleration is interesting because it allows software based on HTML 5 and JavaScript to run at a performance level compatible to desktop applications. This is a big deal as application developers are moving towards web based solutions for even the most complex software and Microsoft needs Windows to be able to run this software well.

Which is why running each IE 9 tab in a separate process is important. Imagine you had a Microsoft Word and an Excel document open at the same time and for some reason while working with the Word document, it crashed. Pretty upsetting, however, you’d be even more upset if Excel crashed as well. Now imagine if all of your applications crashed simply because one of them did. Prior to IE 9 that’s how Internet Explorer worked. If one of the web sites you had open in a tab crashed, the entire program would shut down closing all of your tabs. This may be okay if you’re just surfing the web but increasingly people are running software applications in the browser, a trend that will only continue to increase.

Clearly Microsoft is committed to enabling the development of rich applications based on HTML 5; applications that in years past would have only been possible to develop using technologies like Adobe’s Flash or Microsoft’s Silverlight. In fact, full desktop quality applications are possible using these technologies, which forces questions about Microsoft’s other development platforms.

These questions are causing heated conversations within Microsoft. Lately, there’s been a rash of public conversations by current and former Microsoft employees about the shifting direction in Microsoft’s approach to the software development – particularly around their Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) development platforms. Microsoft is known to have rivalry among its divisions, which often take parallel but competing paths. The profitable Windows division usually wins these fights and it seems that the Windows division is backing HTML 5. This raises doubts about the viability of both Silverlight and WPF going forward.

With WebOS Palm proved that it’s possible to create an excellent operating system where applications are primarily based on HTML 5 and JavaScript. Google’s Chrome OS hopes to continue that trend when it’s released later this year. Even with the very successful launch of Windows 7, Microsoft is facing the toughest competition in the OS space that it’s ever had and it is paying close attention to this trend in order to keep from being caught behind the times with their primary money maker.

Internet Explorer is the last major browser to make the move to HTML 5, but the technology in version 9 and the conversations coming from within Microsoft are good indications about the platform Microsoft will use to wage not only its browser battle, but also its broader operating system war.

Why should you care about IE 9? It appears Microsoft’s preferred development platform could very well be HTML 5 and its continued success in the OS space could rely on how well they implement it in Windows. IE 9 is Microsoft’s first major move in that direction making version 9’s success very important to Microsoft’s market position.

Shane Kempton is Phase 2’s Director of Consulting and Chief Software Architect. You can learn more about his vision and insight regarding web and mobile technology by following him on Twitter @shanekempton.

So, you and your friends have this great idea for an application for the iPhone that you think will change the world and make you a millionaire because so many people would want to download it.

Now what do you do? How do you develop it?

Those are questions that many people are asking these days as more people are using apps on their mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. People want apps for fun and work, and businesses want to oblige.

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