Cloud computing has become quite the buzzword over the last year or so. It seems like every major company wants a piece of the “cloud,” from IBM to AMD to Microsoft. Definitions for the phrase vary, but the most common aspect of any cloud computing service is the notion that you can use the internet to run applications on remote computers, making you less dependent on any one physical machine.

And while the idea of software as a service is hardly new, the number of online “cloud” apps has reached a sort of critical mass lately, making it possible to do the vast majority of your computing online. In this article we’ll show you some of our favorite cloud applications, and explain how they can help make the move to cloud city.

Office Apps

One of the first applications of cloud computing to make a significant impact on the mainstream was the advent of online office software like Google Docs, which allows you to edit and save your documents on a remote server, accessible from any computer. Although Google’s online office apps are the best known, and very solid in their own right, we recommend you give the suite at zoho.com a chance. Read on to find out why.

Zoho

If you’ve ever used Google apps it’s very easy to try out Zoho, for two reasons. First, the interface will be very familiar to any users of Google’s offering, making for a tiny learning curve. Second, you can actually log into Zoho with your Google account, so you won’t even have to register.

So why use Zoho instead of Google Apps? Well, for one, you get pretty much all of the same functionality. Here are some screenshots to illustrate the functionality of the word processor and spreadsheet apps in Zoho. If you've ever used Google Maps, you should recognize the interface as very similar.

And in addition to doing all the Google Docs stuff, Zoho has some additional features. To name a few, Zoho can automatically post to blogs, create and host wikis, and sort documents with an intuitive tagging system, rather than a simple folder hierarchy. All that aside, there’s one feature that really makes us like Zoho better than Google for document management: The Zoho Plug-in for Microsoft office.

With this plug-in, you can create and edit your documents and spreadsheets with the Microsoft Office applications you’ve gotten used to, and then hit the Zoho button to automatically save it to the cloud. The plug-in also makes it easy to download and edit files from the Zoho servers, then upload your edits. In essence, this plug-in removes what we consider to be the greatest hurdle to the widespread adoption of online office services: the fact that the online client is simply never quite as powerful as a system-based client like Microsoft Word. Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it, too?

Getting set up with the Zoho plug-in is easy; all you have to do is to download the plugin here, then run it. It’ll automatically install the add-in, and all you have to do is log into your account next time you start up Word. Once the plug-in is installed, there’ll be a new panel in the “Add-Ins” section, which will give you the option to open from or save to the Zoho servers. It’s that simple. It’s so simple, in fact, that it’s almost baffling that Google Docs hasn’t released a similar functionality yet. Nonetheless, the convenience of this feature alone, in addition to the slightly larger featureset of Zoho means that it gets our recommendation.

Music

Sure, there are plenty of services like last.fm or Pandora that let you listen to music online, but it’s really not quite the same as listening to your own personal library of music. If only there was some way to store our music files online, and listen to them anywhere…

Oh, right! There is. In fact there are a couple of services which allow you to do exactly this. Both Lala and MP3tunes.com fit the bill, and while they’re both excellent services, we’re inclined to recommend Lala, for a couple of reasons. Read on to find out more about Lala’s features, and about why we think it’s the superior offering.

Cloud City image copyright Lucasfilm