Answer: Good question, Hugh. Generally, the cloud refers to any computing service that is delivered over the Internet whether that's email, backup, or whatever it is. The reason why it's called cloud is that in block diagrams of network systems, the Internet is represented by an image of a cloud because it's something you as a network owner have no control over.
Cool Site: Voice 123: This week, we're continuing the theme of websites where folks can make an extra buck or two. If you have ever been told you have a good voice for radio, then check out voice123.com. This is a website for voice talent and people looking for voice talent. You go to the website and set up an account. Then, you record some demo material and post it. Companies looking for voice talent to for instance, be the voice of their voicemail system, or narrate a presentation, or whatever else, can then come to the site to locate you. They can find you by information in your profile including which type of voice or voices you can do, any special characteristics, and other things. So if you have a radiogenic voice, and you want to try to make some spare money, give it a try. As talent, setting up your account is free and just takes a bit of time.
Update: This site has two levels of membership for voice talent: Standard and Premium. Premium membership costs you, the potential voice talent, $295/year. It almost guarantees you work, though, because you get info on different projects all the time. Standard membership is free, but you can only audition if invited by the voice seeker, so you won't get much work that way.
Cool Gadget: LightWedge Book Light: This week's cool gadget is also from vat19.com. My son, Daine told me about this site and said that I'd be able to find gadgets for a long time to come. So far, he's been right. This week's cool gadget is the Lightwedge Book Light. It's a book light, like it says.
Eddie: What's so cool about that? There are all kinds of book lights.
David: True enough, but most book lights suffer from spillover. The glow of the light can be seen all over the room, or airplane, or wherever. The Lightwedge Book Light is designed to specifically light up only the pages of your book. It comes in two sizes: one for paperback books, the other for hardbacks. The reason for two sizes is in the way the Lightwedge confines its light to the page. It does that by directing the light into a page-sized acrylic plate. You lay that plate over the left-hand page and it spills just enough light over onto the right-hand page to make it readable. Of course, you read the left page through the acrylic plate.
Cool App: Sleep Ringer: This week's cool app is for Android and Blackberry phones. Sometimes when you have your phone on silent, you get a call you really need to answer anyway. This week's app, Sleep Ringer, is a $2 app that lets you make a list of contacts whose calls and/or text messages will always ring through, even when your phone is on silent. That way if you're out at the movies and leaving the kids home alone for the first time, you can put the phone on silent but if there's a problem and the kids call, your phone will ring anyway. Because you might disturb people, you'll probably want to keep your list empty except when needed, but when it is needed, it sounds like a good thing to have. Again, it's called Sleep Ringer, and it's for Android and Blackberry.
It's All "Geek" To Me: File Association: This week, our all Geek to me term is File Association. It refers to the mechanism used by Windows and the Mac to know what program to run when you try to, say, open a word processing document. The File Association mechanism assigns a default program to each type of file to establish a relationship. This relationship is used to know not only what program to run, but what icon to display for the file as well. Sometimes malware breaks file associations to embed itself into your system.
