Do you have the same password for many locations, or do you wirte down passwords to help remember them?

LastPass is a password manager that can keep track off any passwords that you use online. It can generate and length and complexity of password that you would need. It is very user friendly. This can take the hassle out of your online security.

Lastpass stores all of your passwords in an encrypted database. Your passwords are encrypted with your "LastPass" password. Lastpass never records this password so do not forget it.Also for more security you can easily set-up many different types of 2-factor authentication including Google Authenitcator or Yubikey verification.

Google is now making some updates to their popular email system. Gmail now offers increased spam blocking protection. Historically Gmail has had a reasonable amount of spam protection and only allowed in items that the user normally signed up for. Gmails new Spam system is going to deliver mails marked as spam (that fail their new standards, old email spam protection still will block the true spam emails) and allow the user to see why they marked it as spam. It will then allow you to unmark the item as spam or keep it as such.

This new feature is going to allow Gmails users more flexibility and greater usability of their popular service.

If interested in reading more click here.

Google Docs is now offering Real Time collaboration with their popular Google Docs software. Google Docs which became popular for its web based productivity tools now allows users to see edits other users of the documents are making in real time, a feature that wasn’t previously offered.

Google Docs, while not offering the same amount of features that are in the ever popular Microsoft Office suite does offer one clear advantage, cloud storage. While this is not always a good thing, say when you’re out and about and do not have an internet connection, it does have its benefits.

Google Docs does offer many of the most commonly used basic features such as, bold font, italicized text, bulleted lists, and colored fonts. The other benefit is that these features are all now available on the Google Docs application for Android! 

If you’re interested in reading more click here.

After months of delay, Google this week will let people use Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar even when they're offline, a key feature for making the company's cloud-computing vision more practical. 

Gmail Offline is a separate Web App that runs only in Chrome for now.  It stores about three to seven days' worth of messages right now and lets people read, write, and organize messages even when there's no Internet connection.   Years ago, the company had enabled offline access to the applications using in-house technology called Gears. This time it's trying a different route that uses a variety of Web standards--some descended from Gears--but some proprietary elements of Chrome, at least for now.  Along with the ability to have your email stored for offline use, you will also be able to view / edit your Google Calendar and, Google Docs as well.  Right now this feature is only available to limited users but soon will release to the public.

If you’re a fan of Dropbox but don’t have friends who share the same feelings about it as you, and don’t feel like installing a new program.  Here is where File Stork comes in.  File Stork works alongside of Dropbox to deliver secure ways of sending files to friends or family, and setup is easy! It’s so easy in fact that no software is needed to install at all.  Simply go to http://filestork.net and click the “Get Started” button.  From there just connect with your Dropbox account then send a request for files. Give the unique link to your friend/family member you are sharing files with.  (As an option you can password protect the link as well so not just anyone can have access to upload files.) Have the person upload their files, and once they are finished being uploaded they will then be accessible to you from your Dropbox account. And if you have Dropbox installed on your PC at home, the files will then automatically transfer to your PC as well.

One of the best new ways to share YouTube videos with friends is with Google+ Hangout feature.  Hangout’s let you do video and voice chatting with your friends and now you are able to embed a YouTube video in your conversations.

How to watch YouTube Videos on Google Plus hangout with friends?

1. Start a Hangout session and invite friends.
2. Visit YouTube’s live stream page and select a feed.
3. Copy the YouTube video I.D. of the stream.
4. Search for the I.D. in the Hangouts video tab.
5. Once the stream is found, click play.

This is cumbersome, and is not how Google intends for the feature to be used in the future. Instead, live streams will be added to Hangout’s existing YouTube tab.  This feature is planned to be updated in the future.

If your already a member of Google+ why not give it a try? 

While digital copies of books have become very popular for casual readers via the plethora of eReaders today, they have not hit their full potential just yet. There are many places that could be using the eReaders to cut back on paper consumption such as businesses and primarily, schools. Some of the eReader creators have even made larger version so that they could be used in the place of school text books. 

South Korea however is taking a step in that direction. The South Korean government announced this week that it is planning on implementing these digital text books to all of the students in its country. This green move has other benefits as well, one of which is the ability for homebound students to be able to do work from home, or wherever they may be since there is no need to carry a back pack full of books. South Korea is planning on having an eReader in each of its student’s hands by 2015. 

If you would like to read more into this topic click here.

This past week you may have seen or heard talk of a mysterious black bar appearing on top of Google.com.  Well it wasn’t by accident.  In fact it was a sign of something new to come from Google.  What is it you ask?  “Google+”.  What is Google+?  Google+ is a top-secret social project that Google has been working on for the past year.  The reason for this new project is to create a new way we interact with our friends and family in an all-in-one online experience.   Some key features of Google+ include Circles, Sparks, and Huddle.  With Circles, you are able to organize your contacts into categories or ‘Groups’ and share and interact with people in those categories the way you do in the ‘real world’.  Sparks is another main feature with Google+.  Sparks is more than just a “search engine”.  With Sparks, you enter an interest you have and Google goes out and finds elements on the web that they think you’ll care about. These can be links to blog posts, videos, books — anything that Google searches for.  Finally the last feature I will talk about is called “Huddle”.  Huddle is essentially a group messaging app that works across Android, iPhone, and SMS to allow you to communicate with the people in certain Circles.
 

There are many more great features to come with Google+ and I’ve only mentioned a few.  The project is still in beta but they are expecting to release it to the public soon.  Right now is only phase one.  You can sign up to beta test here.

With the way Google is moving everything to the “Cloud”, comes a new feature called “Google Cloud Print”.  Google’s new Could Printing service allows anyone to print to any printer via the web by connecting your printer with the Google Cloud service.   With this service enabled you are able to print from any computer or smart phone, regardless of where you are as long as you have network capabilities.  In order to use the new Google Cloud Print service you must download and install Google Chrome and the Google Cloud Print connector.  After those two are installed your printers attached to your Computer will become available automatically through the web.

Google Cloud Print is currently in beta right now but you can go ahead and try it out. Click Here to continue. 

Amazon has recently released Cloud Player, a music library in the “cloud”. Cloud Player from Amazon is easy to use, simply purchase your music through Amazon.com and your music is then synced to your Amazon account allowing you to access your music from any computer that has access to the web (Running Internet Explorer 8 or newer, Firefox 3.5 and above, Chrome, or Safari) .  All customers start with 5 GB free of Cloud Drive storage to help get you started.  And for a limited time, you can get a free upgrade to 20 GB of Cloud Drive storage with the purchase of an MP3 album!

Enjoy your music on the go with the Amazon MP3 app featuring Cloud Player for Android!  (iPhone / iPad version is not yet supported but will be available in the future).

Software GIANT Microsoft(R) is reportedly going to be making hundreds of job cuts to its workforce in efforts towards the industry moving towards cloud computing, according to various reports.  A very “insignificant” amount of jobs are going to be diminished when compared to Microsoft’s 88,000+ workforce.  I sense similar trends in the IT industry as more and more solution providers begin to embrace and implement what seems to be the inevitable; cloud computing.

Samson, Tedd. "Microsoft Cuts Jobs as Part of Core Shift to Cloud ". InfoWorld.

http://www.hpcinthecloud.com/news/Microsoft-Cuts-Jobs-as-Part-of-Core-Shift-to-Cloud-98030954.html.