It has been a week now that I’ve had the good fortune to use the new 11″ Mac Book Air. Sure there has been a stumble with Skype, which they corrected, but the new Air is a cloud lovers dream.
To make the most out of the Air here are some essentials:
1. Use SkyDrive from Microsoft works great with Office 2011. Think Google Docs for everyone in business. The benefit is simple. If you’re not using your own computer you can still access and WORK on file using Office Web Apps.
2. DropBox-this is great for group sharing or accessing files, on multiple Macs or PCs.
3. JungleDisk-I’ve been using this for two years or more now and it means I don’t have to worry about what file is where.
4. Basecamp from 37 Signals. Nothing keeps a company, especially a virtual one more organized.
5. Boingo-With Wi-Fi hotspots in more places than any other provider, it makes connectivity easy.
6. Get a PocketSpot. A MiFi, ClearWire ClearSpot or a Sprint Overdrive-use that when there’s no Wi-Fi.
7. Google Docs/Apps if cost matters, Apps provides a very good value.
8. Microsoft Exchange if cost doesn’t matter, your business needs reliable mail, calendaring and contact management, go with what is built for business. But find a good hosted Exchange provider.
9. For voice and video, it come down to CounterPath’s Bria and Skype being on your air. The first connects to every SIP and Asterisk based service around. The second you already are likely using. Make calls. See people. There’s also FaceTime from Apple, which is rapidly gaining traction, since you can connect to mobile phone using people too face to face so easily and SightSpeed.
10. SalesForce.com if you sell, manage sales or work contacts, it’s essential.
11. Need to make conference calls? Use the Air as a speakerphone, connect via Skype to HiDefConferencing and have the high quality conference calls at only the cost of a monthly fee or use Bria and a G.722 codec to use ZipDX.
What have you found that’s essential for your Mac Book Air?
Nice post Andy
Even though its not cloud I would highly recommend you add Yammer to this list.
Incredibly useful to our globally distributed team
Wow the features they included is quite awesome and great way to attract out the customer towards the product..
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