Tag: cloud

Get a direct link to public files shared at Copy.com

Dale 6 Comments

Over the past few days, I’ve been tinkering around with the cloud storage site Copy.com. It’s a lot like Dropbox and the others.

After exploring Google Drive’s ability to host files and provide direct links, I wanted to see if Copy could do the same thing. Turns out it can for most files (not html). below is an example:

change this: https://www.copy.com/s/duJ7I70PLvTK/interview109-clip.mp3

to this: https://copy.com/duJ7I70PLvTK/interview109-clip.mp3

I made a bookmarklet that does the URL hacking for you. Follow the steps below to put it into use:

  1. Drag this link to your bookmarks bar: Clean Copy
  2. go to the public URL of a file shared at Copy.com
  3. click “Clean Copy” bookmark to get a direct link to the file

(UPDATE: Copy.com made some changes. The bookmarklet about doesn’t work any longer. Changing the path still seems to work fine.)

 

Speaking of bookmarklets, here is one that will switch your Google Drive folder to a hosting folder like I described in a previous post.

Will the cloud prevent late homework?

Dale

NPR takes a look at the rise of ‘the cloud’ in 2011.

This year, the cloud brought us something we didn’t even know we were craving: a digital storage locker.

Think back to high school, when you stuffed that metal locker with books, homework projects, photos of friends, and maybe records or CDs.

But that music and everything else existed in only one physical place — you couldn’t really drag that locker around. If you forgot to get something and went home for the day — well, you were out of luck.

But now, the old “I left it in my locker” excuse just won’t work anymore.

“If I store my information online in one of these clouds,” says Forrester Research senior analyst Frank Gillett, “it’s as if I have a magic courier that will run and retrieve stuff from my locker and retrieve it for me, instantly.”

This makes me wonder if students who grow up with the cloud will forget more and more of their physical work at home or in their locker. Will they expect seamless access to their content from our classrooms? One things for sure, it’s still going to be a while before students will be able to upload their coat and boots to the cloud.

Three apps to help your iPad dress up like a PC

Dale

Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is great. However, some of us have lots of our work living in the Windows environment. To help us out, many apps have been created for the Apple tablet to help us out.

I'm a PC
I'm a PC

Below are three free apps that try to bring a few more windows to the iPad.

  • PocketCloud – Pocket Cloud lets you access your work or home Windows PC via Remote Desktop. There are several other apps in the Apps Store that offer this functionality but for a fee. When you need to get to your computer using only an iPad, PocketCloud does the job nicely in a touch environment
  • CloudOn – CloudOn is an interesting new app that allows you access to the files in your DropBox account so you can edit them in a virtual version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. The service was simple to set up but I did find editing documents to have a bit of lag.
  • OnLive Desktop – The OnLive Desktop app takes virtual computing a step farther for iPad users by giving you an entire Windows desktop (Start menu and all) to play with. OnLive Desktop gave me the smoothest transition back to the Windows world. Creating an account (and waiting for it to activate) took longer than I expected but it came with 2GB of free storage for all my Windows files. Editing documents in MS Office was much smoother than CloudOn and I found this app to be a great way to show off PowerPoint presentations.

I should be clear about one thing. None of the apps above will replace your Windows PC. You won’t have an iPad that runs Windows too. The apps above are close but some things are are just not the same in a touch environment. If you’re an iPad user who also runs Windows, all three apps above are worth taking a look at but don’t throw out your PC just yet.