Page 56 - DCAP609_CLOUD_COMPUTING

Unit 4: Cloud Computing for the Family

Thus a dedicated Web-based contact management program is what you really need. With My Notes
events (www.myevents.com) you can store your contacts online, and the next time you’re away
from your personal computer, you’ll still have access to those phone numbers and addresses via
any web browser. If you are an advanced user you can also synchronize your calendar, contacts,
and tasks from any of your groups to popular programs such as Palm Desktop, Outlook, and
Lotus Organizer using My events.
You can also use another dedicated Web-based contact management program called Highrise.
Created by 37signals, Highrise is an online system designed to manage contacts and
communication with clients. It’s simple interface makes it easy to follow up on projects and
interactions with contacts. Since, the system is online and not a downloadable software, all
information is accessible from a web browser and can be shared with others. With Highrise,
contacts and communication history can be shared across your entire company.
Both these programs include the Customer Resource Management (CRM) features needed for
business and sales force management.
Always remember that irrespective of the program you choose to use, you need to authorize
access for yourself and other members who you want should give their inputs to your contact
list. This way you all can import your existing Outlook contacts or contacts from software that
exports vCard format whenever needed. Once added, contacts are easily viewed via the
“Contacts” tab and sorted by people, companies, or recently added, viewed or imported. When
viewing an individual contact, all details are available including an “about” section and related
dates to remember important information about the person or company.

4.7 Collaborating on School Projects

Nowadays not only adults but even school children need to collaborate for school projects.
Since, group projects and presentations demand the students to work on the same project together,
it is not always possible for the parents to drive their kids around to each other’s’ houses. The
solution here is that kids can conveniently collaborate over the Web from their own homes.
Various Web-based presentation programs such as Google Presentations which is a part of the
Google Docs suite of programs encourages online communication between children, thus making
it possible for kids to prepare and complete their projects and other presentations on time. To
work with Google Docs and Presentations is very easy and all your data remains online. The
only thing you need is an Internet connection and a web browser. Google presentation enables
children from different locations to collaborate simultaneously on the same presentation or
document, from any computer with Internet access. For instance, Aaliya, Anuja and Rohit are
working on a school project together and they need to create a presentation and a drawing to
show to other kids involved in the project. Once Aaliya has made the required changes to the
presentation, Rohit and Anuja can respond to these changes immediately. Here, we must
remember that they are living in different places. All three of them are working on the same
presentation. When one member adds a new slide, other team members see that slide immediately
on their own computer screens.
Instead of using Web-based email programs, it is better that the children sign up to an instant
messaging service, such as AOL Instant Messenger (www.aim.com) or Yahoo! Messenger
(messenger.yahoo.com), so that they can text each other quickly.
For simpler projects, Web-based calendar program, such as Google Calendar or Zoho Planner
can be used. For other complicated projects dedicated project management application such as
Basecamp should be used. Everyone involved in a project can work together on Basecamp.
You have full control over who sees which project, and who sees each other.

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