The GoPC Blog

Getting your documents into and out of GoPC is easy to do. Once you have loaded your files into GoPC, you never again have to worry about losing your information or backing it up. It all lives in our virus protected and secure GoPC data centre. Then to use your documents, simply open them from within your GoPC desktop.

To transfer files into GoPC, login to the GoPC website. When you come to the logged in screen, select “Transfer/backup files between your PC and GoPC”.

GoPC Account Manager

Your GoPC Account Manager
This will take a few moments to load. You will need to have Java installed for this application to work, and if your computer doesn’t have it, you will be prompted to install Java. It is perfectly safe to do so.

You will then see a tree structure with the file structure of your computer on the left side and your GoPC storage on the right. You can simply drag and drop from one side to the other. You can also double click files on the left hand side (documents or folders) and these will be copied into the selected folder in GoPC on the right hand side.

File Manager

Please be aware that clicking on the delete button on the screen or on your keyboard is the same as hitting the delete button on your computer except that it deletes it straight from your machine rather than moving the files to the trash. So please take care not to hit the delete button when clicking on your files on your machine.

GoPC File Manager
Once your files are transferred, you can log in to your GoPC desktop and access your files in GoPC from the File Explorer

The type of account you have determines the amount of space you have. You can see how much space you have available when you log into the GoPC website.

File Explorer on the GoPC desktop

The type of account you have determines the amount of space you have. You can see how much space you have available when you log into the GoPC website.

If you want more space, login to your account and upgrade your account. If you have a GoPower account and want more than 8 gig of space, please email us.

Thanks for using GoPC. If you have any questions, or feedback simply Contact Us. We’d love to hear from you!

GoPC has entered into a strategic alliance with ThinLinX, the developer of a $99USD computer called the Hot-E.

The Hot-E received world wide publicity this month on at least 30 media outlets from the NY Times through to Australian Television.  The device is designed for cloud computing where all processing occurs on central servers.   This is an exact fit for use with GoPC and uses a staggering 3 watts of power compared to a normal 300 watt in an average PC. It will cost just $99US.   ThinLinX has also just partnered with a “major global IT company” and an announcement about this will appear soon.

John Nichols, CEO of ThinLinX and Graeme Speak, CEO of GoPC have agreed that a strategic alliance between the two companies makes a perfect match and a golden opportunity for synergy. Both are complementary Australian designed technologies which have now been launched on the world stage.

Powerpoint presentation using Impress

This month at an investor forum in Silicon Valley,  50 companies were invited to deliver their elevator pitches to the Silicon Valley Bank, VC’s and Angel investors.  GoPC was selected in the top 3 finalists, offered feedback and asked to re-present.  Of the top three, the venture capitalists selected us as the number 2 most interesting and well presented pitch.

Of course we were absolutely delighted. But in one sense we were not that surprised - we believe it underscores the huge interest and recognition in Silicon Valley about cloud computing.  It also demonstrates GoPC is definitely in the top echelon of projects currently in Silicon Valley.

We often get asked what the difference is between GoPC and web operating platforms.

There are dozens of them which have been created in the last 2 years.

These web based systems typically have similar characteristics:

• Every application has been written from scratch
• The system and applications have to be very light weight as they download first then run within the browser
• The effort required to write the functionality of the equivalent desktop applications is prohibitive

The net result is that WebOS’s are typically not as quick as a standard desktop environment, with basic but browser based functionality. On the plus side, they can look beautiful. Just imagine how much effort would be required to write the functionality of Excel. Google Spreadsheets can only effectively offer a limited set of the functionality of Excel. Hence these WebOS’s tend to have a significant hurdle because of the massive resources that go into creating a single web application.

GoPC by contrast has the full desktop functionality and applications of a normal PC. Some people refer to GoPC as a WebOS, but technically is not. In our model everything runs on a super computer and it is just an illusion that it’s running on the local PC. It’s thin client architecture. But you can for example load up a 15 Mb Word document with embedded images within 1 second, make changes and then save it back in under a second. Compare that to a WebOS or a VPN - which could take 5 minutes to download then 20 minutes to save back.

Effectively we give you the flexibility and freedom of cloud computing, with the richness and operating speed that you would expect of a normal desktop computer.

If you are not using GoPC already then you can get a sneak peak at the product at our Virtual Demo. Please note our demo is trying to replicate the full functionality of GoPC - so it takes a minute or two to load.

If you are using a GoPC account, why not upgrade and get hold of the power of the applications within GoPC. Simply login to the GoPC website and select upgrade from the account panel on the left.

Justin

One of the really neat tools with GoPC is the ability to take GoPC with you on a USB. I find this really handy when going from one PC to another  - whether at a client site, home office or wherever.

You can click on the icon from the USB and it has all of your settings preconfigured. This means you can log in straight away without waiting to download.

And we aren’t the only ones that like it - we’ve just been picked up by Robert Fuller on Room362

Thanks for the positive wrap!

Thanks to Scott Cousins, PC World Panelist and GoPC user, we have been picked up in a great list of 101 top freebies. Here is what they had to say…

GoPC (www.gopc.com.au) The GoPC ‘virtual computer’ allows you to replicate your personal desktop on any PC with an internet connection. All your programs and files are stored online, and can be accessed by simply plugging in a USB flash-drive, iPod or other device that you’ve loaded with the connection program. “Wherever you go, you take your bookmarks, web history, emails and documents. You don’t need to carry around a laptop, just your pen drive,” says PC World reader panelist Scott Cousins. “It’s a great product that I use everyday at school, at work and even at home.”

Scott has been using GoPC for two years - and to say thanks we have upgraded his account to GoProfessional.

Justin

There were three - count ‘em - three seminar/conferences held in June 2008 entitled Cloud Computing.  As a concept, it’s certainly picking up steam as ‘the new,’ and the world seems to be starting to understand that it will be moving towards using Cloud Computing, particularly at the enterprise level. Tonight I went to a VLAB (MIT/Stanford Venture Lab) for a conference on “Cloud Computing:  creating value for Web 2.0 Apps.”

I was surprised and pretty proud to find, of a room of 300+ people, and seven speakers, that we at GoPC really have got a strong handle on what cloud computing is, how it works, and what it can do.  I was actually disappointed that I didn’t learn much new - but heartened to find out that we know a great deal more than many.

Google, Amazon, etc. know a lot about their implementation of it.  Many other providers, coat-tail riders and bandwagon jumpers are really still trying to get their heads around it.

95% of the discussion related to just the network infrastructure level; that is, using Xen or VMWare to virtualise servers and people like Amazon with the S3 architecture renting out virtual servers - all this is at the data center infrastructure level.  There was hardly any discussion of the Cloud at the application layer, and certainly not at the presentation layer.

Not to toot my own whistle, but we’ve been using Xen and other technology to make good use of servers at that level, but the real magic is that we’ve created a fully integrated cloud at the application layer and presentation layer.  Nobody else has done this anywhere.  By comparison (against what I saw today), we’ve got the most comprehensive example of a fully integrated cloud computing environment going. Not too shabby.

I’m guessing it’s actually a matter of ‘who cares?’ Although some purists might gnash their teeth to hear that!

But if I had to answer it, I’d say it’s not actually a question of what came first. It’s more a question of which is a subset of which.

In my opinion, grid computing is a kind or subset of cloud computing. Grid computing is scalable (that is, make it big or small according to your needs) computing power, usually used by businesses. And supplied via the web.

It’s a way of tapping into extra computing power in ‘times of need.’ Say you need to do a mass mailout of a large document once a month (think: a pdf newsletter). Just tap into the power of someone else’s grid for the day and off it goes in the blink of an eye – rather than tying up your servers for the next 12 hours. Of course you pay for it. AAmazon Elastic Cloud Compute offers this service (although they seem to be hijacking the name cloud computing), as does GoGrid (who are, btw, not affiliated with GoPC).

All very interesting, but how does this relate to cloud computing?

Some would have you believe that cloud computing is either a fancy name for, or a part of, grid computing. Others go into infinite detail to categorise various providers WITHIN the cloud computing realm. (Actually, we think cloud computing encompasses grid computing, but that’s beside the point.)

This is because cloud computing as a term is still up for grabs. Purists can argue until they’re blue in the face, but the fact is that cloud computing will encompass whatever the people say it encompasses. Whatever works best and hits the market first and touches the public heart in the most widespread manner.

Best to keep definitions broad, then. Cloud computing is computing power offered via the web - something you can tap into without knowing or caring how it works. You just want to know THAT it works. And therein lies the principle of cloud computing.

Services, platforms, power, apps, hosting, etc you can pick out of the cloud that is the internet. A cloud is fuzzy, misty, obscure and opaque - but that’s okay because it’s not about how or why it works. It only matters that it works and you can access it anywhere, anytime.

Cloud computing is a method of supplying technology on demand. Who cares where it comes from, or even what it’s called? So long as it’s there when you need it. That’s why services as basic as web-based email are also forms of cloud computing. It’s just that, as the services expand, we are now finding it necessary to have a name for this stuff. And just in time, because the expansion it’s undergoing is nothing short of phenomenal.

Graeme