Requirement 1: Maximize Portability

No gadget is truly a part of the "cloud computing" phenomenon without gaining the obvious portability advantage. This is by far the most important reason that people use the cloud and nothing in my experiment will be successful unless I can successfully access my information from any internet-accessible computer. I'm limiting my experiences to just computers for ease of use, the fact that I sadly don't own an iPhone, and the fact that most of my productivity takes place on a full QWERTY keyboard.

1. The first condition of portability must be that the gadget is fully compatible with most major web browsers; namely Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.
   
2. This also means that the gadget must be completely platform independent; so, fully compatible with MS Windows, Linux, and OSX.
3. Thirdly it must be "rights" independent. That is to say that I should be equally successful working at home on my personally add-on pimped-out version of Firefox as I am while forced to trudge away on the tightly locked-down, security paranoid Internet Explorer installed in my school's computer lab.

Step One: The Idea that kept me up all night

So, my recent change in employment has led me to abandon my previously adored and envied Alienware laptop. By giving up my full-time position at the university in favor of a part-time adjuncting gig. I wind up losing many benefits from health insurance, to higher pay, to most egregiously - exclusive access to my own personal computer (and sweet 22" monitor) at work. To help me adjust to this loss I've decided to embark upon a personal odyssey into the wonderful world of cloud computing that has been so touted in recent techie news circles.

To begin, I've decided to attempt a completely gypsy-like approach to my whole computing career. In short, no computer is mine to own, so I'll just take the whole internet instead >:D. I'll start by defining a few parameters that will help me to evaluate the tools and services (let's just call them all gadgets for both convenience and expressive nerdy-ness) that I'll encounter on my journey:

1. Maximize Portability
2. Minimize Cost
3. Maximize Productivity
4. Maximize Security

Oooh, I just noticed that I created the basic parameters for a differential equation to evaluate gadgets! Dr. G. would be so proud! In my next few posts I'll delve into each of these for more detailed definitions and eventually create a rubric to score my gadgets in each category.