This week I passed certification exam VCP-410 VMware Certified Professional, VCP.  Thank you for your congratulations.

15 apríla 2010 sa uskutočnil v Club Penati Bratislava prvý ročník konferencie ISACA Professional Day 2010. Konferencia bola zameraná na tému IT Security, Outsourcing, Governance. Hovorilo sa aj na tému Cloud Computing.

Konferencia bola organizovaná ISACA Slovakia hlavne pre ľudí zaujímajúcich sa o audit, bezpečnosť a poradenstvo. Ja som dostal pozvánku od Ivana Kopáčika prednášať na tejto konferencii na tému Cloud Computing. Moja prezentácia bola naplánovaná na poobedie a tak som pozorne celé doobedie počuvál, aký majú názor na tému Cloud Computing ľudia z oblasti auditov.

Musím sa priznať, že bolo naozaj zaujímavé sledovať, ako sa na túto tému pozerá Palo Adamec z KPMG a aké riziká vidí KPMG v tejto oblasti. Na druhej strane musím povedať, že aj týmto ľudom je jasné, že pre zákazníkov je to atraktívna služba a oni nemôžu brániť businessu, ale sčasti sa prispôsobiť trendu a hlavne minimalizovať riziká s týmito službami spojené.

Verím, že moja prezentácia ľuďom ukázala ako sa na vec Cloud Computing služieb pozerá service provider a taktiež zákazník. Prezentácia bola prípadová štúdia zákazníka Cloud Computing služieb v našom data centre Perpetuus. Prezentovaný bol názor service provider-a a tiež uhoľ pohľadu zákaznika. Čo bolo pre neho dôležité pri výbere, na čo všetko sa pýtal a na základe čoho sa rozhodol.

Reakcie ľudí po panelovej diskusii ma presvedčili, že o túto tému je veľký záujem, pretože sa o nej veľa píše, ale málo ľudí počulo o zákazníkoch, ktorí takúto službu reálne na Slovensku využívajú.

ISACA Professional Day mala pre mňa nesmierny prínos a verím, že aj ja som prispel svojou troškou prezentovaním prípadovej štúdie Cloud Computing služieb k pozitívnym náladam v tejto organizácii na túto tému.

Digit #46 – Božský Apple iPad v praxi from Muvi.cz on Vimeo.

Alright, I’ve read the reviews. I’ve the read Cory’s piece about open-ness and closed platforms (and I agree, open is better). I’ve read from the nit-picking details to the high level geekery, and I’m here to say, the iPad is an important device. Of course, some have already heralded it as the inflection point in “tablet” computing, and it is that – but the reason I think it’s important is actually a bit larger.

I truly believe that the models of human-computer interaction (”HCI”) that all of us grew up with are going to change dramatically in the next 3, 5, 7, 10 years. I believe it so much that Brad and I are working on it as a third show. And the reason that the iPad is such an important device is that it is a decisive break from the keyboard/mouse paradigm that we’ve been living in for 45 years (yes, the mouse is over 45 years old).

With this device, grandmas and doctors and “people on the street” will suddenly make the jump away from computing as a keyboard and mouse. In fact, the mode of interaction (and it is interactive, even if you’re passively viewing media content) is *completely* different. Multi-touch, tablet, portable — in much the same way that it’s hard for me to describe how I interact via a keyboard, so it is similarly hard to describe interacting via an iPad. But I think it comes down to this (fittingly, I’m writing this on Easter, in case there are any amateur theologians out there): Once computers went from pure business applications (numbers) to something “people” used (and this includes the entire advent of the internet), the primary mode of expression was the word. Text. Dare I say it, “logos.”

Accordingly, the HCI mode was textual. Even the mouse was built to point at text links; highlight text links; manipulate textual (and sometimes numerical) objects.

The iPad blows right by that (and it should given that what the video revolution has brought to the web). Sure, there’s email on the device – but it’s a secondary application. This HCI mode is built to interact in a way where the “word” isn’t the defining object. And that, my geeky friends, whether your inner early adopter is fully satisfied or not, is a game changer. Yes, there are iBooks and apps with text — of course! But the mode of interaction has moved beyond the word as primary HCI mode. Granted, it’s in some weird, hybrid, not fully formed, purgatory universe of user interaction — but the move has been made. And it’s been made on a device that “everyday people” are going to use. [sidenote: this thing is going to CLEAN UP in the grandma/grandpa and kid (4-8) gaming markets. CLEAN UP.]

By the way, saying that the iPhone/Smart phone market did this first really doesn’t work. Phones always had different modes of interaction (voice). We brought computing *to* them. Most people don’t think of their phones as computers. So, the iPhone – yeah, it softened up the marketplace. But the iPad – it’s a *computer* that no longer feels like “a computer.”

At the end of the day, sure there are problems with it: it doesn’t multi-task; I can’t ever achieve the speed of typing I can on a keyboard (though I’m an edge case, since the Department of Defense taught me to type north of 120 words per minute eons ago); it doesn’t have the USB port I want; it needs video/camera. NONE of that matters. That’s details. That will all come. This devise is an inflection point because it marks the moment where the dominant human-computer interaction model of the last 50-100 years began to fade in prominence.

And that’s why the iPad is important.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Na konferencii som mal prednášku na tému Cloud Services in Perpetuus Data Center a preto som sa pozeral na konferenciu aj trošku z iného uhla pohľadu. Veľmi sa mi páčila myšlienka, že prezentácie v sálach bolo možné vidieť a počuť aj v priestoroch, kde ľudia mali priestor debatovať a popíjať kavičku.

V súčastnosti je možné počuť o cloud computingu strašne veľa, ale reálne tieto služby na Slovensku poskytuje asi len naše data centrum. Dôkazom tohto tvrdenia bolo množstvo potencionálnych zákazníkov, s ktorými som sa počas celého dňa rozprával a videl ich reakcie.

Samotnú prezentáciu si môžete pozrieť nižšie a v prípade, že sa objaví video z konferecie, pridám link.

Asi ako každý nový užívateľ Linked in, som si hneď pridal do connection všetkých svojich známych. Väčšina sa hneď zaradí aj do nejakých skupín s konkrétnym záujmom a ja som nebol výnimka. Som členom 14 skupín a jedna z nich má názov Czech & Slovak Professional Community.

Minulý týždeň mi prišla pozvánka na stretnutie členov tejto skupiny v Bratislave s témou Pay Per Click. Keďže píšem blog, tak som si povedal, že zaujímavá téma. Zhodou okolností som nemal v daný večer program, tak som sa išiel pozrieť. Veď človek za to nič nedá a možno aj „motyka vystrelí“. Musím povedať, že vystrelila a rana bola ako z dela.

Prvý človek, s ktorým som sa na schodoch reštaurácie ‘zrazil’, bol Dalibor Slavik. Samozrejme v prvom momente som ešte nevedel o koho ide, ale keď sme si dali kolečko na zoznámenie (niektorí z nás nepoznali nikoho, vrátane mňa), okamžite sa mi vybavilo, ako mi Dalibor poslal asi pred rokom invitation do jeho siete aj keď sme sa vôbec nepoznali. Hneď sme začali debatu o princípe, ako to na Linked in funguje s kontaktmi a že ho Linked in už pár krát upozornil na oslovovanie neznámych. Ja som tiež toho názoru, že pointa by mala byť spoznať a stretnúť nových ľudí a nie kolegov alebo tých čo poznáme. Túto myšlienku naplnila v tomto prípade na 200% skupina Czech & Slovak Professional Community.

V reštaurácií BRIT sa nás stretlo asi 10. Ja som nepoznal naozaj nikoho. Atmosféra hneď od začiatku bola perfektná, uvoľnená, žiadna konferencia alebo business stretko. Možno sa to zdalo iba mne, lebo som prišiel o 10min skôr a tak som si pri bare dal jedno pivko, bolo ale nealko, takže naozaj neviem. (ak toto niekto z účastníkov zájazdu číta, napíšte comment ako to vnímate, budem rád)

Po úvodných podaniach rúk sme spravili (ako som už písal) jedno kolečko, kde každý povedal čo robí a čomu sa venuje. Viac mi nechýbalo, prišli tam okrem Dalibora (head hunter) 3 ľudia z IT prostredia a hneď sa rozprúdila debata. Mišo Král je majiteľom pricemania.sk, Peter Dendis je majiteľom tarantula.sk, Lubica Šebestová a Simonka Tatliaková pracujú v ADDA Consultants a Pavol Terpák v Centire. Toto prekonalo všetky moje očakávania. S ľuďmi sa dalo perfektne porozprávať na všetky rôzne témy. S Paľom sme našli aj spoločnú reč na tému mac a behanie. No jednoducho paráda.

Veľmi veľa som sa dozvedel aj na tému Pay Per Click, o ktorej prednášal Peťo a Mišo dopĺňal informácie z druhého brehu.

O kvalite, atmosfére a celkovej nálade vypovedá aj fakt, že čašník nás bol 2x upozorniť, že by rád zavrel a išiel domov.

Jednoducho povedané, stojí za to sa na takúto akciu prísť pozrieť a spoznať nových ľudí, ktorí sú rovnako naladení ako ty. Som veľmi rád, že som mohol spoznať týchto ľudí a prehodiť s nimi pár slov.

Here are five examples of common workplace activities that Google Wave can support.

1. Conferences and Professional Development

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This one probably seems obvious. Departments can set up Google Waves to discuss what’s happening at a particular event. A company with limited funds could send one person to a conference and use Google Wave as a reporting mechanism. Or if several people attend, they can divide/conquer the event and post their ideas and comments in one place.

For example Chris Hoyt, author of the blog The Recruiter Guy, set up a Wave for the human resources and recruiting community during last year’s Social Recruiting Summit. Both attendees and those of us who were interested but couldn’t make it in person were able to join the Wave. It was an opportunity to gain exposure to the content and learn more about the event so people could budget to attend the following year.

One thing I could see emerging from conference Waves are “back channel” discussions. Conference organizers in particular will want to pay particular attention to this and not necessarily view it as a bad thing. If managed properly, it could bring some opportunities for improvement to light during the event.

2. Decision Making and Problem Solving

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Using Google Wave to discuss a company challenge could be very beneficial — especially when all of the players aren’t located in the same place. That’s exactly why Troy Peterson, CEO of Nibi Software, used Wave to get the company’s development plan finalized.  He brought everyone together in a Wave and let the conversation flow. “The real-time document functionality allowed us to have ‘arguments’ and solve problems together that might otherwise have resulted in ‘back and forth’ threads that went on forever.”

Peterson did mention that adoption was an initial challenge. “Although several of my contacts immediately had Wave accounts, they weren’t necessarily the people I was collaborating with on projects.  It required some arm wrestling to get people on board.” But the results were worth it. “In the end, we have a succinct document that we have all agreed on and that we can compare short-term objectives against.”

3. Project Management

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The same decision making philosophy applies when you have a project and need to collaborate not only with internal stakeholders, but an external supplier. Google Wave provides an opportunity for collaboration. Hopefully, consultants and/or contractors are able to tap into that dialogue by sharing their Wave account info with client companies.

Rachel Levy, Founder/CEO of the startup website WebinarListings, is using Google Wave with her developer. “We have the list of open items in the Wave, so we can discuss each one. I add an open item, and he can ask me a question about it, or mark it as done.” The main advantage to using this application was being able to track conversations.

This could also be a valuable way to manage the dreaded “scope creep.” You can lay out the entire project in a single Wave once the parameters are agreed upon. Then, you can work through each facet with each side tracking progress and those pesky project deviations. And everything gets documented along the way. New project requirements can even be moved to a new Wave for later consideration.

4. Brainstorming and Idea Cultivation

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Brendan Gill, with the firm Staircase3, said he and his partners use Google Wave as a medium to organize and facilitate conversations and feedback. “We are a team of entrepreneurs who like to have an idea and make it happen quickly. We use Google Wave to brainstorm our ideas for new business projects.  It’s a great tool for collecting a series of conversations, and we use a different Wave for each different idea.”

Gill explained they would have traditionally used group e-mails for this purpose, but found Wave has numerous advantages, including serving as a centralized repository, and the ability to use add-on features for enhanced productivity. This was especially useful since their management team is located around the globe. “The Ribbit conferencing feature is great for staging an ad hoc conference call. Furthermore, the simple voting widget is a useful way to end each of our Waves where we can stage a vote for a given idea — whether or not we want to put the idea in motion, or just cut it loose.”

5. Virtual Meetings and Reduced Travel

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Let’s face it. Bringing groups of people together can be expensive. Depending on the project, Google Wave could help foster dialogue without a lot of travel, phone calls, etc. Gill mentioned using Wave to make edits and adjustments on business proposals without having people travel to a central location. “Using Wave definitely reduces the need for thousand-dollar transatlantic flights and many tons of carbon emissions. Obviously without Wave, we would still use e-mails and teleconferencing, but using a better communications platform has definitely cut a number of flights out of our schedule,” he said.

Gill added that, “Collaboration can be done in real-time, if required, which is useful if you’re trying to rush out a project that has to happen quickly or not at all. Or for longer-term projects, you can take your time to think about an idea and come back to the plan at any time you like.”

Conclusion

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If you’re looking for a way to streamline communications on your next project, Peterson suggests that you “Sign up and use the tool. It may not revolutionize your company’s communications, but it is useful and worth the effort involved in figuring out how it works for your organization.”

Remember the success of a Wave is contingent upon the active participation of the individuals involved. Waves need engagement, attention and clarity. You can’t just ask a question and walk away for a couple days. According to Levy, “The bigger the Wave gets, the slower it gets.” Managing activity and open items becomes essential for productivity.

How are you using Google Wave to improve your work life? Share your stories in the comments.

Digit #42 from Muvi.cz on Vimeo.

A week ago we asked readers to tell us how they’re using Google Wave in their daily lives, and despite a bit of “ha! no one’s using Wave!” snarking on the Twitter, we got lots of interesting responses.

Unsurprisingly, most Wavers use it as a real-time wiki, but some take advantage of features unique to Wave, like inline and private replies, public tags, and gadgets. I featured the most unique use cases I got in a brand new chapter just added to The Complete Guide to Google Wave. The following is the text of the just-published Chapter 10, which describes ways in which a few people who don’t work for Google are using Wave to get things done—with screenshots.

So far you’ve learned the finer workings of Wave in great detail, but there’s a big difference between understanding how to swing a hammer and building a house. In this chapter, you’ll meet regular people who are already getting things done with Wave in their daily work and life. You’ll learn the Wave techniques they’ve developed through trial and error, and the specific Wave features they use to get certain jobs done. Finally, you’ll create wave templates you can use and reuse for your own purposes.

Take a look at some real-world case studies of Wave in action.

Wave as a Group To-do List and Daily Work Log

Justin Swall runs Swall’s Associated Services, a small company which provides computer repair and consulting for small businesses. Justin uses Wave as a daily to-do list that he and his co-workers update to track who has done what. He makes use of the “Copy to New Wave” feature to transfer undone items from one day to the next, as shown in Figure 10-1.

Here’s Justin’s Wave workflow: every day he uses a fresh wave that contains that day’s tasks, ordered by priority, and what time they’re due. Over the course of the day, Justin’s group updates the wave to reflect the current status of each task.

Justin says:

During the day either the initial wave is edited (usually by me) to add additional items to the list, and everyone else uses inline replies to update when items are completed, or if additional information needs to be conveyed back and forth. At the end of each day I copy the day’s wave to a new wave, change the date to the next day, remove the items that were completed the day before, add new items or notes to the list, or move items from secondary to primary. Wash, rinse, repeat.

By creating a new wave that carries over the outstanding tasks left on yesterday’s wave, Justin leaves behind a daily work log that he can reference later.

Justin prefers Wave to discuss tasks because it’s a single, hosted conversation.

For various reasons, Outlook tasks never seemed to work for us. Emailing is a nightmare (I either keep thinking of more things to add to the list and end up sending out five or more messages by morning, or I’m so afraid of doing that I keep it open as a draft so I can keep adding to it then forget to send it at all).

If you’re interested in using Wave to manage projects beyond daily tasks, see the later section in this chapter, “Wave for Project Management.”

Wave as an Event Planner

Wave is a fine productivity tool, but it also can help you have fun, too. Fifteen-year old Sean Cascketta uses Wave to organize weekend get-togethers with his classmates.

Sean explains:

If I’m formatting a Wave for organizing an event, it usually comes with a basic list of the details (like who, what, where, etc…) as well as a Yes/No/Maybe gadget, which is perfect for these events as we can both constantly check on the RSVP status of people, and they can use the status feature to give any extra details (like if they’re bringing along some party favors, electronics or such).

Sean used Wave to create an invitation to a viewing of The Goonies, as shown in Figure 10-2.

Brunch-lover Jed McClure uses Wave to organize his weekly “Brooklyn Brunch Club,” a group of friends who brunch somewhere different in Brooklyn each week, and RSVP whether or not they can make it.

Jed describes the process:

We have a pretty dedicated group of brunchers here in Brooklyn, and many brunch options. But the onerous task of coordinating usually ended up resulting in people getting left off the email list. With Google Wave, the idea was to maintain a permanent Brunch wave, where people in the group could check in with and see where the next brunching would happen, and then reply if they were going to try to make it. We also set up a map widget and filled in all the spots we like to hit, to help when making suggestions (and to avoid the dreaded brunch rut).

The Brooklyn Brunch Club wave consists of maps, inline discussions debating which brunch place to hit up next, and a Yes/No/Maybe gadget to collect RSVPs, as shown in Figure 10-3.

Jed says:

So far it has worked pretty well. The threaded nature of the dialog means that it needs to be ‘pruned’ after each brunch, so that the relevant info remains at the top of the wave. And also train people to look in the history for past brunch details.

With maps and Yes/No/Maybe built in, party, vacation, brunch, or any event planning is one of Wave’s most obvious use cases.

Wave as Holiday Gift List Tracker

Hal Wilke has two young children, and when the holidays approach, he gives gift suggestions for his kids to their grandparents. This past year he and his wife used Wave to share and update the list.

Hal explains:

We always email Christmas lists to Grandparents, and then get emails back sometimes to me, sometimes to my wife. Or phone calls at odd times telling us what they bought, so we have to track notes that we write about the phone calls. It was much easier this year [in Wave] because the grandparents could edit the wave as they purchased gifts, and we did not have people buying duplicate gifts, and didn’t have to track multiple lists of purchased gifts. Pretty cool that the grandparents were cool with using Wave.

The kids’ gift wave included Hal’s wife, but Hal used Wave’s private reply feature to discuss a surprise gift for her with the kids’ grandparents, as shown in Figure 10-4.

Wave for Collaborative Meeting Notes

One of the most common suggested uses of Wave is taking collaborative notes^[1] during meetings, classes or conference sessions, and Indiana University employee Manjit Trehan does just that. Manjit’s meetings usually have about 10 people attending, and four or five are in Wave, taking notes.

Instead of everyone co-editing a single blip, Manjit separates agenda items into their own individual blips.

Manjit says the process evolved from trial and error:

What I learned after a few meetings [of taking notes in Wave] is that it is best to enter one agenda item per blip. This allows a separate thread to progress below each item. Say we are meeting about ordering some hardware, and there are three open items to be discussed. Vendor selection, Installation schedule, and deployment schedule. Each of these would end up in a separate blip.

Manjit says meeting note waves can get lengthy, but he created a sample meeting wave with separate agenda blips, shown in Figure 10-5.

Wave for Project Management

You’ve already seen one way to use Wave as a daily task tracker; you can also manage a more complex group project in Wave. This very book, produced by a team of six people-including the authors, our copyeditor, designer, tech lead, and project manager-used Wave to track and manage its production process.^[2]

Create a project workspace in Wave using an agreed-upon tag and a saved search for waves with that tag. For example, when we started managing the book project in Wave, our group decided that every book-related wave would get the “cwg” tag (short for CompleteWaveGuide.com). Each of us also saved a tag:cwg search and referred to it to see only project-specific waves, as shown in Figure 10-6.

When you’re managing a project in Wave, create a new wave to discuss each topic, task, or facet of the project. For example, for this book project, we used one wave per chapter to discuss chapter-specific questions and edits. For each new edition, we’d clean out the chapter wave of old blips, and start anew, knowing that old conversation was still archived in the wave’s playback should we need to see it. We kept other separate waves to draft the style guide, discuss pricing, and see cover image revisions.

Wave as a Conference Backchannel

A smart use of wave tags works well in public waves as well as private ones. Tagged public waves make it easy for anyone to find a relevant place to discuss news or a current event, as it happens, in real-time. In fact, many tech-savvy conference organizers publicize a unique tag for its attendees to use when they post status updates to Twitter or photos to Flickr about the event. Attendees can use that same tag in Wave to create and add to event-specific discussions, too. (Those who aren’t at the event can eavesdrop on those public waves, ask questions, and add to the discussion from afar.)

For example, at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York in November of 2009, I (Gina) gave a keynote presentation called “Making Sense of Google Wave,”^[3] and invited attendees to wave about it using the public, agreed-upon conference tag w2e. Before I took the stage, I started a public wave and tagged it w2e so that anyone who searched for with:public tag:w2e could discuss my keynote or any other session they attended, as shown in Figure 10-7.

This technique has been used at events beyond Web 2.0 Expo; bloggers at both eComm Europe^[4] and the MediaWiki conference^[5] noted that attendees used Wave to take minutes, discuss sessions in real-time, and collaborate on notes.

(Watch a video of the 15-minute “Making Sense of Google Wave” keynote at http://goo.gl/7cK3.)

Wave for Breaking News

The live, real-time nature of Wave makes it a natural fit for collaborating on breaking news as it happens. In fact, when Seattle police were on the hunt for a man suspected of shooting four cops, the Seattle Times used a public wave to rapidly publish updates about the manhunt^[6] and solicit information from reader in the process, as shown in Figure 10-8.

Granted, most people aren’t conducting a manhunt for a suspected killer, but we all have a reason to broadcast and get live updates on events as they happen to us-like when your sister-in-law goes into labor, or Aunt Martha’s undergoing surgery, or Mom in New York is worried about how close the forest fires are to your home in San Diego and whether you’ve been evacuated.

Wave for Q&A

Wave’s inline reply feature makes it a solid choice for having conversations that require back-and-forth on individual points: like an interview. Question and answer interactions can happen very easily in Wave, because the interviewer can start a wave with multiple questions. Then, the respondent can reply to each question inline, and the interviewer can optionally follow up to the response right below it without disrupting the flow of the series. The result is a readable Q&A in the correct order, as shown in Figure 10-9.

Create Wave Templates for Reuse

If you create waves with the same formatting and gadgets often, create a “template” wave for reuse to save yourself repetitive work. For example, if you plan a recurring event in Wave, create a new wave, and format your event title, description, and details area to your liking, and add the Yes/No/Maybe and maps gadget. Save that wave in a “Templates” folder you create.

Then, the next time you need a wave to plan the event, open the template, and select “Copy to new wave” from the timestamp drop-down. Fill in the details for the event in the new copy.

Public Wave Templates

Googler Pamela Fox did just that and made her templates public and read-only, available for anyone to copy for their own purposes. Visit the read-only, public wave which lists her templates at http://goo.gl/GNUw, like the event planner wave template shown in Figure 10-10.

References

1. ↑ When to use Google Wave, Google.com
2. ↑ How to Manage a Group Project in Google Wave, Lifehacker.com
3. ↑ “Making Sense of Google Wave”: Web 2.0 Expo New York 2009, Web2Expo.com
4. ↑ How to Use Google Wave for Collaborative Conference Notes and Conversation, Emerging Tech Talk
5. ↑ MediaWiki conference uses Wave to work on minutes, Mediawiki Wave
6. ↑ Another Google Wave Use: Manhunt, TechCrunch.com

Post is from Lifehacker, by Gina Trapani

Chrome OS is a promising cloud-based operating system, but the big complaint most people have about it is that Chrome OS is entirely browser-based. New netbook OS Jolicloud is a lot like Chrome OS, but with the addition of killer desktop apps.

Before you even consider Jolicloud, you may want to look at their big list of compatible devices. It’s pretty huge, and I’d also suspect not complete. I’m actually testing it in a virtual machine and it’s working just fine, and it would probably work on a fair amount of other hardware.

Think you’d like to try it out? You can install it easily from Windows using a simple installer. Rather than wipe out your Windows installation, it simply carves out some partitioned space on your hard drive so you don’t have to worry about ditching Windows altogether just to try it out. Ready to give it a try? Once your Jolicloud installation is complete, you’ll end up at the login screen.

Enter the username and password you created during installation, and when you log in, you’ll end up staring down the Jolicloud netbook launcher screen.

You’ll also be prompted to set up your Jolicloud account at this point, but unfortunately the specialized Jolicloud accounts—which is part of what makes Jolicloud so cool—requires an invitation code, so you’ll probably want to sign up for one ASAP. If and when you do sign up with a Jolicloud homebase, you’ll get access to the Jolicloud App Directory pictured below.

It’s from this directory you can install your favorite programs—from Skype and Dropbox to Boxee and Spotify in a single click. When you’re logged in to Jolicloud, you’ve also got access to your social stream:

…and a convenient update manager:

In short, Jolicloud is a very impressive looking netbook operating system. Sure it’s just a specialized interface running on top of Ubuntu and powered by a lot of Mozilla Prism packages. The App Directory makes the operating system—as TechCrunch accurately put it—feel like an iPhonesque OS for netbooks. And unlike the current state of Chrome OS, the current alpha release of Jolicloud is actually pretty well supported.

It’s probably a little unfair to compare Jolicloud to Chrome OS, since they are ultimately very different in their approach, but they are both aiming for the same market—your netbooks. If you’ve given Jolicloud a try in the past or just want to weigh in on its looks from the screenshots, let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.