As we get an idea of how the cloud technology has been divided and categorized, it is also important to know that Cloud technology provides us a large number of interesting applications that are completely free.



Explanation & Usage

SaaS provides these applications. Unlike standard desktop applications, in SaaS, the application processing is done on the data centers of the organizations.

Let's see the categorization of the cloud computing applications into various types:

  • Online File storage
  • Photo editing software
  • Digital video software
  • Twitter-related applications
  • Creating image-album
  • Web application for antivirus
  • Word processing application
  • Spreadsheets
  • Presentation software
  • Finding a way on the map
  • E-commerce software
  • Miscellaneous applications

Online File Storage

MediaFire, megaupload, hotfile, 4Shared, rapidshare, yourfilehost are such examples which are used to host files including documents, images, presentation, videos, etc. The interface is easy to use, and users can upload and download files from these sites. Here users can utilize 200GB of storage space and a file size of 2GB. The charge for the premium version of these cloud storage application is an average of $9.

Photo Editing Software

Picnik, Pixlr, etc. are popular free online photo editing software. This online software has features such as cropping of the image, resizing, rotation based on degrees, special effects, addition and editing features are also included in a GUI (Graphical User Interface) format. Some of them offer paint tools and other adjustment features. The brightness and contrast can also be editable, and users can layer the images. In the case of Pixlr, though it has various high-level, complex features, still it's easy to use.

Digital Video Software

Hulu is a free application for videos that are found online for free. Cloud users can download popular movies, television shows, and documentaries and view them on their web-browser. Hulu is a joint venture of three firms viz. - Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal and ABC Inc. There are other popular video sites like - WatchMoviesOnline, the most famous YouTube, Google video, etc.

Twitter-Related Applications

One example is bit.ly which converts long URL into a short small-sized unique URL. When a user clicks that small unique URL, it redirects the user to that real website. Sometimes it seems harmful as hackers can put malicious attachments or programs with it which can further affect the user. Ly made a partnership with Twitter, to allow twitter users to use shortened URLs. There is also another site name Twitpic which allows the user to upload pictures to be linked from twitter. It uses twitters login, creates shorterened URLs that can be invoked from twitters microblogging.

Creating Image Album

Some of the examples are flickr, photobucket,  webshots,  imagebam and ziddu that allows users to host images on the web. These sites are a part of the cloud that allows users to organize images into albums and create slideshows for free.

Web Application for Antivirus

One example is Cloud Antivirus, this application on the cloud is provided by Panda Security - a Spanish company which provides functionality to keep the virus away from a clean system and also detects and fix a system infested with malware or other forms of computer viruses. It has been rated as the best free antivirus application by PC World. This also includes the feature to download it into the systems, and the checking of malware is done by sending the information of the file to the data-center of the cloud.

Presentation Software

Sliderocket is an online free application to create a presentation. It allows importing of Microsoft's PowerPoint presentations. Since it is a web-based cloud application, the presentations can be accessed from anywhere within the globe. But the free version doesn't allow cloud users to edit presentations offline.

Word Processing Application

Writeboard is another online word processing and document editing application. It has a unique feature that multiple users can access the same document using this application, edit that document and save the document after editing, but the document will have different versions. But it doesn't allow importing the word files.

Finding a Way on the Map

Another area where cloud applications became worth popular was finding directions and locations on the web. The leading sites are mapquestGoogle Maps, and Yahoo Maps. They are the most useful free online application that helped millions of users in various ways by showing direction and paths and helped people get to their destinations over the last decade.

E-Commerce Software

Cloud based e-application allows users and e-business to respond quickly to market opportunities & challenges the modern e-commerce is facing. It became for business tycoons to focus on the usage of cloud computing without considering the time and effort involved in implementing a reliable solution. Whatever cloud computing solution they select, the free online application will need to access customer data, product data, fulfillment systems and other operational systems to support e-commerce. Cloud-based e-commerce application provides IT firms, and business leaders evaluate new opportunities without a huge amount of upfront investment.

Miscellaneous Applications

One of the 1st utilization of free SaaS applications is to check for the status of packages & items. Applications such as UPS, FedEx, US Postal Service, etc. provide free tracking of packages online. Another application name - XE provides services online from foreign exchange tools.

So every users and reader must need to know the benefits that cloud computing gives by providing free applications for users. This can reduce cost OS storage and buy paid software to do different tasks.



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