Categories
Inside Track SAP Technology

SAP Inside Track NYC 2017 Agenda Now Available

I’m pleased to announce a great lineup of sessions for SITNYC 2017! Ranging from Blockchain to MLS, HANA Big Data to SAP Leonardo; SITNYC has a great lineup of sessions on tap. We’ve got SAP Mentors, independent thinkers and SAP speakers ready to share their expertise with the SAP Community. All you need to do is register.
(Please note: registration will close Friday 11/3 at noon, in order to allow for building access to be processed.)

There are some really good sessions on tap. If you’ve been thinking about a day trip to the city, this would be the perfect opportunity. On top of some cool presentations, you’ll get the chance to spend the day in one of the coolest new development spaces in NYC: the SAP Leonardo Center. SAP’s Next-Gen Lab area, it is a really neat maker space and a great place to have an event like SAP Inside Track! I was able to get a sneak peek at the location while attending a SAP Analytics meeting at the adjacent Executive Briefing Center:

Innovators Wanted!

As you can see, it’s going to be a great day of community delivered learning and networking. Last ditch friendly reminder: Registration is still open, but will close Friday 11/3 at noon, in order to allow for building access to be processed. Questions? Easiest way is to ask myself or John Astill via Twitter. See you at Hudson Yards!

Categories
BI/Analytics Microsoft Technology

On the way to…Microsoft Ignite 2017

This episode of ‘On the way to…’ is once again brought to you by my house. I tried to get a picture of Charlie on my easy chair, but that didn’t work out. I ended up finishing this blog on my back deck, so you’ll have to settle for a picture from there instead.

Yes, you read that right. Microsoft Ignite/Microsoft Envision. For the first time in 8 years, I won’t be at SAP TechEd. I am totally bummed out that I won’t be with my fellow SAP Mentors for our 10th Anniversary celebration, as well as the ASUG Volunteers and other nerds; but sometimes corporate funding priorities and additional job responsibilities make for changes in the direction of the winds.

After the impact of Hurricane Irma, I was unsure if the I-Drive corridor would be back in business for 20,000 attendees. But emails from Microsoft say that OCCC is ready and they’re going on with the show. They are doing a non-perishable item collection, so I’m hoping that there’s a lot of donations made.

For the first time in a while, I am going into a major technical conference as a ‘new’ attendee. I’ve done as much due diligence as I can: watched Microsoft’s videos, read the MS Tech Community and combed through a bit of Twitter. Here’s some of the tidbits I’ve gathered:

  • We’re at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. This makes me happy as a long-time ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire attendee. I’ve got a full understanding of the lay of the land and am surprised to see that Microsoft is only using the South Hall and not both.  But they are using the West Hall, which ASUG Annual Conference doesn’t use.  With my Envision pass, I will also have access to  sessions at the Hilton.  Microsoft is also using the Hyatt Regency for session rooms and auditorium space.  (Sidebar: I remember when it was The Peabody.  I wonder where the ducks went?)  All of that means one thing: comfortable shoes are a requirement. Sneakers are likely my standard shoe by Wednesday afternoon!
  • 20,000 people are expected.  Another good parallel to ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire.  At least I’m used to handling big conference crowds.
  • The swag is on point and I should get to the expo floor early to grab some.
  • There are plenty of BI & Analytics sessions, but they are definitely spread out amongst the campus.  I’ve been spending a lot of my time trying to come up with a good travel plan.

We’re at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. This makes me happy as a long-time ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire attendee. I’ve got a full understanding of the lay of the land and am surprised to see that Microsoft is only using the South Hall and not both. But they are using the West Hall, which ASUG Annual Conference doesn’t use. With my Envision pass, I will also have access to sessions at the Hilton. Microsoft is also using the Hyatt Regency for session rooms and auditorium space. (Sidebar: I remember when it was The Peabody. I wonder where the ducks went?) All of that means one thing: comfortable shoes are a requirement. Sneakers are likely my standard shoe by Wednesday afternoon!
20,000 people are expected. Another good parallel to ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire. At least I’m used to handling big conference crowds.
The swag is on point and I should get to the expo floor early to grab some.
There are plenty of BI & Analytics sessions, but they are definitely spread out amongst the campus. I’ve been spending a lot of my time trying to come up with a good travel plan.

Now, there are some questions that I don’t think I’ll be able to answer until my boots are on the ground:

  • What is the ‘actual’ dress code?  I am thinking by the speakers and topics on the Envision schedule, that their dress code will be more business casual and there won’t be much deviation. I’ll get the feel for that on Monday,  but will ‘dress up’ a bit more than usual on Monday.  The Ignite side seems a bit more casual, so I’ll just have to wait and see!
  • How does everyone interact?  Is it more like ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire or SAP TechED?  More techies that business users?  Equal mix?  More suits than sneakers?  I’m pretty good at figuring out these vibes and am looking forward to the challenge.
  • Sessions?  How are they run? How do the speakers interact with the attendees?  To be honest, I’m really interested to see the Microsoft format to compare to SAP.
  • Overall vibe. You can tell the difference between SAP TechEd and ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire.  There’s something innate in the air surrounding each event and if you’ve been to both, you know what I’m talking about.  I’m really interested in seeing what kind of vibe my ‘spider senses’ can hone in on.

What will be a new feeling is going to a major technical event without knowing a single person. My Microsoft BI contact? Nope. A good friend who is a Microsoft Account Executive? Can’t make it. The only person I have a meeting with is my corporate Account Executive. Which will be nice, since I’ve never met him before. But other than that, I have zero plans and no drinking buddies. Staci says that I’m always making friends, so I’ve got that going for me! But honestly, I may just lay low, take in the landscape and go where the winds take me. Or a car. I will have a rental, so I may just visit Disney Springs for some early Christmas shopping one night or drop in on my family.

I’ll be keeping an eye on all the SAP Mentors 10th Anniversary excitement, as well as trying to check out whatever ‘Big Data’ announcement SAP will be making from TechEd. If you see or hear anything from Las Vegas that you’d like to share, tweet me. I’m looking forward to posting a new kind of trip report in a few weeks, too. If you’re going to Orlando or Las Vegas, safe travels. See you in Orlando next week (and hopefully next June for ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire 2018)!

(This blog also posted on SCN and will do the same for the post-conference blog.)

Categories
Inside Track SAP

SAP Inside Track NYC 2017: SIT returns to NYC!

Bright Lights, Big City

After a short hiatus, it’s great to announce the return of SAP Inside Track to the Big Apple. Thanks to some ‘gentle’ nudging from Tammy Powlas, John Astill and I are teaming up to bring SITNYC to the newest and coolest SAP space around- Hudson Yards! The SAP Leonardo Center has generously donated the use of their fantastic facility

We’re looking for a ‘few good presentations’ to bring your stories and lessons to the SAP community. Remember- Inside Tracks are COMMUNITY driven events, we want to hear from everyone: customers, partners and SAP employees. All that is required is the desire to share that story with folks in a supremely cool location. In the greatest city in the world, of course. WORK!

Hamilton references aside, we’re really looking forward to a day of great content, networking and learning. No SAP topic is off the table and the only thing we require is: NO sales pitches. HANA, ECC, Analytics Cloud, BusinessObjects, Leonardo? Cool! The only thing that matters is that you mash the ‘Submit a Session’ link here: http://j.mp/SAPITNYC_SP and register here!

Event Details

Date: November, 6th 2017

Time: 9:00am-5:00pm

Location:
SAP Hudson Yards
10 Hudson Yards
New York, NY 10001

Agenda:
Current agenda on SAP Community Network

Thanks for SAP Leonardo team and the SAP Mentor team for their financial support of the event!!

Please feel free to reach out to John or myself with any questions. See you at Inside Track NYC!

 

Categories
ASUG BI/Analytics SAP Technology

BI + Analytics Conference 2017: Picks from my agenda

Thanks for listening to the July 13th webcast ‘Meet Customer Speakers for BI + A Conference’ with myself and Jennifer Cofer! To get the session picks started, I’m going to start with some blatant self promotion with Jennifer and my sessions.

I will be adding picks from the webcast to this post several times before the conference starts and will announce the updates on Twitter. Feel free to subscribe to be automatically updated, too. See you at BI + Analytics 2017 in Nashville!

Day 1: Monday, August 7

  • 2:45pm: Pushing Web Intelligence to the Limit: Real World Implementation (Jeff Young, University of Utah Healthcare)
  • 3:40pm: Creating a COE the Efficient and Effective Way (Me)

Day 2: Tuesday, August 8

AM

  • 11:20am: Usable Tips for Making Your Web Intelligence Reports Sing (Bret Holmes, University of Washington)
  • 12:15pm: Beautiful & Usable Analytics for Better User Experiences (Eric Vallo, EV Technologies)

OR

  • 11:20am: SAP Predictive Analytics for the Analytics Power User (Debraj Roy, SAP; Dallas Marks & Greg Myers, EV Technologies) [2 Session Hands-on]

PM:

  • 2:10pm: Providing IoT Analytics with SAP BusinessObjects (Charles Reeves, Graphic Packaging International)
  • 3:30pm: DIY-BI: Data Analytics & Dashboarding with SAP Lumira at Mead Johnson Nutrition (Jai Prakash, Mead Johnson Nutrition)

Day 3: Wednesday, August 9

AM:

  • 10:45am: What’s Happening at the City of Mesa? Creating Interactive Dashboards in Web Intelligence (Jared Hansen & Melissa Jones, City of Mesa, AZ)
  • 11:40am: How to Become a Visualization Guru: Tips & Tricks on SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Charts (Jennifer Cofer, Providence Health & Pascal Gualin, SAP)
  • BONUS 11:40am SESSION: Increasing Adoption & Engagement with Lumira & Design Studio SDK (Mike Howles, International Paper)

PM

  • 1:30pm: Driving User Adoption of Self-Serve BI+Analytics (Jim Cull, Zurich Insurance)
  • 2:25pm: Healthcare BI Management & Related EHR Upgrades: How Beaumont Health Prevails through the Highs and Lows (Jeffrey Morrison, Beaumont Health)
Categories
ASUG SAP

On the way to…ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire 2017

This installment of ‘On the way to…’ is brought to you by- my house! I’ve decided to get this entry out to my blog earlier than the usual ‘day of traveling’ edition. (But I will post the usual SCN version from the airport.)

Let’s get right to it…I think there’s a lot at stake for SAP Analytics with the ‘world premiere’ of Lumira 2.0 and I suspect that customer feedback will be immediate. They’ve had a lot of time and several attempts to get within striking distance of Tableau, Power BI and others in the marketplace. I don’t think customers are looking for a direct point by point competitor any more, but something that is going to make their lives easier working with their SAP data. If it doesn’t make things easier, I’m going to start pressing for SAP to make up with Microsoft and put back the UNX connector into Power BI Desktop. (I’m thinking that this topic may be a separate blog after the dust settles.)

That being said- here’s a few selections that are on my conference agenda. Some I’m presenting at and others I’m really just interested in listening to the material. If you do decide to attend any of these, try and save me a seat if the room gets crowded, OK? Just send a tweet to @golasalle or look for SAP Mentor jersey #212 and point me to where I’m sitting!!

Tuesday:

HS6529- Heal Thyself: Self-Service Analytics at Mercy (12:30-1:30pm, S310A)
I’m always down for a good healthcare analytics story and if it’s presented by my good friend and fellow Diversified Semantic Layer podcast teammate, then even better. I would highly recommend seeing Jamie when he presents, so feel free to join me.

Wednesday:

BIA9214: BI Community Networking (11:00am-12:00pm, ASUG Hub on the show floor)
Come and meet other ASUG BI volunteers and community members while networking with other analytics professionals. If an ASUG Volunteer doesn’t know the answer to your question, they should be able to point you in the direction of where to turn! Bring some business cards and get your networking game going!

BIA6466: World Premiere of SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0 Including SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio (12:30-1:30pm, S310A)
Like I mentioned above, I think a lot rides on the successful rollout of Lumira 2.0. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one that thinks that, so this session may be one of those “can’t miss” sessions in Orlando.

Thursday:

BIA7625: Interactive Influence: SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence (3:30-4:30pm, Third Floor Influence 3)
Want to influence where WebI is headed? Want to hang out with me ONE more time (other than at the Hilton Lobby Bar)? Join SAP’s Gregory Botticchio as we lead a Design Thinking session around topics attendees would like to see covered by the ASUG Web Intelligence Influence Council.

(On a personal note- It’s been a while since I blogged and I apologize for that. But I’m going to try and be more productive in 2017, so hopefully this will be part of a good start.)

Categories
ASUG SAP

Community BI Learning at ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire 2017

One of the best things about heading to Orlando are the networking opportunities. The sessions and keynotes are great, and the show floor can really help you find the right product or partner to accelerate your business. But one constant at ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire is the strength of networking available. You can find like-minded individuals from companies big and small who are going through the same issues you are, or have faced that issue down and solved it in a way that may save you time or money!

ASUG gives you the chance to come and meet other attendees interested in the same technology or business area down in the ASUG Hub. If you’re interested in Business Intelligence or Analytics, the ASUG BI Community is hosting a Community Lounge on Wednesday, 5/17 from 11:00am to Noon in the ASUG Hub. Come and mingle with ASUG BI Volunteers, SAP Mentors and anyone with an interest in the BI community that I can drag into the lounge!!

We’ll be looking to engage anyone who wants to talk BI & Analytics, general networking and anything else. Please feel free to bring your questions, if the Volunteers, Mentors or attendees can’t answer them- someone will know who to direct your question to!

Here’s the link to add to your agenda: https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=153&sid=46851_468509&locale=en_US

I look forward to seeing everyone in the ASUG Hub!

Categories
Personal Techie Technology

MacBook Pro 13 w/Touch Bar: First Impressions

Noticeable things coming from using a MacBook Air 11:

  • Keep hitting the ESC key, as that’s where my pinky would normally sit.
  • I need to get used to the MUCH larger trackpad.  Definitely had to change typing position of my wrists.
  • Add getting used to Force Touch to the list.  Still trying to get used to moving things around without engaging Force Touch.
  • Add getting used to Force Touch to the list.  Still trying to get used to moving things around without engaging Force Touch.
  • Bigger screen makes a LOT of difference with seeing things a lot more clearly!
  • It’s taking me a bit more time to deal with the ‘butterfly’ keyboard than the standard MBA/silver MBP keyboard.
    • Definitely something that needs time to get used to, especially the reach between the palm rest and keys and the key travel times.
      • One month later: still getting used to it.  I don’t think it’s as easy for touch typists, in my opinion.  But I am getting used to it.  Hopefully I’ll be ready by ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire 2017.  I am definitely going to need to be on my ‘A’ game, typing-wise.

New things with the MacBook Pro that are leaving an impression:

  • All USB-C  ports requires dongles… and it’s just as annoying as you would think.
    • One month in and I have had to buy:
      • USB-C Cable ($10)
      • USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapters (3) ($30)
      • USB-C to Micro USB Adapter (2) ($7)
      • USB-C to HDMI Adapter ($15)
      • USB-C to VGA Adapter ($15)
    • Luckily I already had a USB-C  hub, so that’s money staying in my pocket. But I need to have it to use my CAT-5 network adapter or pay $20 for a USB-C version.
  • The 8 GB RAM/256 GB SSD is very snappy coming from 4 GB/128 GB SSD in the MBA 11.
  • Retina screen is definitely a nice upgrade from the MBA 11!
    • Still need to figure out the resolution vs text size settings to find the most comfortable viewing size.
    • I keep swapping back from full-size to zoomed-in since I’m trying trying to balance resolution and app sizes with comfortable text sizing.  Although to be fair, this only really seems to be an issue when I’m tired.  Maybe I’m just getting old!!

Touch Bar Impressions:

  • Where there is app support, it’s a ‘nice to have’.  Microsoft Office has really jumped out in front, especially Outlook.  OneNote is a bit lacking in Touch Bar support, though.
  • Still playing with the default setup.  I like the application specific icons (when available), but wish I could have a few more options in the ‘default’ expandable bar.
  • I really wish that instead of the Touch Bar, Apple would’ve gone with a Touch Screen.  I’ve used the one on the Dell XPS 13 and really appreciated the touch screen for my workflow, as opposed to the Touch Bar.

Portability Notes:

  • I really got used to the super-light MBA 11, but the MBP is only slightly taller and thicker than the MBA 11 when closed.  At the end of the day, I don’t mind the slightly heftier MBP 13 (3.48 lbs vs 2.38 lbs on the MNBA 11) to gain the screen real estate.
  • ASUG Annual Conference/Sapphire is on the docket for May and will look to see how it compares to the MBA 11 in a real-world, ‘carry it around all day’ scenario.

Price thoughts:

  • I am still trying to decide on the cost-benefit ratio, to be honest. If I wasn’t already big into the Apple ecosystem, I was strongly considering the Dell XPS 13.  Comparing  Apple Refurb to Dell Outlet prices, the XPS 13 was a much better deal.
  • If you’re locked into a particular ecosystem, that’s one thing.  But if you’re a free agent and self-sufficient in not downloading random stuff or clicking squishy links in your email; Windows 10 and the Dell XPS 13 may have a better cost/benefit ratio for web-surfing and office documents.  You’ll need to weigh your personal preferences in applications and workflow versus cost and specifications.

Final conclusion to be submitted after May’s conference travels.

Categories
Uncategorized

Chromebook: One Month Later

We’re one month+ of my last Chromebook blog and I’ve had a chance to use it in a variety of different situations, including:

  • Travelling Companion
  • Coffee Shop/Mobile Work
  • TV ‘second screen’

My verdict? Not bad! But I wouldn’t give up a full-blown laptop to use the C720 as my ‘daily driver’. For comparison purposes, here’s the computer the Chromebook was up against- a Dell Inspiron 11z (1121). The specs are:

  • 11.6″ Glossy WLCD screen w/ 1366×768 resolution
  • Intel Core i3-ULV processor
  • 120GB SSD
  • 6GB RAM
  • Windows 7 SP1

Here’s why:

Keyboard:

The C720’s keyboard is mushy and has a lot of play. I just don’t find myself using it as efficiently as the Dell’s keyboard. Even my work laptop (HP Elitebook 3650p) has a better keyboard.

Trackpad:

The C720’s trackpad is just OK. It’s responsive, but the clicks just don’t feel ‘natural’. The main issue is that my typing style/hand placement are forever moving the cursor to the middle of a sentence I’ve already written. That is quite frustrating.

Screen Clarity:

The C720 has a 11.6″ matte screen with the same 1366×768 resolution as the Dell 11z. Textlooks much brighter and crisper on the the Dell’s WLCD glossy panel than on the C720. Heck, the non-retina screen on my old iPad 2 looks nicer than the C720’s screen! The C720 just looks washed out and at times makes me think that I should have splurged on the HP 11 Chromebook with its nicer screen. But the performance and price difference of the C720 won that battle.

Performance:

I’ve only had a few minor instances of the C720 lagging and that’s only when I was pushing 10+ tabs on the Chromebook, with Crouton running Citrix in full screen. If I stick to just tabs in Chrome, it’s pretty darn snappy.

One Month Verdict:

I’m lucky that I have the ability to choose which machine to use based on what I need to get done! If I’m going to be typing for a while and really looking at the screen, I’ll grab the Dell. If I need to do some light Citrix with some typing and need other ‘apps’, I’ll grab the iPad 2 with keyboard. If I’m just browsing the web and need to do some emails, the Chromebook would win that one out.

But right now, the Chromebook has surplanted the iPad 2 as my ‘armchair’ tool of choice for now. But I waffle between that and my iPad. More importantly, I have no hesitations recommending the Chromebook for that task, as well as for those who really just need a web browsing machine.

 

Categories
Technology

Brave New World? My Chromebook first impressions

After a whole lot of research and investigation, I finally decided to recommend a Chromebook for my mother’s next computer.  All she really does is browse the internet.  Video chatting?  By the time her old Celeron powered Microsoft Vista ‘laptop’ booted up, no one really wanted to video chat anymore.  So I wanted to find a cheaper way of accomplishing what she needs and a Chromebook seemed to be a good option.

Getting up and running was easy and the Acer C720 I purchased was quite snappy.  So when my father in law wanted help with a new computer, I suggested the larger HP 14 Chromebook.  He travels for work, but other than helping him the first time he had to connect to the internet, he hasn’t called with an issue in months.

So…I figured if I was going to support them- I was going to need one myself.  (Well, that and I had an Amazon gift card burning a hole in my pocket.)  One click later and on the way was a matching Acer C720 like my mom’s.  I wanted something lighter and portable and was willing to trade the better IPS screen of the HP 11 Chromebook for the C720’s more powerful Haswell processor (even if it’s a Celeron).

Setup

After a warm up from being left outside (winter delivery FTW), the C720 booted right up, asked to pick a wireless network and downloaded the latest updates.  Once I signed in (with my primary Google account, since I have several), I was greeted with the home screen.  First order of business- put it into ‘Developer Mode’.  Once that was done and the Chromebook ‘powerwashed’ itself, I signed back in, fired up a command shell and installed Crouton.  XFCE Linux allowed me to install Firefox.  Some command line changes in XFCE and I now had a working Citrix Receiver.  This allowed me to connect to my Win 7 Virtual Machines.  Now I really could use my Chromebook on the run.

Franken-Chromebook
My Acer 720 running a Win7 VM in XFCE inside a Crouton shell on ChromeOS.

 

Travelling with the Chromebook

So, I was scheduled to head to Vancouver, Canada for SAP dCode Inside at the BusinessObjects ‘mothership’ and decided to bring my Chromebook as my main PC, along with my iPad Mini.  (My work laptop was along for the ride, in case of a serious issue.. This ‘job insurance’ added 5 pounds to my carry-on bag- UGH!)  In order to maximize my carry-on, I used my normal computer backpack (Samsonite Tectonic M) rather than my ‘go bag’ (Mountainsmith Small Messenger).

One problem appeared when I got to Canada.  No power cord!!  I thought I was being slick- since the Acer and HP both shared the same cord (from the power brick to the outlet), I’d bring one for both.  I was in for a bit of a surprise when I was unpacking and saw no power cord.  This changed my plan a bit, so I powered off the Chromebook to save the battery.  I used one of my 12 free GoGo Inflght credits on the way, so the battery was down to around 90%.  Since I needed to get a full day out of it on Tuesday,off it went.

When I booted up at 9am Tuesday morning, the battery was still around 85-90%.  I decided to go all in and spin up Linux and connect to a VM for email and Lync, switching back and forth to the Chromebook to keep my notes in Google Docs.  I do like the seamless switching that Crouton gives you…very nice!  By the end of the day, a full 8 hours later- the battery meter was at 15%.  With the exception of an hour for lunch, the Acer was running and connected to Wifi.  I can’t complain about the battery!  And lucky for me, I didn’t forget a charger and cable for my iPad Mini, so I had entertainment on the plane ride home.

Conclusion

Are there things missing from the Chromebook?  Yup.  Unless you have a Google Cloud compatible printer or a computer connected to a printer with Chrome running, you’re out of luck printing.  And yes, if you’re not connected to the internet you really can’t do anything.  But if you’re reading this and thinking about a Chromebook, you already knew that.

Do I like the Chromebook?  Yup, I do. It’s been a great ‘second screen’ while watching TV.  It also is portable and quiet.  It’s also light enough that I’ve been grabbing it to head out to Starbucks to write, instead of my iPad 2 with keyboard.

What do I wish the Chromebook had?  To be honest, I’m missing some tools that I would love as ‘Chrome Apps’ (apps that work offline).  If Evernote or Microsoft OneNote would come up with one, I would be totally psyched.  GDocs is good but the image inserting doesn’t really seem to keep pace with Evernote/OneNote for my blog writing style.

Would I recommend the Chromebook?  Yes, with conditions.  I wouldn’t recommend it as a primary machine to anyone outside my parents age bracket.  Most folks still have a need for some applications that aren’t Chrome Apps or some form of offline app.  Would I use the Chromebook to replace my Windows or Mac machines?  Not as a daily driver.  But as a ‘second screen’ or light ‘companion’ machine, you really can’t do any better than a Chromebook.  Especially for less than 200 bucks!

Categories
Technology

Home Cloud Providers…My take

My friend John Appleby penned a post on his blog (People, Process & Technology), waxing poetic about the different cloud providers he was using at home and his thoughts on how they were working out.  I started to write a pretty lengthy comment with my opinion, but it ended up being WAY too long for a blog comment.  But short enough for a blog entry!  Here we go…my take on personal cloud providers.

Music- iTunes Match & Amazon Music

I signed up for iTunes Match and it seems to work fine.  With a tween daughter, I am mainly buying music via the iTunes store because it makes managing music on her iPhone easy to manage.  Since I am an Amazon Prime member, Amazon Music makes pretty good sense since the 20GB Cloud Drive storage comes with Prime and music does NOT count against that limit.  I end up using Amazon Music as my ‘backup’ for iTunes.  Since my iTunes library lives on an iMac, I usually run the Amazon MP3 sync application once a month or so to upload/match everything to the cloud.  It also allows me to get to my library from my Win7 laptop (small SSD, so minimal music stored locally) and my Kindle Fire HD.  Frankly, I use Pandora One much more than my local iTunes library.  Then again, my iTunes Recent Purchases playlist looks like a Tween girl’s: OneDirection, Demi Lovato and Taylor Swift.  

File Storage: Many!

Ah..this is the doozy.  I have an account for all of the main players: Dropbox, Amazon Cloud, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive.  Dropbox is my main vehicle of choice, mainly for the super-swift syncing.  I have rarely had an issue with Dropbox syncing anything.  But I am almost out of room for the free plan and I am going to need to think about what to do.  Believe it or not, I am considering switching to Microsoft SkyDrive.  I have 45GB of free space there, (additional is thanks to my Office365 subscription) and I am currently using SkyDrive to backup my Dropbox.  The setup is kinda like ‘Inception’ for cloud storage providers: I installed Dropbox on one PC, then installed SkyDrive.  Next, I moved my Dropbox to inside my SkyDrive folder.  This works pretty well, but since I have it on my notebook, it’s not an ‘always on’ sort of arrangement. I may move it to my iMac at some future point.  The Windows client for SkyDrive has been pretty solid, but I need to test it out on the Mac to be sure if I want to a full switch.  Otherwise, I might just have to pony up and buy a larger Dropbox.

Photos: iPhoto, Flickr, Picasa

This is where John and I depart a bit.  I am not even an ‘amateur’ photographer.  So iPhoto, Flickr and Picasa work perfectly fine for me.  I use iPhoto on my iMac for the pictures, where I then upload them to either Flickr or Picasa Web Albums.  Picasa is usually the web albums of choice, as Staci and I can use apps on our mobile devices to see the pictures.  This just means that I have to actually download the pictures off the camera and upload it.  I just wish that there was an ‘official’ plug-in for iPhoto and Picasa anymore.  I don’t like using the actual Picasa app on the Mac.

Email: Gmail

Easy- Gmail wins.  My domain emails are Google App based, and I have a bunch of other Gmail accounts that get used.  On my iMac, Mail.app works alright.  On Windows, Postbox is the best $10 bucks I ever spent for email.  I have Outlook 2013, but I haven’t attached any accounts, as Postbox works so well with Gmail!  The only downside to Gmail is that the Gmail App is sluggish on my iPad2 and I don’t like that there’s not push available for Gmail on iOS anymore.  This is one of the reasons I’m actually considering going Android for my next phone. (But that’s a separate post that I’m working on!)

OK…perhaps I’m not using the cloud stuff as much as John.  And I’m OK with that.  I’ve got lots of local backups going on, but am worried about physical drive failure.  That’s why I’m adding another bucket here- backup.

Backup

While my iMac is using Time Machine and has been pretty solid, I’ve had to move a lot of my media (movies, photos, large download storage) to external hard drives.  I do worry about physical drive failures for those, so I’ve started to research online backup.  I’ve narrowed it down to two providers: JungleDisk and CrashPlan.  The geek in my like JungleDisk, as I can access my backed up files via Amazon S3 storage.  But there’s a cost to that access.  Do I really want to pay that extra to access files in the cloud that I can get to already via other cloud solutions (Dropbox/SkyDrive, LogMeIn)?  

The cost-benefit analysis lead me to CrashPlan.  CrashPlan+ Unlimited is only $4 a month for one PC, compared to almost double for JungleDisk+S3 (but with multi-computer access).  All of the drives I will be backing up are connected to one computer (the iMac), so the single PC charge is OK.  (I am installing DropBox on Abby’s Macbook to backup her files, since outside of schoolwork, she doesn’t have anything that doesn’t reside on the iMac.  I will fully worry about her situation when she gets to high school.)  

CrashPlan seems to get high marks, so I’ll be making use of it post haste.

Well, that about does it for this blog comment blog.  Stay tuned for a quick review of CrashPlan, as well as a post where I try to figure out whether to go iOS or Android for my new phone.