Cloud Based Tools

Apps on Cloud

Apps on Cloud is a cloud based tool that provides businesses with tools that will help effectively organize, manage, and track day to day operations. Employee Management allows business to manage employee data, secure HR records and provides charts to view your business structure. With Account Management you can store your contacts and leads and stay up to date with the real time activity feeds. The Customer Support feature provides a portal that customers can use to get help. It also offers Document Management, Project Management and Enterprise Social. With no credit card required you are limited up to 200MBs of data storage. The premium upgrade will give you 500MBs for $10 monthly.


http://appsoncloud.com/

Google Apps

Google Apps is another cloud based business tool designed to keep your team connected. Google Apps provides emails, calendars, drives to store your files on the cloud, documents that can be created and shared in real time, spreadsheet management, and a slide presentation editor that can publish presentations on the web or be shared privately. Free for up to 10 users and then $50 per user/ yearly for premium version.

http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/

Appy Pie

Appy Pie allows users to create mobile apps and iOS applications in the cloud. Users do not need to have programming experience at all. The app is designed to work on several platforms including Windows 8 and Blackberry phones. Appy Pie has collaborated with OpenTable, Grub and SoundCloud in order to tailor its cloud services to restaurants and bands. The free version allows you to create HTML5 apps.


http://www.appypie.com/

Remember The Milk

Remember The Milk is a cloud based task management tool. It "reinvents the to-do list" by providing users the ability to manage tasks from anywhere, get sms and email reminders, share tasks, access from mobile phones and you can even access the tool while offline. It can be used with Google Calendar, Gmail, and Twitter.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

Aviary 

Aviary is a cloud based photo editing tool. It is fully customizable and can be used on both mobile and web platforms. It allows media, audio and images to be edited for free online. The catch is that in order for the service to remain free you must be willing to share all your files with the Aviary community. Should you desire privacy you will have to upgrade to a premium account.

http://aviary.com/

Real Drugs Virtual Help!!! Technology does it all!!

Just when you thought you have heard it all, you haven't. While many of us can't imagine even using an illegal substance or abusing alcohol someone somewhere is making a virtual world for it. It's suppose to help those who abuse alcohol or are addicted to  drugs such as heroine, cocaine or crack.While it doesn't necessarily claim to treat the addiction it does claim to help users cope with their drug and alcohol cravings.

Duke University's assistant professor, Zach Rosenthal, has been researching virtual rehabilitation for quite some time with actual drug addicts and even veterans. The program received it's funding from The National Institute of Drug Abuse and The Department of Defense. The software works by simulating environments that an addict may find him or herself in according to their addiction of choice. An alcoholic environment may simulate a party with cocktails and friends while a crack addicts environment may include a crack house with discarded pipes and drug deals taking place. The program will have users rate their cravings and every few minutes until the craving goes away.

In this virtual world users are put into a situation where they have the choice to say no, however one user is actually noted for reaching out to actually grab a drink from the virtual environment.   "Rosenthal is hoping that each recovering substance abuser will take the coping mechanisms from the virtual world back to reality."   (Lecher)

 

The above picture is a simulation of a virtual crack house.

Lecher, C. (2013, April 19). Can Virtual reality Treat Addiction? Retrieved April 20, 2013, from Popular Science: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/addiction-therapy-and-virtual-reality+

Programming Just Got Fun

As a mother raising 2 boys in the "Video Game Era" I often try and find games that will not only entertain them but educate them. Trust me, It's hard! So you can imagine how I feel about finding out about a video game that teaches Java Programming to it's players.Well computer scientist William Griswold and graduate students of the University of California have done just that. The Game is called CodeSpells.

CodeSpells is designed for elementary to high school students (ha...I bet a few of us college kids will need it too). In CodeSpells the Player is a wizard who has to resort to using Java Programming to cast spells because they've are unable to perform magic. So far the game has been tested on 40 pre-teen girls who  seemed to get a knack for some of he basic programming codes in less than an hr.

 According to the university, “By the time players complete the game’s first level, they have learned the main components of the Java programming language, such as parameters, for if statements, for loops and while loops, among other skills.”  Coxworth

CodeSpells announced just today, April 9th 2013, that it's Beta version has just been released. unfortunately it has only been released for MAC with promises of the Windows version being released soon. The MAC version however is now being tested in elementary schools.

"In this stand-alone version you can expect to be introduced to basic concepts such as looping, conditionals and methods/parameters in this explorative magical environment. We are working hard to ensure that you get to experience all of the quests and explorative world!" Esper

Coxworth, B. (2013, April 9). Video game teaches Java programming language to players. Retrieved April 9, 2013, from Gizmag: http://www.gizmag.com/codespells-java-video-game/26992/

Esper, S. (2013, April 9). Code Spells: Learn to Program by Crafting Your Own Magic Spells, BETA Release! Retrieved April 9, 2013, from http://codespells.blogspot.com/: http://codespells.blogspot.com/