Microsoft's Mesh

With all this Apple talk lately I thought I would talk about Microsoft's Mesh computing - or Cloud Computing if you would like. I am a bit fascinated with the idea of being able to work off-line on files, connect and have the on-line file updated, go to another computer (say my desktop) and synchronize the files from the "Cloud" (if you will) down that were created on the laptop while at Borders (or Starbucks). If you are interested in this you might check out the Team Blog for Mesh at http://blogs.msdn.com/livemesh/, it is good reading and after reading a few entries you get the idea that this would be a good tool for business people who do not have a SharePoint portal to use. Also good for non-profits and small groups. You can post Word or Excel documents as well as PowerPoint's.

You know maybe I should be teaching this.

The "Cloud Computing" thing is one of the reasons that I like EverNote. I can put things into my notes from my laptop and collect them at home on my desktop and then if needed use the software on a USB drive to take my notes with me wherever I go. Putting this all together lets me have my files wherever I am and to share things with others that need to be shared. With Mesh above I could start this blog in Windows Live Writer, ask someone else who posts here to review it, make changes and then post it. All I have to do is give them the privilege to see the folder.

If you start to put this all together you begin to see a glimpse of the future of communications. One example would be Twitter. Let's say you are sending out a reminder for a scheduled meeting (conference call) and you send the reminder via email, one only gets that if they happen to connect to get email however if everyone had an account on Twitter (and followed you as well as each other - easy to do) then you send a tweet (short and sweet) it would appear as a text message on everyone's phone. You could send the number to call as well as the code for access. No email to clean up, everyone would get it no matter where they were. A good way to send Hot News to the Team. Ahh, but we would have to go into the future to do that (it's here now - why not try it out).