The most important aspect of cloud computing is obviously online storage. This is widely available [for free] by signing up to various services from various providers. Windows Live SkyDrive, for instance, combines storage with the social aspect of sharing. With the 5GB you get, you can upload anything and generate a special URL to hand out to someone else.

While this is a great idea, that’s where it stops. Live Mesh is similar in respects of providing online storage. It distinguishes itself by adding synchronization and remote access to the mix.

Your data in the mesh

Live Mesh currently supports only one type of device: the Windows PC, but plans to add full support of mobile devices and Macintoshes.

After adding a device, data of your choosing will be copied around autonomously as you use them. The data will also be copied up to the cloud (if you want), so you’re always able to gain access to important data, even when you’re not in the vicinity of your computer.

Access your devices remotely

Another feature provided by Live Mesh is the seamless ability to gain remote access to the devices added to the service. Access any computer from any other computer, or, alternatively, access any computer from the Internet as well. In the latter case, you’ll be controlling your computer through a browser plug-in, so, any computer with a speedy Internet connection and a browser will suffice.

In a nutshell, that’s what Live Mesh is. The most important thing to know about this technology is that it primarily uses peer-to-peer technology to funnel your data between computers. Data-circulation this way is unlimited, while moving data up to the cloud is currently limited to 5GB. A subset of your shared data, in case you need access to it quickly while on the road.

Here’s an overview of Live Mesh’s features. It’s free, too (English only at the moment).

And, does it work?

While Live Mesh is currently in pre-beta stage (Tech Preview, as Microsoft calls it), and only offers a limited set of functionality, what it does, it does graciously. I’ve been using it for a while now and haven’t come across anything as much a hiccup. My shared folders are updated on all machines close to real-time (take into account the limitations of your Internet and network connections) and ‘I’ control which computers get which data. Sharing folders is requires a Windows Live ID.

Obviously, it doesn’t stop here. Microsoft is allegedly building a platform upon which developers can build mesh-aware applications. Mobile device & Mac support are coming down the pike as well, which may prove to be particularly interesting, since Apple’s got an outright fiasco on its hands with its MobileMe (Apple’s Cloud Computing effort, though focused on PIM).

Tech Sheet

Operating System: Windows Vista/XP
Browser: Any modern browser
Optional: Silverlight to view media files (video, photos) on the Live Desktop
Note: ActiveX is used for remote access via the browser. Internet Explorer need for this part. Not necessary if you use remote access from the Live Mesh desktop app.

Conclusion

Taking into account the early stage the project is in, it deserves friendly critique from anyone being honest. I know, it’s Microsoft. But Microsoft has some good engineers working on this project. Try it out.

[rating:4]

• WaSP Press Release
• Take the Acid3 Browser Test
• Acid3 Overview

Acid3 – on the other hand – doesn’t evaluate a single technology. It was designed to test the whole Web 2.0 experience (ECMAScript, W3C Document Model 2, etc.). It basically determines the level of interactivity a browser can deliver.

Firefox 3 B3
vs.
IE7

This extremely hard test evaluates a series of 100 criteria and exposes a number of flaws in all leading browsing suites, including IE, Opera, Safari and Firefox. Upcoming versions of Safari and Firefox are to score in the 80-90 range, whereas IE8 scores in the disappointing sub-50 range.

IE7 has been reported to flunk completely with results not even peaking above the 20% mark.

Many talented graphics artists alike are producing sleek icons without wanting a dime back for them. All you need to do is use them gracefully and give the creator some well-deserved credit.

NX06 is a slightly older set of Windows icons which could nicely do for web design as well. It’s prominently black and would perfectly fit designs that feature a lot of blacks or grays. It was inspired by Longhorn (Windows Vista’s codename) and OS X.

PNG format, size 192*192 px.

• Click here for NX06 at DeviantArt
• Direct download link (DeviantArt)
• Artist’s DeviantArt Profile

This artist has not published usage guidelines for this work. Use respectfully and give credit to the rightful owner of the work.

It supports everything you’d expect from a well-seasoned code editor, amongst other features:

• Syntax Highlighting & Syntax Folding
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Code Auto-completion
• Regular Expression Search/Replace
• Zooming
• Brace & Indent Highlighting
• Macros
• Integration into the shell

You should see Notepad++ as an all-round replacement for Windows’ built-in Notepad and a lot more. It supports a vast array of programming languages, yet is specialized enough to be used for web authoring, too: it’ll recognize nested languages effortlessly, e.g. XHTML, CSS, PHP and Javascript in one page.

Notepad++ is completely free of charge and subject to the GPL license.

• Hop over to Sourceforge and download Notepad++ for free.
• Visit this project’s homepage.

One technique you could use is:

* {
	margin: 0; padding: 0;
} 

Yes, this will neutralize everything to 0 margin and padding, but it’ll also have its effects on headings, forms, blockquotes, etc. Everything will be aligned crisply to the left side of the page, while this may not entirely be your intention.

@charset "utf-8";
/*-- Initialization Stylesheet --*/

/* v2.1, by Faruk Ates - www.kurafire.net
   Addendum by Robert Nyman - www.robertnyman.com */

/* Neutralize styling:
   Elements we want to clean out entirely: */
html, body, form, fieldset {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
	font: medium Calibri, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

/* Neutralize styling:
   Elements with a vertical margin: */
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, pre,
blockquote, ul, ol, dl, address {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

/* Apply left margin:
   Only to the few elements that need it: */
li, dd, blockquote {
	margin-left: 1em;
}

/* Miscellaneous conveniences: */
form label {
	cursor: pointer;
}
fieldset {
	border: none;
}

/* Form field text-scaling */
input, select, textarea {
	font-size: 100%;
}

‘Eye’ at the clipping from the official website:

clipped from www.eyeos.org eyeOS was thought as a new definition of Operating System, where everything inside it can be accessed from everywhere in a Network. All you need to do is to login into your eyeOS server with a normal Internet Browser, and access your personal desktop, with your applications, documents, music, movies… just like you left it last time. Currently, with the base system you can find a full suite of applications bundled, some for private use, like the file manager, a word processor, a music player, calendar, notepad or contacts manager. There are also some groupware applications, such as a group manager, a file sharing application, a group board and many more. eyeOS is Open Source If you want to start using eyeOS, you can join the International eyeOS free server, or create your own eyeOS server easily and be able to decide who can join it and customize it to your needs. Creating your own eyeOS server is actually very easy. All you need is a web server with PHP support

First off, I haven’t yet taken the time to elaborate on the full technicalities of the actual server installation of eyeOS, so I can’t pitch in on how that works out. I’ve only chiefly played with the free server, which allows you to initiate your own eyeOS account. The idea of running a OS within and OS, more concretely in your browser could be chilling for some, so you’ve been warned.

Account creation

When using the pre-configured free server over at eyeos.net getting started is a 2-step process. The only thing it requires is the desired username and password and you’re up and running. The simplicity is soothing to this point.

The UI
***

Design and user interface have been done in a simple but pleasing fashion and looks a lot like the Mac’s, which is generally a Nice Thing, yet rarely original. The sparing use of ‘eye’ candy makes the system snappy enough for real-time interaction. Windows move around swiftly, yet the system shows some inconsistencies when dealing with multiple instances.

Swift as it may be, whether this system would be eligible for use with low-speed connections is questionable.

(Any more Apple-esque design features, and I’d start to question the creativity of this project…)

Your basic toolkit
**

Booting to the ‘desktop’ (dare I say ‘webtop’?) takes less than a your average Joe can say “Holy baloney”. The blank workspace contains a shortcut to your home folder and the trashcan. Atop the screen sits a tiny launcher-like menu and contains a few commonly used applications. An enumeration of the most noteworthy ones (the synchronous naming scheme is similar to Apple’s I-syndrome — really cracks me up):

• eyeFiles (X-files, anyone?): your basic file manager
• eyeDocs: a primitive word processor, contradictorily, it only manages to process ONE type of document
• eyeCalendar
• eyeNav: a browser that browses, in your browser, go figure.

This brief list can be augmented with additional applications contributed by the community. Although many needs are met even with this small allotment of apps, functionality feels crippled somehow and road bumps make the trip a bit uneasy.

eyeFiles

The file manager has adopted the XP-styled task-based sidebar to provide you with the common file operations, since the right-click thing hasn’t made it debut yet (version 1.1 ‘Dahlia’ — hmz, flowers).

All the usual suspects are present, like creating directories, deleting, renaming and copy-paste operations. I guess you could compare this thing to an online storage solution where you provide the disk space yourself. Services like Strongspace (paid) and Windows Live SkyDrive (free but limited) provide this functionality too, save the bells and whistles of an OS.

Drag-n-drop is lacking in the iteration, though, unless dragging an icon behind another one counts for deleting.

TS has been in legal entanglements with the MPAA in the past and it doesn’t seem to be seizing any time soon. Earlier this year, the MPAA went after them because they allegedly provide illegal services to people in search of malicious torrents. TorrentSpy isn’t actually hosting any illegal files, as everyone knows. In response, access from US-based users to the site was blocked.

Yet, the MPAA will try to lift the aforementioned and force TorrentSpy to ‘spy’ (good choice of words, indeed) on its users. This, to me, is utter idiocracy and above all pretty hilarious. The crew at TS must think so too, I gather.

• TechDirt article
• TorrentSpy.com (oh MPAA, don’t sue me now)
• LeoVille Blog
• TWiT

“What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages? The authors of the Systran translation software probably never intended this application of their program. As of September 2007, translation software is almost good enough to turn grammatically correct, slang-free text from one language into grammatically incorrect, barely readable approximations in another. But the software is not equipped for 10 consecutive translations of the same piece of text. The resulting half-English, half-foreign, and totally non sequitur response bears almost no resemblance to the original.”

The principle is to feed a perfectly normal English sentence into the automated translation, which in turn will process it through ten languages and every time back to English. The result roughly corresponds to the aforementioned description. Some apt examples:

•  ”When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”
  becomes “If the moon fixes its eye like a great vector of Fleischpie of the vector of Pizzapie, is the lover.
• “A cookie is just a cookie, but fig newtons are fruit and cake.”
  becomes “Biskuit has expert of biskuit, but Newton von Fig is fruit and hardens.” [Hilarious!]
• “This machine talks gibberish, more than I do!”
  becomes “The word says more when queerer than this preoccupation in the unit of me.”

Try it out yourself.