Ramblings about IT in the cloud

My professional passion is RF/microwave/wireless engineering, but as an independent business owner it makes a lot of sense to stay on top of things that keep the time and cost overhead for mundane tasks as low as possible.

For us here at RFdude.com LLC (me, myself, and I -- with some help from my wife and other help occasionally hired on), the cloud based services have really simplified things.  The costs are low, the setup is easy, and they are accessible with just a web browser (and by other means if you prefer, especially on mobile devices).   I have no intention of going into any depth on the technical side -- just to say what I like and why.

Google Apps -- the way to go in my opinion.    After getting an account through one of my clients for online collaboration purposes, I was instantly hooked.

The three areas I want to touch on are right here::  

• Email: Gmail
• The huge storage, excellent organizational/ search/ labeling/ processing capabilities, and powerful web interface make the installation of client software completely unnecessary.   You can install client software but I see no reason to invite that headache.  
• Google spam filtering is pretty decent, they sure have the database to work with.
• Calendar:  
• Google's calendar is pretty no-frills but works very well.   Sharing with colleagues while also sharing with your spouse to coordinate your busy lives is incredibly easy.
• "Office suite":
• The google apps suite is perhaps the piece that has evolved the most over time, but it remains on the "low frills" side.
• I've not dumped Microsoft office just yet, but my use of MS office is very limited
• The ability to have multiple people online, editing/viewing the same document simultaneously is just cool.   This isn't rocket science but I do this regularly with folks three time zones away, usually on informal documentation, but it just plain works.
• I use the spreadsheet application online for all project tracking/accounting, invoicing, and to house my collection of basic engineering calculators.

Google apps, generally speaking, plays pretty well on mobile devices too.   I'm a die-hard Android fan but we also have a couple ios devices around the house which seem to be well supported by Google.

All of the features mentioned here are available for free through individual google accounts; using them in organizations for business where some of the collaboration comes more easily and storage is increased significantly is $50/user/year as of the time I'm writing this.  Give them a try!