By now, most of you have heard of cloud computing — some of it good, some of it bad and, mostly, all of it confusing.

The idea of computing on the cloud and accessing needed files and programs has been around since the early days of the Internet with (ASP) and on-demand software services for things like sales, accounting etc. These services met the needs of a specific department, but the idea of moving a company's entire computing process to an offsite cloud where they'll save money, become more efficient and remain secure? Well, let's just say that sounded like the pie-in-the-sky stuff we used to read in those popular science magazines. You know, the stories that had us farming on the ocean floor or setting up colonies on the planet Mars by the year 1999.

Well, I'm here to tell you: It's not pie in the sky. The cloud is here.

Look, I hear varying experiences from people all over the world when speaking on the subject of switching to the cloud. These stories range from outrageous success to calamitous failure and everything else in between. But here's my theory on the cloud. If the time is right for you, take the leap. And if your not ready, you better start getting ready because, like it or not, that ship has already left port.

So, with that said, here are a few tips to use and questions to ask as you consider navigating this process:

What constitutes cloud computing?

Cloud computing is the new rave-and-buzz term in computing and covers a wide array of system, process and delivery platforms:

1. Storage-as-a-Service (On-Demand Disks): This is the ability to provide remote storage to a user and the most common of the Cloud Computing components.
2. Database-as-a-Service (DaaS): This is a remotely hosted database. This would benefit the company that doesn't want to spend the money on the software and hardware to host this database and serve this database. Databases require administration and delivery mechanisms such as SQL.
3. Information-as-a-Service: This is simply remotely hosted information commonly delivered through a remote API (Application Programming Interface). A good example of this would be streaming stock quotes and credit reports.
4. Process-as-a-Service (PaaS): This is the remote resource that binds several of the other "as-a-Service" based components. This is the process of creating remote business processes (I know it sounds crazy.).
5. Application-as-a-Service (No, I am not going to put the acronym here. Let say this is Software-as-a-Service). This is remote application delivery.
6. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

There are several other components that industry experts state are important components of cloud computing. However, for sake of making this THE most boring article you've ever read, I have only included the most important ones.

What are the benefits of cloud computing?

1. Lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). Both on a support level and initial capital investment. You save money when it is on someone else's racks. And aside from the software and hardware savings, you may also save on overhead by outsourcing all of your IT services to your cloud provider. And hey, if you don't think you're already paying a lot for your current IT department, try this cool little calculator to give you a better idea as to just how much your currently spending: http://hiveve.com/new_site/pricing.php?PHPSESSID=7b4cbed0b6355dbee4f7e9709ffb5e92.
2. One-Stop Shop for your technology. Most cloud companies have made it their mantra to include everything in their cloud offerings.
3. Scalability becomes simple. Add/remove servers in an instant.
4. Complete Mobility. Remove the "Brick-and-Mortar" mentality of doing business. Many companies ask, "How do we free ourselves from the office?" Well, cloud computing and the virtual enterprise is the way. Sit on the beach and work directly from your iPad. It may sound hard to believe, but today more than 34 million U.S. adults telecommute at least occasionally. And that number is expected to swell to 63 million — or 43 percent of U.S. workers — by 2016.
5. Disaster Recovery. This fits right into your DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan). Cloud computing is certainly on the rise. Most C-level people have considered this a viable upgrade/option for some time now.

How do I select a cloud provider?

It's no secret that most large enterprises are moving in this direction. With so many companies emerging as the "leaders in cloud computing," how do you know which one is a good fit for your company?

The core steps are to assess the platforms, analyze and test the platforms, select three targets, and deploy. The main factors to consider when looking into a cloud company provider are number of clients, what their clients are saying, and what are the true needs and requests for moving your business into the cloud. You should then ask the target company, "Why should we move into the Cloud"? Evaluate the responses you receive back.

Additionally, you should do the following:

1. Research the target company and determine its viability.
2. Make sure the SLA (Service Level Agreement) includes a failover and disaster timeframe with accountability. Also, make sure they have tested that failover.
3. Make sure the target company has multiple data centers. A true sign of an unstable cloud provider is one which has only one data center.
4. Make sure the target company provides you a complete set of policies.

None of us can foresee what the future holds for IT systems and platforms. Yet, I can tell you my forecast for business computing during the next 10 years: partly cloudy with a100 percent chance of participation.

On May 25, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company was simplifying its privacy settings.

As the media was so quick to point out, his announcement was a reaction to the furor caused by Facebook users and observers, following Facebook's roll out of significant changes to what it does with private information and third parties. Various media also pointed out Zuckerberg didn't apologize for the decisions that created the uproar.

Should Zuckerberg apologize?

During the past several years, his company has faced a number of situations in which it was roasted by the press and its own users for decisions that aren't privacy sensitive. But it is the users who are deciding to continue with Facebook. Of course, Zuckerberg should have apologized. He put private information in harm’s way for hundreds of millions of people.

Yet, I would not have expected him to be at all apologetic, because Facebook isn't built for privacy. It’s built for sharing intimate details. Without that happening, the company’s business model would break down. It thrives by putting user’s private information at risk.

I’m not suggesting the company should continue to put information at risk. Quite the opposite; they can still be a huge, profitable company without do so. They’d just have to change the way they do business, and I suspect that it would be difficult to change so drastically in light of such success.

Despite being opposed to Facebook’s privacy attitude, I must also state that the media, in one way, has treated the company unfairly — by complaining about the complexity of Facebook’s privacy settings. I have been involved in creating privacy settings for Internet services, and it’s not easy. When you're trying to give people choices, it's likely to get complicated.

The complexity shouldn’t be at issue. The methodology should.

The recent changes at Facebook that increased the privacy risk for users were done without giving the users the ability to protect their information in advance. The default settings were made to share, not protect, the information. The changes were only apparent if you read about them in other sources. And the access to the settings wasn't as easy as it should have been. These are all significant issues, causing many users to shut down their Facebook accounts altogether.

Zuckerberg and his company didn’t feel the need to apologize. And he didn’t. He merely announced Facebook would simplify the task of overriding the default settings. In essence, Zuckerberg was saying he is completely insensitive to the privacy needs of his users.

The company had already made the changes that put the information at risk — such as automatically sharing information with third parties about Facebook users who hadn't explicitly logged out of their Facebook accounts before moving on to the next page in their browser — and he made no announcement about changing it back.

He got what he wanted. Now all he had to do is keep users from defecting, and he’ll have accomplished his goal. He was confident that most of them wouldn't bother changing their privacy settings, even after Facebook made them simpler.

I use Facebook infrequently, and only when needed, then log out every time I leave a Facebook page. I changed my privacy settings and constantly monitor to see if anybody I know has put up too much information on their pages about my family — and ask them to remove it. I harp on my teenagers about the amount of information they share, sometimes effectively and sometimes in vain.

And I keep my fingers crossed.

Editor’s note: David Radin is a national radio show host and business consultant. You can reach him at www.megabyteminute.com.

You’ve probably already heard of Google Voice, but you might not be aware of what it is.

First, don’t confuse it with Google Talk. They’re both services of the ubiquitous Google. They serve different needs, though. Google Talk is an instant messenger–like product that allows you to communicate using your computer. Google Voice is, at its purest, a personal permanent phone number that you can take anywhere — from cell phone provider to cell phone provider to Internet phone service to landline. Or, at least it holds that promise for the future.

For now, Google Voice, a relaunch of GrandCentral, which Google bought in 2007, is a feature-rich telephone service based on Internet technology that you can link to your current phone service.

To start, it’s a phone number that you can give out that forwards your calls to some other number, allowing you to pick it up wherever you want. That makes it an excellent way for you to have a continuing phone number without staying with the same phone service provider. Yet, with phone number portability now mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, that part of the product is useful only in certain circumstances. It’s really the “extra” features that make Google Voice so enticing.

If working properly, Google Voice lets you prescreen your voice-mail messages in a way that most voice mails don’t allow. So you can have your Google Voicemail automatically pick up your calls, hear what the caller is saying and then interrupt the outgoing message to talk with the caller, just as your now-obsolete answering machine used to allow. You can go even further by requiring callers to announce themselves and decide from there whether to pick up or send to voice mail. And you can decide whether to do this for all callers or just for those who have blocked their caller IDs. Google Voice is smart enough, too, to remember who they are the next time they call, so they don’t have to keep announcing themselves. You can set Google Voice to do it for them. Unfortunately, however, I haven’t been able to figure out how to remove the system’s memory of who is calling, in case the first recognition is a mistake.

Also, you can record the calls that reach you through Google Voice, and Google Voice can transcribe (albeit poorly) the voice messages that you receive, making it possible to forward them to you via e-mail or SMS text message.

In short, with these and other features, Google Voice changes the way you can use your telephone.

I only wish it worked most of the time. Officially, Google Voice is still available by invitation only. And I can tell why: It doesn’t work consistently.

I managed to get five invitations — one for each member of my family. Yet, all complain consistently about various problems they have encountered with Google Voice and have begged to stop using it. The last time I looked, there were 1.5 million registered Google Voice accounts, but only 580,000 active users. The majority of registered users aren’t using it.

I suppose it’s easy to be attracted by the promise of tomorrow but doing so means dealing with the problems of today. Most people should stay away until it becomes more stable. To me, that means at least connecting a higher percentage of calls, reliably sending the e-mail or SMS alerts about voice messages, and allowing more flexibility when setting it up.

Google Voice isn’t horrible; it’s just not ready for prime time. So for a while, it’s mostly a product for tech enthusiasts or those who absolutely need one of its unique capabilities.

Still, keep your eyes peeled because some day it just might help change the world.

Editor’s note: David Radin is a national radio show host and business consultant. You can reach him at www.megabyteminute.com.

I have a newfound appreciation for the people on the other end of the customer support phone lines at all those companies about which we have complained during the past decade. And we all complain — loudly at times — about the long wait times, the endless stream of prompts before we get to the live person, about reaching the wrong person who can’t help us and even about the thick accents that we have trouble understanding.

In the past, I have done customer support — both setting up small operations that take occasional calls, and even being a customer support rep myself. But that pales next to working in a company that does product support on a large scale. And lately, because my company has grown so fast, it has become one of them. (As all my friends say, “But that’s a good problem.”)

When you get hundreds of calls a week, you see patterns. Unfortunately, some of the patterns make people look less smart than I’ve always given them credit for.

Management of usernames and passwords comes to mind as the most common place for average people to show below-average intelligence. We all have them for our bank accounts, voice mailboxes and various other accounts. Some people, though, are just not smart enough to write them down. We encountered one guy who called us six times within a couple weeks because he kept forgetting his password. He, of course, didn’t think he forgot it. He blamed the system.

If you use a system only occasionally, you might forget it, and that’s fine. Most Web services have a way for you to instantaneously reset your password and receive it by e-mail. The link is usually right next to the login fields or perhaps on the page that indicates you didn’t login correctly. In most cases, it’s easy to find. It will say “Forgot password?” or “Having trouble logging in?” or something similar. All you need to do to get your password by e-mail is to click the link and then enter your username, screen name or e-mail address, so the system operator can make sure you are the right person. Then it sends you an e-mail with a new password or your existing password.

The process takes only seconds. Yet, there are people who call customer support instead and then complain because it takes too long. If you want it instantly, use the instant method.

There are lots of reasons for users to go brain dead. But the one that I find most interesting is that they’re in a rush, and they panic, because they didn’t give themselves enough time to learn how to use the system to do their tasks. The result is that they often try to offload some portion of their task to the customer support reps, most often expecting a tutorial on the spot.

No wonder so many companies hide their phone numbers and use lots of phone prompts before allowing the user to reach a real human.

Perhaps we can all identify with one or more of these behaviors. I know I have at times been quick to pick up the phone to ask for help. But now I know a little better. The person supporting you by phone is a lot like the cashier at the supermarket check-out. As soon as one shopper is through, another one is ready to go. The support personnel want to deal with people who at least try, not with those who turn off their brains before picking up the phone.

It’s a challenge for them, and for you, to think first.

Editor’s note: David Radin is a national radio show host and business consultant. You can reach him at www.megabyteminute.com.

The Jitterbug phone from Samsung is a cell phone like none I’ve ever used.

It’s the perfect no-frills phone, because you can make calls simply and quickly without the usual distractions of most cell phones. As a basic phone, it’s reminiscent of the old standard desk phone. So it’s great for the technically challenged and for those who want no more than a way to call friends and family.

If you want the bells and whistles of most cell phones, it won’t be on your top-10 list.

The first thing that attracted me to the Jitterbug — which is also the name of the service that runs it — was its large buttons and displays. I would have felt comfortable handing it to my in-laws and asking them to use it, knowing that they’ve never made a cell phone call in their lives. But the Jitterbug is substantial, at least as much as the cordless home phones that still reach from ear to mouth if you hold them to the side of your face. And its buttons are large enough for even the most non-dexterous fingers. Best of all, the fonts are large. My wife loves them because she is always fumbling with her glasses to see small fonts, and she doesn’t have to do that with the Jitterbug.

If you want to take a picture with your phone, though, you’re out of luck. Don’t look to carry around your appointment book or list of things to do, either.

It’s just a phone.

Even the texting capability is very one-dimensional. It can text but only to one person at a time. It doesn’t suggest words through a pop-up dictionary. And, if you noticed that you made a mistake with a previously typed character, you have to backspace all the characters in between to replace the one that is a problem.

Yes, the Jitterbug is quirky. But some of those quirks make it better. When you open up the clamshell, for instance, you hear a dial-tone, just like when you pick up a traditional home phone. It makes you feel at home. There are no fancy navigation buttons. Just up and down arrows, along with a “yes” key and a “no” key. The yes and no keys let you answer questions like “Select phone book?” Any time you want to make a selection, press yes. To cancel it or ignore a selection, press no. These two keys even act like a start-call and end-call button that you find on most cell phones.

While this makes simple tasks simpler, the lack of frills can sometimes make things a bit tougher. For one, there is no noticeable way to skip through your phone book. You have to look at entries by scrolling with the up and down arrows.

The phone works on the Jitterbug network, which in the past has been a cobbled-together set of independent cell phone companies. But a recent agreement the company made with VerizonWireless will soon have Jitterbug piggybacking its service onto VerizonWireless’ national network. That bodes well for Jitterbug users who will gain the advantage of more cells on a broader network.

Although Jitterbug, the company, doesn’t have a wide variety of phones from which to choose, it does provide an interesting point solution for a segment of the market that seems to be left in the dust as more companies concentrate on complicated feature-rich phones and iPhone look-alikes that attract users with a wide variety of applications. Jitterbug, instead, is a dose of the good old days, when telephones simply made phone calls and emitted a friendly dial tone.

Editor’s note: David Radin is a national radio show host and business consultant. You can reach him at www.megabyteminute.com.

Want to quickly access podcasts on a portable device without using a computer? Remember the name CastGrabber.

by David Radin

Many of us know that podcasts are recorded programs available on the Internet. In 2008, after all, 2.6 individual-episode podcasts were downloaded by viewers and listeners.

Most of those required a computer to do the download. While many of them were undoubtedly watched on those same computers, a growing number of podcasts are being synchronized to and consumed on portable devices like iPods, MP3 players and multimedia cell phones. (Why do you think the word pod is part of the word podcast?)

If you need a computer to download and sync it, though, it’s not quite as portable as it could be. So, Pittsburgh native John Hammer and his team of engineers set out to do something about it. The result was CastGrabber, a device about the size of a pint milk carton that grabs the podcasts you want to hear or view, and syncs them directly with your portable media device.

Although Hammer is starting to get some movement into more mass-oriented retailers, you’ll more easily find the product at specialty retailer Datavision and on CastGrabber’s Web site (www.castgrabber.net).

Hammer describes three types of consumers who prefer to use a device like CastGrabber instead of a computer to pull down podcasts from the Internet: (1) sophisticated Internet users who do a lot of listening to or watching podcasts but don’t want to deal with computers at home — a separation of home and work; (2) computer users who have lots of PCs but not enough open USB ports; and (3) young teens who want to get their favorite podcasts but don’t want to interrupt their parents’ use of their family computers when they want to download their favorite podcasts.

The desirability of CastGrabber lies in the convenience of not always needing a computer to synchronize your favorite podcasts. Since many podcasts come in episodes, this convenience factor could be quite attractive.

Setting up CastGrabber involves connecting it to your broadband network, downloading a small audio file to your portable media player (iPod, MP3 player, cell phone) or USB flash drive and then typing the name of the file into a screen at the CastGrabber Web site to register your device.

In an optimal world, this takes only a few minutes. And, if your device were an iPod, that would indeed happen. It might take longer, however, for other types of devices. When I tried downloading the file to several cell phones, I couldn’t get it to work. Yet, I was able to download directly to a USB drive with no problem. So now I have a flash drive full of interesting programs, ranging from BusinessWeek’s “Behind This Week’s Cover Story” to Adam Graham’s “The Bargain Minute” to “Harvard Business IdeaCast” to Harvey Mackay’s personal blog. OK, they’re not all interesting. Still, you can subscribe to any available podcast that appeals to you. If you decide to use CastGrabber with a flash drive, you can listen or watch on almost any computer.

Once you set up your account, it’s as easy as plug and sync. Your CastGrabber, with a retail price of $130, connects directly to a port on your Internet router, where you can keep it forever. Then, whenever you want to update your podcasts, simply plug your media device or flash drive into the CastGrabber. It will connect to the server and automatically pull down the latest episodes of any podcast to which you have subscribed. You can change your subscription preferences by logging into the CastGrabber Web site.

CastGrabber registers each of your devices separately. So, if you have access to multiple CastGrabbers, you can use any of them to sync your device — and each device will get the correct podcasts … conveniently.

Editor’s note: David Radin is a national radio show host and business consultant. You can reach him at www.megabyteminute.com.