Hello World. The consumer cloud computer unfolds

Feb 26, 2010 at 06:00 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud, today announces an affordable and easy to use cloud-based home server with open APIs. Expect consumer electronics, software and online services to make use of this new mass-consumer friendly online computer. The always-ON computer opens up a new era where electronic devices easily can integrate and make use of the cloud.

Linköping, Sweden - February 26, 2010 - Today’s launch of the icloud Ready Program for the consumer electronics industry is a milestone in making it easy to connect electronic devices to the cloud. The environmental friendly icloud online computer is always-ON and offers consumers an easy way to provide, share and manage content like music, photos and video for easy access from all kinds of electronic devices that connect to the Internet. This includes devices with popular platforms like iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile.

Daniel Arthursson, icloud's Founder and CEO says, "All these new kinds of devices like flat-screen TV’s, smartphones, digital photo frames and Internet radios have amazing capabilities, but today its too complex and expensive for most consumers to manage and setup their own home server. With icloud it’s all handled safely in the cloud and easy enough for mass consumer adoption; it will be a break-through for the consumer electronics industry".

Already, anyone can create an icloud account free of charge. With icloud a full remote management desktop is provided to handle the online computer and manage uploaded files. Everyone receives 3 GB of free storage; premium accounts are provided up to 100 GB. This enables anyone with a mobile phone to have 100 GB right in their pocket.

Read more: http://icloud.com/ready, online demo at: http://icloud.com/en/demo

Facts about the icloud online computer:

1. Cloud-based home server for consumers with open APIs
2. Remote desktop that runs directly through a web browser
3. Upload, edit, watch and share content like music, photos and video
4. 100 GB Super Drive available for $39.99 / year
5. Available worldwide in 27 languages

icloud is available for free, and open for sign-ups. To learn more about icloud, visit icloud.com.

About icloud
Founded in 2001 by Daniel Arthursson, Xcerion provides the free icloud.com service, the world’s leading online computer and "green" cloud-based home server.

Xcerion AB is based in Sweden, privately held and funded by Northzone Ventures. Investors include Lou Perazzoli, architect of Windows NT and former Manager Microsoft Core OS and John Connors former CFO Microsoft. Xcerion is a Red Herring Global 100 winner.

Supercharge your iPhone with icloud and 100 GB storage

Dec 16, 2009 at 11:00 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud, the online computer, today rolls out icloud Premium -- a massive 100 GB of secure cloud storage for only $39.99 / year. Everybody can now access all their content anytime and anywhere. icloud Basic with 3 GB is available for free, and open for sign-ups at http://icloud.com.

Linkoping, Sweden - December 16th, 2009 - Today’s launch of icloud Premium and the 100 GB Super Drive will greatly extend all the amazing capabilities of icloud to the iPhone. The new premium service lets everyone store, access and easily share files through any smartphone or browser. It gives you 100 GB of storage right in your pocket. You will never again feel that you have forgotten to bring important files with you. icloud securely stores files like music, photos, videos, documents, and provides a full management interface and virtual desktop through a browser to organize and share all your content.

icloud launch movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQgdceh66EQ

Daniel Arthursson, icloud's Founder and CEO says, "Having 100 GB directly accessible in your pocket through an iPhone or smart phone will definitely change how we use and interact with data. With the massive storage of the icloud Super Drive, everything will always be accessible, no need to bring your computer to do a quick PowerPoint presentation, just present it straight out of the cloud.".

Facts about the icloud online computer:

• Secure cloud storage with backup accessible from any computer, iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile phone (WebDAV)
• Free basic version includes 50 applications like Office, Mail, Music, Video, Instant Messaging and Games (signup here)
• icloud Premium with 100 GB Super Drive now available for $39.99/year
• Community (my.icloud.com, example: http://my.icloud.com/daniel) and email @icloud.com
• Zero installation, runs within browsers
• Available worldwide in 26 languages and used in 170 countries

icloud, the World’s First Online Computer, Launches New Desktop, Sharing and Super Search - Extending the Life of Aging Computers with the Power of Cloud Computing

Nov 02, 2009 at 05:00 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud Launch Movie "Experience Cloud Computing" - Screenshots

icloud, the online service that gives you the freedom of your friends, files and digital life on any computer. Six months after launch, icloud is available worldwide in 26 languages and used in 170 countries by over 200,000 users.

Linköping, Sweden - November 2nd, 2009 - icloud today announces the launch of its improved desktop with Super Search and a new innovative start menu. Super Search integrates many of the most popular services on the internet with simultaneous search of your private files in the cloud. It has never before been more convenient to find what you are looking for. This major release of icloud also introduces Universal Sharing. Decide what to share, who you want to share with, and icloud will find the easiest way to reach them.

Launch movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQgdceh66EQ

icloud is more than a Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD), it’s a real-time communication and sharing platform enabling easy collaboration. Its key differentiator to other Cloud Computing services is its Application Virtualization technology enabling software delivery as SaaS, but execution on the local computer. This preserves data center resources, reduce bandwidth consumption and is the "greenest", environmental friendly Cloud Computing technology available on the planet.

Market research company Frost & Sullivan recognized the significance of icloud’s Application Virtualization and awarded icloud the 2008 European Product Innovation Award in Cloud Computing.

Daniel Arthursson, founder of icloud says, "With icloud, everyone in the world can afford to have their own computer, it's free and always accessible".

• 3 GB storage to safely store and backup documents, photos and music
• 50 applications like Office, Mail, Music, Video, Instant Messaging and Games
• Community (my.icloud.com, example: http://my.icloud.com/daniel) and email @icloud.com
• File sharing and WebDAV (mount Cloud Drive as a network drive)
• Zero installation, runs within browsers

icloud is available for free, and open for sign-ups. To learn more about icloud, visit icloud.com.

About icloud
Founded in 2001 by Daniel Arthursson, Xcerion provides the free icloud.com service, the world’s leading "Cloud OS", a groundbreaking technology with 22 pending patents. Developers have API and tools to build their own cloud applications.

Xcerion AB is based in Sweden, privately held and funded by Northzone Ventures. Investors include Lou Perazzoli, architect of Windows NT and former Manager Microsoft Core OS and John Connors former CFO Microsoft. Xcerion is a Red Herring Global 100 winner.

Screenshots of icloud are available here: http://icloud.com/en/features
YouTube movie channel for icloud: http://youtube.com/xcerion
Follow icloud on Twitter: http://twitter.com/xcerion

Private File Sharing Network

Jun 02, 2009 at 12:00 AM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud, the world’s first free online computer, announcing steps toward Web Freedom with its Secure and Private File Sharing Network

The icloud file sharing idea is easy: people and groups need private and secure sharing, storage and backup of files. With icloud you upload, access and share your music, videos and photos with people you trust.

Linköping, Sweden - July 2nd, 2009 - icloud the online computer that gives you the freedom of your friends, files and digital life on any computer just announced improved file sharing capabilities, speed and worldwide reach for its online desktop + community. Everyone can now get an always ON cloud computer for sharing their digital life. It acts as your digital persona.

Whether you are at the office, home, or at your friends place, all your files and folders are accessible and shareable at your fingertips. Mount your icloud Cloud Drive as a local hard drive and drag and drop files or folders directly to the cloud, they are then ready to be shared and used.

Today icloud is available in 21 languages; Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.

With icloud, your computer is always ON, available in the cloud to serve you, your friends and familys need of access to your information. Its easy cloud computing for the masses.

Your online computer gives you:

• 3 GB free storage space to safely store and backup documents, photos and music online
• 50 free applications and widgets such as Office, Mail, Music, Video, Instant Messaging, Games, Collaboration and Development tools
• Public profile, http://my.icloud.com/daniel
• Free email @icloud.com
• File sharing and WebDAV support, mount as a network drive (Get Installer)
• Zero installation, icloud runs in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser

icloud unveils file sharing and community

May 12, 2009 at 12:00 AM Written by Daniel Arthursson

Get your Free Online Computer - Outside the Box - icloud Now adding File Sharing and Community to the Cloud

icloud, the world’s first free online computer, giving you the freedom of your friends, files and digital life on any computer. New launched features include; desktop + community, file sharing, publishing of files up to 150 MB and import of contacts.

Linköping, Sweden - May 12th, 2009 - icloud today unveils that it is more than an online computer; it is also a fun fast growing social community available worldwide in 18 languages. icloud shows how a desktop + community makes everyday life easier for its digital inhabitants.

Daniel Arthursson, the founder of icloud says: "With icloud, we put a virtual computer together with free storage and free applications in the hands of everybody in the world, it's the PC for everyone without a PC. Everybody can now access and share documents, photos, music and their complete digital life from any computer.

The public version includes:

• Access to your friends, files and digital life on any computer
• 3 GB free storage space to safely store documents, photos and music online
• 30 free applications such as Office, Mail, Music, Video, IM, Sharing, Games, Collaboration and Development tools
• 20 free widgets
• Free backup to provide secure storage, including WedDav
• Zero installation, icloud runs in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser

icloud expands into nine more countries

May 05, 2009 at 12:00 AM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud, the world's first free online computer, expands its fast-growing service into nine more countries

New languages include; Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese for Portugal and Romanian.

Linköping, Sweden - May 5th, 2009 - Xcerion today announce that icloud, the online service that gives you the freedom of your friends, files and digital life on any computer, is offered globally in nine more languages. Previously icloud is available in Chinese, English, Filipino, German, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

People use icloud for fast and easy sharing of files, backups, mail and staying in touch with friends. They also use Instant Messaging with MSN through their work and Internet café computers, without installing anything or leaving any traces. The icloud desktop is completely customizable into your own secret place.

Daniel Arthursson, the founder of icloud says: "Everyone should feel welcome in their private icloud space. Adding more languages is an important step in making icloud easy to use". Icloud is a global service, used in 168 countries. The language translation of icloud is done by its members and 150 iclouders world-wide have been contributing.

Your online computer gives you:

• Access to your friends, files and digital life on any computer
• 3 GB free storage space to safely store documents, photos and music online
• 30 free applications such as Office, Mail, Music, Video, IM, Sharing, Games, Collaboration and Development tools
• 20 free widgets
• Free backup to with secure storage, including WedDav
• Zero installation, icloud runs in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser

icloud has launched! :-)

Apr 08, 2009 at 06:45 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud, the world's first free online computer, launches worldwide today, taking Cloud Computing to the next level

icloud, the online service that gives you the freedom of your friends, files and digital life on any computer. After 8 years of development icloud is today officially launched worldwide as the online PC for everyone without a PC

Linköping, Sweden - April 7th, 2009 - Xcerion today announce the launch of icloud, the world's first free online computer, giving everybody in the world their own online computer packed with free storage, applications, virtual desktop and backup accessible from any computer connected to the Internet. Starting today the icloud service is available in English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish and Filipino languages.

The public launch of icloud builds on a closed beta testing program and the incorporation of user feedback from iclouder's worldwide. icloud is proud to announce free icloud accounts for everyone at http://www.icloud.com.

Daniel Arthursson, the founder of icloud say, "With icloud, we put a virtual computer together with free storage and free applications in the hands of everybody in the world, it's the PC for everyone without a PC. Everybody can now access and share documents, photos, music and their complete digital life from any computer".

The public version includes:

• Access to your friends, files and digital life on any computer
• 3 GB free storage space to safely store documents, photos and music online
• 30 free applications such as Office, Mail, Music, Video, IM, Sharing, Games, Collaboration and Development tools
• 20 free widgets
• Free backup to provide secure storage, including WedDav
• Zero installation, icloud runs in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser

Improved speed with Akamai

Mar 26, 2009 at 03:29 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

icloud have this week switched to a new Content Delivery Network (CDN) partner, called Akamai (http://akamai.com). This is a speedy step forward when it comes to efficiently serving icloud world-wide. Through Akamai, icloud is distributed over 25 000 high efficiency servers all over the world.

The time it now takes for you to access an image, application or program from icloud is much, much lower. You will be able to access it from one of Akamai’s servers in your country with reduced ping time compared to accessing it through one of icloud’s data centers in Sweden. Before we this week switched to Akamai, we used another CDN partner, but it has shown through tests that we have conducted throughout the world that Akamai generally is 3-5 times faster than all other CDN providers in the world, regardless of where in the world the tests are done.

Next we found out that we actually did not utilize the power of the CDN in over 100 places in icloud, this has been corrected and will go live within short together with the next release of icloud. This will continue to speed up icloud additionally and there probably are more places where we can utilize CDN power. In essence, you can expect icloud to become faster and faster :)

More Data Centers

The data centers that we have in Sweden are now mainly used to loading your own, personal content and to save content. It is also used for messaging, mail and collaboration etc. While working on improving the icloud service with its applications, we have also recently done a lot of development when it comes to making icloud ready for becoming globally distributed in multiple data centers, both in our data centers and in all server code of icloud. The plan is to open up additionally two more data centers this year in Asia and South America, which will then also increase performance when doing heavy file input / output.

We respect Your copyright

One important thing to note for all our iclouders are that you own all data uploaded to icloud, we do not have any rights to the material stored in your Cloud Drive, it is like having your very own personal cloud computing hard drive. All contents of the Cloud Drive is yours and only yours with you owning the full copyright.And, speaking of data, have you started to use the WebDAV feature in icloud yet? Its the perfect way of uploading and downloading content to your Cloud Drive. See previous blog post for information about how to use it :-)

Firefox, Firefox, Firefox!!!

Mar 13, 2009 at 03:29 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

This is another exciting moment for us; finally we have our first Firefox Alpha version ready in icloud. Today on Friday the 13th we bring some hope to everybody that is running Firefox :-)

As it is an Alpha version, it is definitively not perfect, but most of the core functionality of icloud is now running on Firefox; the XML Virtual Machine, most of the user-interface components and a basic set of applications – the look and feel is as in the IE version. We are now working on the speed issues, adding, certifying and testing more and more applications to be included in the Firefox release. Please be patient with us, since we have quite a lot of applications the task of adding all of them will probably take a couple of months, but our skilled Firefox team is working very hard and believe me when I say that they are determined.

Some facts about this Firefox release:

• Early Alpha release, not stable for everyday work

• icloud Firefox is not representative for icloud as a service, if you are looking into experience icloud as its designed and envisioned, then please use IE until Firefox is fully ready

• 16 applications are certified and running on Firefox today out of icloud’s total of about 40 applications

• The Console and the Application Designer (the IDE) have not been ported yet. We are working on a new improved Console that will be Firefox enabled from the start. Meanwhile Notepad can be used for application development or use the Internet Explorer version

• icloud needs to download a Java applet to add the XML functionality that Firefox does not yet support, most notable the support for sending parameters and objects into XSLT (as specified in the XSLT specification), when will Mozilla add this? Please enable Java in order to be able to run icloud.

• If you have installed Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 on Linux, then please disable JIT, go to about:config, search for JIT and set the flag to false, otherwise icloud will not run

• Firefox 3.07 also works, but some icloud features are disabled

• If icloud hangs in the boot screen, then please try hitting refresh a couple of times, often icloud starts loading then (we are working on this)

• Yes it’s a bit slow... We have focused our efforts in getting the XML virtual machine and Core OS up and running, next step will be to optimize code and improve performance

• When everything is finished, the same application developed in icloud’s XML languages will work directly both in Firefox and Internet Explorer without the developer having to think about any cross-browser issues

• icloud Firefox and icloud IE is using the same code base and both versions will continue to be up-to-date with every upcoming release

How to start testing?

So how do I start testing the Firefox version? Please use Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 (it is the Firefox version that works best with icloud, for Firefox Beta 3, see above) and use the following link (logon using your ordinary icloud account):http://os.icloud.com/ff.html

Ok, you've been Warned this is an early Alpha…..enjoy!

icloud gets a lot of new features - Movie, WebDAV, spell-check and localization

Mar 04, 2009 at 12:00 AM Written by Daniel Arthursson

This week we have added improvements to icloud in terms of functionality, speed, quality and usability. As you might have noticed we have been a bit quiet for a couple of months, we have been busy working on this big release.

So what are the new "bells and whistles"?

• Movie – A cool movie player and library application that is integrating with both YouTube and MetaCafé. This means that you can organize and share your YouTube and MetaCafé favorite movie clips, while using a sleek and smart user interface. Great app try it out and give us your feedback.

• Last Users Online – Now you can see other “iclouders” online and easily invite them to become your friend

• Event Widget – Keeps track of everything that is going on. Here you can see all files shared to you, pending friend requests and invitations to join groups, simply put: all messages going on in icloud

• Delight Widget – A smaller Document Explorer in the disguise of a widget.  Now you can have your favorite folders open with customized list views readily available as soon as you log in. Perhaps you want to see your mail inbox, calendar, contacts, RSS news feeds or contacts at the same time nicely organized in your customized widget right on your desktop

• WebDAV – Yes, now you can access your icloud Cloud Drive directly from within your Windows, Mac or Linux applications, use easy drag and drop to upload your complete photo or music library and access it from everywhere. The WebDAV functionality is also a fantastic way to use icloud as a virtual USB memory stick and backup service.

• Localization – icloud and all of its applications are now capable of handling multiple languages; each language is stored in XML documents and can easily be translated. First out is of course our native language, Swedish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbs64GvGgPU, but many more languages will follow in the upcoming months. If you are interested in helping us translate icloud to your language, then please drop us an email. You change the language using Control Panel – Locale, please reboot icloud to activate the new language.

• Spell-checking – We have added spell checking natively for multiple languages. The first application out to make use of it is our word processor; Write. We will add this feature to as many apps as it makes sense.

• Word Conversion – We have also trimmed our import feature of Microsoft Word documents and also thrown in an export to Microsoft Word feature for Write

• Bookmark Thumbnails – Now you can see your bookmarks for your favorite websites also as miniature thumbnails within the icloud Browser and also directly in the file system using Document Explorer. A very handy function that gives you a much better instant overlook than using regular bookmarks.

• Asynchronous – Many areas of icloud has become much more asynchronous with a resulting improvement in speed and user experience. Multiple applications may be started simultaneously and will open as soon as the server can deliver the application code to your computer

What about Firefox? :-)

Some (actually a lot of)  people are wondering when Firefox will arrive? With this release we have at least translated 12 of our icloud applications to run on Firefox and also the whole core of the icloud Cloud OS is now capable of running in Firefox. Tests on Firefox are in full motion and we have started Firefox live for a select few of our beta testers. Using icloud Firefox in combination with our WebDAV functionality makes up for a very good storage and data transportation service across different computers. See the sneak preview below: 

However, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before the Firefox version runs as crisp as the current Internet Explorer version. Like we have stated before: rest assure that we are very dedicated to optimize and improve the Firefox version of icloud. Firefox is VERY important for our vision of: develop once, run everywhere on any operating system or device.  

icloud Email

Have you found your icloud email account yet? Every icloud user has their own icloud email with username@icloud.com, which directly sends the mail into icloud Mail. This default email account can for example be used if you use the "Email to a friend…" feature that is accessible from some of our applications. If you prefer to use your own IMAP email account to send emails (like Gmail), just add your account in icloud Mail and select this email account as the default account instead.

WebDAV - How to use

How do I start to make use of this cool WebDAV feature? If you are using Windows, go to “My network places”. In the start menu, choose “Add a network place”, click next, select “Choose another network location”, then enter http://webdav.icloud.com:80/your_username.  Where “your_username” is you enter the username you use to logon to icloud. When prompted to enter your username, enter your username again and the password you use to logon to icloud. Your Cloud Drive will now be ready to use through Windows Explorer.

iLauncher - Run any webpage inside an icloud window

Another hidden gem inside icloud is the iLauncher functionality, it lets you run any webpage or service within a window in icloud and get an icon on the desktop for it. Also, don’t forget about the Sharing functionality in icloud, allowing you to share any folder or documents with your friends.

Developer News

Many improvements have also been done in our XML programming languages that are used to build icloud applications. Please find the full developer documentation in the desktop support menu. Also remember that you can use the System Manager to view the source code of any application found within icloud. As a user of icloud you are allowed to modify any application we have developed or mash it up with other applications or your own custom functionality. You may also republish them through your own website if you wish. Remember, icloud support accessing any http resource out on the Internet and also have XML Web Services with SOAP support.

New logotype

This release is also the premiere of our new icloud logo (what do you think about it?)

Stay tuned for more features and improvements of icloud in the upcoming releases. We have many exciting and even some unexpected things in the pipeline for icloud.

Daniel Arthursson, CEO

Xcerion / icloud.com

Xcerion Named a Winner of the Red Herring 100 Global Award

Jan 20, 2009 at 12:00 AM Written by Daniel Arthursson

Xcerion, the Swedish company that in 2009 will give everybody in the world that does not have a computer its own “free computer online”, today announced that it has been chosen a winner of the prestigious Red Herring 100 Global Award.

Past award winners include Google, Yahoo, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com, and YouTube.

Daniel Arthursson, CEO of Xcerion, said, "We are honored to be A Winner of the Red Herring 100 Global Award for 2008. We have worked hard for 7 years with our free computer online; icloud.com. This Award is a significant validation for our promise for 2009; to give everybody in the world that does not have their own computer, a free computer online with the icloud.com service."

About Xcerion and icloud

Founded in 2001 by Daniel Arthursson, Xcerion AB provides icloud, the worlds leading “Cloud OS” as a Web 2.0 service.

icloud is the free computer online where you can share experiences with friends. It is secure, social and always accessible from any computer or device.Applications on icloud include office productivity, development tools, media and widgets.

Xcerion is based in Linkoping, Sweden, privately held and venture funded by Northzone Ventures. Investors include Lou Perazzoli, one of the original architects of Windows NT and former General Manager of the Microsoft Core OS group and John Connors, former CFO and CIO of Microsoft. 

About Red Herring

Red Herring is a global media company, which unites the world's best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider's access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy. More information about Red Herring is available on the Internet at www.redherring.com.

Christmas Release

Dec 28, 2008 at 03:29 PM Written by Peter Wahlgren

First some exciting news; Xcerion is proud to have been selected as a Red Herring Global Top 200 finalist after being selected as a 2008 Red Herring Europe 100 winner. The year is coming to an end and we couldn’t leave 2008 without a few improvements. We have done a lot of improvements under the hood that might not be visible to the every day user at a quick glance. All system dialogs have got a new transparent purple-blue liquid design, to better match all the new application windows.

Mail 

The most notable change is the fact that every icloud user now gets an email account 'username@icloud.com'. Email from / to anyone can be recieved / sent using this account. You can still register your external email accounts but be sure to set the default account settings for the outgoing emails, since the default accounts email address will be used as sender for emails. We have also added an image blocker for increased security while reading emails and done a lot of minor improvements to increase the user experience.

Welcome

A new application, greeting all new users was added. Showing some of the most used functionality of icloud and helping to configure your account with MSN and email support. From the Welcome application it is also easy to change wallpaper and access help to most applications. If you have not seen the Welcome application yet it is accessible through the desktop Support menu.

Todo

We have released a Todo application though this is an early alpha version. Our intentions are to make high use of icloud’s collaboration features, which will enable you to share single tasks as well as tasks lists with your friends.

iPlay Mini & Dock

The iPlay application got a new friend. The iPlay Mini is a smaller version of iPlay which can be used both as an application or widget.  

iPlay and it’s mini counterpart share the same playlist so you could easily create your playlists in iPlay and play them in the widget to get more desktop space. While playing both applications are synchronized and play the same music. We also have created a playlist window to see and edit the current playlist both from iPlay and iPlay Mini. While they still where at it, the development team behind iPlay also threw in iPlay Dock, a special iPlay for use in the widget sidebar that also shows the album art and current artist playing and has shortcuts for opening the playlist, iPlay and iPlay Mini.

Sharing

As you know, you can share files and folders with your friends. Your friends will get references, not copies, to your files in their xios://Friends folder. The Sharepad widget will help you to navigate to the right xios://Friends folder in the file manager. Now, in this release, you can also see what your shared to your friends in your xios://Shared folder. As you might have noticed, we have adopted the open symbol suggested for sharing throughout icloud.  

News for Developers

We have improved the XML Virtual Machine that is in the heart of the icloud Cloud OS by looking at the granularity of the process language. With smaller execution units we could nestle operations such as foreach and decision. This will seriously reduce the amount of steps needed in your applications and increase execution speed and readability. A lot of the operations have also become more asynchronous to leave the control back to the user. When logging in to icloud, you might have noticed that it now starts quicker and piece after piece is being loaded.   Some user interface components have also been improved, especially menus for faster rendering even over slower bandwidth. Since icloud is getting users from all over the world, we try to make sure that it should be a compelling user experience regardless of bandwidth and ping time. This is an ongoing refinement and fine-tuning process for icloud.

Foreach Revisited

The loop operation has changed, in the previous release, you wrote what to call but now you need to add operations as children to the foreach operation. You can iterate over numeric intervals, a component selection or an XML node set. Loop over interval from 1 to 10   <operation name="foreach" value="1..10"> Loop over interval from 4 to –2, note that this will count backwards.   <operation name="foreach" value="4..-2"> Loop from 1 to 10 with steps of 2   <operation name="foreach" value="1..10,2">

New Functions

We have also added a lot of new xidExpression functions. This will simplify string, date and file handling. Goodies like; substring, trim, random, replace, match, capitalize, parsedate, formatdate, adddate, is-running, is-open, is-alias and more could help you to use less steps, operations and aliases. Take a closer look at the documentation found in the start menu: Support > Help > Developer Documentation. There you can find the chapter Functions under References for more information. Another area of improvement has been on our XML file system, used to power the Cloud Drive and virtual file system found in Document Explorer and the icloud applications. Many applications use the collaborative file system directly as a database, similar to how software like Lotus Notes our Microsoft Exchange works and it has therefore become very important to make it easy for applications to make use of it. Automatic meta data extraction from XML documents is now available and exposed within the file listings, represented as atom-feeds. The file type recognition system in icloud is used to know what data to extract. As a developer, you can define your own file types, either using the Control Panel application or by directly manipulating the #Settings document. Before saving any changes, make a backup of the document, since breaking the XML within it will break your accounts setting file and you will have to restore it to the default settings. Powerful search is also available to search on file meta data, please look at the code for Photos or iPlay for examples. The XML languages used to build applications are continually refined and improved with every application we build on icloud. Since all the applications you see in icloud, including the desktop is built using these XML languages, we constantly try to improve them to increase our own productivity, the user experience and execution speed. This is something you as a developer also will benefit from and as an end user, you will see all applications in icloud constantly improve when the virtual machine and its capabilities improve. Last, but not least, all of us at Xcerion and icloud wish you a Happy New Year!

iPlay and Map applications

Nov 19, 2008 at 03:38 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

We had a release last week with some features that I already wrote about. Now, this week, we released a couple of new applications again.

iPlay

iPlay is our music player. You can upload files to iPlay and then listen to them. The user interface is pretty similar to our Photos application (and iTunes) and should feel familiar to a lot of people. We will add a "mini view" soon that is similar to for example Winamps minimized view. We'll also add an extra playlist view soon for those people who prefer to have the ability to search in the library and see the current play list at the same time. We also preloaded your account with a play list consisting of songs made by the Xcerion employee Peter Wahlgren .

iPlay list view

Map application

We also created a simple application where you can find a location on a map, put a marker there and then save to a file that you can reopen later on or share with other people. We'll expand on this application and fix so you can add several markers to a map (if you're going on sightseeing for example). The application won't be added to the desktop automatically so you need to look in the Applications menu on the left on the desktop and then under Internet to find it. You can also open up the Control Panel (under the System menu on the left on the desktop) and then, on the Applications tab under the System section, find the Google Maps application and set the check box for the application to be visible on the dekstop.

  Xcerion office location in Linköping

Microsoft Word conversion

We've also added a conversion utitlity that converts Microsoft Word documents into a format readable by our Write application. The conversion isn't perfect and loses some data but it will at least try to handle images and "normal" text formatting (what fits in HTML, advanced layouts aren't supported). You can start using it by first uploading a Word document and then double click on the file in the Document Explorer to reach the conversion wizard.

Convert wizard after double clicking an uploaded Word document

At last... Sharing and MSN

Nov 12, 2008 at 08:37 AM Written by Marcus Bristav

We just made a new release and this time we've got two really nice new features to introduce.

• Sharing
• MSN integration

Smaller things includes a News reader application and new features in the Calendar and in the Mail application.

Sharing

In the previous release we introduced a completely new feature called Shared Windows which to my knowledge is completely unique for icloud. This time around the sharing functionality focuses on content. You can very easily share files to other users of icloud through some different means. For example:

• You have a "share pad" on the desktop onto where you can drag files to share
• You can drag files onto a messenger chat window
• You can right click on files in the Document Explorer and choose share
• You can share directly from applications. Currently only the Photo application has this functionality built in but we'll add it to all applications where it makes sense.

Drag files into the chat window to share.

Share files through the Share dialog. Pick friends, files and a comment

So how do you know when people have shared files to you?

Well, there is a couple of different ways. If the file was shared through a chat window then you'll get a notification in the chat window together with a link to the file. If the file was shared some other way you'll get notified through the share pad that will show the latest shares. You can also always find everything that has been shared to you by finding the Friends folder in the Document Explorer. We also put messages about things such as shares into the Messages folder in the file system but this isn't very well formatted yet so it's unreadable to most people. We will also build knowledge about shared files into applications as long as it adds value. The Photo application currently have this built in so you'll be able to see shared files in there as well.

See files shared to you in the share pad.

You can see all files shared to you through the Friends folder in Document Explorer

MSN

The next BIG feature of this release is MSN integration. That means that you can configure an existing MSN account of yours in the icloud Messenger application.

Find the menu option to open the configuration dialog.

The Messenger will then, after logon (you logon to MSN by clicking the grey MSN butterfly icon in the Messenger window), automatically import all your MSN contacts into your Friends list. It may take a while when you do this depending on how many contacts you have and the Messenger may be a little bit unresponsive while this is happening. After logon and import you'll be able to chat with MSN friends as usual.

Grey butterfly icon in lower left corner of Messenger

application indicates that you're offline

Color butterfly icon indicates that you're online

We still have a couple of issues to fix. The biggest ones being file transfer support, avatar handling (that almost works) and some optimizations. We'll continue to develop the integration so you'll be able to see these things within a month or so. The MSN integration has been implemented using a Jabber server. This may not mean anything to you but the nice thing is that Jabber has support for a number of other messenger networks as well such as GTalk and ICQ (and of course Jabber itself...). This will be added as we go along and when we feel that the MSN integration has matured a bit.

News application

This application is a traditional news reader application. You can add feeds, categorize them, we keep track of read items and other things you expect from a news reader. You can't import feeds from other applications yet but that will come (probably using OPML since several other readers can use that format). We will also add sharing to this application.

Calendar

The Calendar now sports a month view which more or less was the last view to add (of the traditional calendar views anyway). That means that you can now see your appointments in a day view, week view and a month view. Things to come before year end is the possibility to share calendars and use multiple calendars at once (using overlays).

Mail

The Mail application also got some love this time. The two main features includes: 

• Filters. You can define filters for different conditions that will either move or delete emails. This can be useful to delete/move emails that has been marked as spam or move emails from certain senders to a specific folder. The filter functionality is pretty simple at this time although we added the features we think people use the most. The filters will be more refined in time when we see demand for it.
• Possibility to work with several accounts at the same time. It has previously been possible to configure several accounts but you could only work with one at a time in the client (although the server synced all accounts). This has now been fixed.

Coming up shortly

We have two applications almost done that will be released in a week or two. Those are iPlay, a music player application, and a Todo application.

iclod Todo application

iPlay application

Firefox report

The Firefox port is progressing. Most of the underlying infrastructure is working (file system, message system, window manager etc...) and we're now mostly trying to get the UI parts to play nicely. The plan is to have something useful, maybe not complete, out in a not too distant future in order to get you all something to test (we actually have a date set internally but the risks is still pretty big so it's not time to communicate it yet).

Major icloud, Cloud OS release - Liquid and Share Window!

Oct 10, 2008 at 09:00 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

Today’s release is a major release of our Cloud OS. The whole team at Xcerion are today quite proud to present our new ”Liquid” skin for icloud. Liquid is a new skin that was designed to set icloud apart from other Operating Systems and to create a more unique icloud look and feel.

Initially Liquid will be available in the current transparent graphite look, later multiple themes and colors will become available, enabling personalized customization. If you think that you will miss our previous blue ”Aqua” skin, no worries, we will soon add the ability to easy switch between Aqua and Liquid through the use of the control panel. We also have created a new liquid splash loader for applications.

As you will notice with the new Liquid skin, icloud is in the transition to become cleaner and easier to use.

Application News

As can be seen in the splash screen above, we have created an application integrating the vast amount of widgets available on the Widgetbox Internet service. This widget browser and the ability to run Widgetbox widgets directly as applications on the icloud desktop is a very interesting and a useful new capability.

The Dayplan application has now been split into three separate applications; Mail (with IMAP support, like Outlook Express), Calendar and Contacts.

The speed, performance and functionality of all three applications have also been improved and you can use the applications directly through the file system and the Document Explorer application.

There are customized listviews available for email, contacts and appointments. This is a quite unique and smart feature only available on icloud and really improves the speed of working with productivity applications. We see this as one of the innovative features that our technology makes available.  

icloud Instant Messenger have been given a completely new skin and improved functionality with support for avatars and user supplied images. We also added color-coded ”speech balloons” for chatting similar to text messaging on the iPhone.

The Media Cloud application has also been given a work over and has been dressed in the liquid skin. We simplified the application, added more support for “drag and drop” and improved its speed. Media Cloud is now known as Photos.

There are also many games available in the liquid release, see one example below:

In the icloud Pipeline

Many more applications are under development and will soon be released. We have a full RSS News reader application under development, a Todo application with the ability to share todo lists with friends, an iPlay application for playing and organizing your music library for nonstop access online with album art and playlists.

Our icloud Instant Messenger (IM) application will very soon get its much needed  MSN / Windows Live Messenger messaging support and will enable all of our icloud users to both communicate with other icloud users and their friends using MSN or Windows Live Messenger.

Introducing a break through milestone, Share Window

One of the really exciting features in icloud is Share Window, available in alpha from this release. This technology has formerly been known as GBC, Gesture Based Collaboration.

Share Window is one part of the Xcerion technology that will enable icloud users to use the whole world as a giant Virtual Desktop, all your friends and computer screens will basically become part of your desktop. This might sound a little bit like Internet Science fiction and it almost is. With Share Window we are changing the way you can use, share and communicate with your computer online. The technology can best be described as a kind of desktop virtualization technology. When you get used to Share Window, you will start talking about ”screen estate” instead of your computer, because your virtualized applications running in the cloud can appear and move between any computers you or your friends have. This initial preview release of Share Window will only showcase some bits and pieces of this incredible functionality. It will probably take 2-3 more months until the technology is completely ready, but already today it works!

Bottom line

icloud Liquid is a major update of the icloud Cloud OS. It introduces several new applications and capabilities into the OS. More importantly it prepares icloud for desktop application virtualization and Share Window.  

Share Window is probably one of the most powerful technologies developed for the Internet, enabling ANY computer and ultimately ANY device to be viewed as just a screen. Your applications are truly in the cloud.

In the coming months icloud will become more and more social with a great focus on sharing and doing things with your friends.

Please provide us with feedback so we together can continue to make icloud better and better. Also thank you all for your support.

PS! Our Firefox version of icloud is getting more and more ready……Stay tuned!

Icloud Summer and Autumn updates

Oct 06, 2008 at 09:31 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

During the Summer and Autumn we have done a few new icloud releases. They have been smaller fixes but we have also added some more major features.

Dayplan Mail

The Dayplan application now includes email functionality with contact handling. Currently we have IMAP support where you'll need an IMAP account that icloud can then hook up to. What you need in order to use the email functionality:

• An email address
• Email account information from your email provider that supports IMAP

icloud then uses the provided information to connect to your mail provider and fetches the email. What we also do is that if you create folders inside your mail folder system in icloud we will syncronize those changes back to your mail server. You could use this to have a web mail to any email service, as long as they have IMAP support, use it as a normal email client and when you get back home you will get all the changes on your desktop as you made in the cloud. Pretty cool? ;) In the Calendar parts of the Dayplan application we've updated the look and feel a bit as well as made it simpler to add new appointments by using the different time scales surrounding the calendar view.

MediaCloud

The next new big feature is our MediaCloud application. It's supposed to become our new suite of applications to view pictures and listen to music. We have currently only released the pictures part but the music part is coming up pretty soon. MediaCloud Pictures is all about helping you organize your family, friends and vacation pictures. You can  you can organize your photos in albums and you can create simple slideshows. All uploaded images are automatically thumbnailed and a lot of metadata that may be embedded in the image is extracted (such as image size, date of capture, camera brand etc...). We have three different viewing modes: - Grid where you see all thumbs side by side (see screenshot) - Horizontal list with an image view (see screenshot) - Big image view also showing metadata

Multiple file upload

The MediaCloud application is pretty pointless unless you have uploaded some media files to use it with. The problem we solved now is that you we're able to only upload one file at a time which can get pretty boring pretty fast. Enter multiple file upload. With this little addon it's now possible to upload many files at a time and you will also get feedback on current status on the uploads so you always know if a file is almost done or somewhere in the middle.

Unzip

Another way to transport several files to the server is to first zip (compress) them into a single file and then use the new unzip functionality that will decompress the files on the server. The new files will be added in a new folder default named after the zip archive.

Document Explorer updates

We've added support to open different document types (such as PDF and Flash movies) directly in their own windows. This makes it feel more like a traditional OS where you can open any file you have a handling application for.

We've also added support to work with multiple selections in the file system etc in order to make the experience of working in the system a lot smoother.

Another feature is that we now have different view types for different kinds of folders. You can for exampel see your contact files displayed in Document Explorer the same way as they are displayed in the Contact application. The same goes for mails, appointments etc... It can be very convenient when you just want to get a quick look of something and you don't want to fire up full applications for it.

Performance

We continually work on improving the perceived performance of the system mainly by reducing the number of requests to the server.

icloud Developer Competition Winners!

Sep 12, 2008 at 06:33 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

Xcerion can today proudly announce the winners of the icloud Developer Competition. We have during our developer competition received quite a few good, useful and funny applications.  The apps that where sent in was everything from small games, to calculators, drink databases and blog writing tools.

Thank you for all the good feedback we have received from many participating developers. We have listened to your feedback and we have made many improvements of icloud. During the developer competition we have improved the developer documentation, added debugging support and made the development more interactive. You can now develop an application while you are simultaneously running it and watching the application grow.

When launching a new Cloud OS like icloud, it is important to enable developers with enough documentation, tools and support to be able to build the applications they envision. Everyday we also internally develop on many applications for icloud and improve the platform, XML languages and API’s. As a result we constantly, together with the input from our developers, increase the possibilities with icloud. It is very important for us to gain these insights and we really depend on your input.

The applications available on icloud show what is possible to do, and the open XML source code of all of them, makes it possible for developers to learn and do mashups. Surprisingly, only two of the participants realized that it in the spirit of open source it was possible to build on available applications. Feel free to check out the source code of any of the existing icloud applications, even the desktop, by using the System Manager application. The System Manager shows you everything of what is going on in the XML Virtual Machine that is the core of icloud.

What we now feel needs to be added to icloud is a way for developers to publish their applications and make them available for other icloud users. The competition made that clear, there are more icloud applications available than the ones produced by Xcerion. 

Cash Prize Winners

Diary Blog This application is one of the winners of a 5000 USD cash prize and is built as a mashup on top of the icloud Write application. It enables you to write blog entries and view them by dates in the calendar. It includes advanced use of the icloud Virtual File System and use of the rule handling. Claes Bengtsson (clabe) developed the application.

Recipe Buddy Another 5000 USD winner is this application,  It is more of a traditional application built from the ground up. The application is a database for recipes of food and drinks. The application is written by Caspar Raarup (csar) and Jonas Olsson (ishkur). Good work!

T-Shirt Winners

Apart from the cash prize winners , we also wanted to display  a few winners in the t-shirt competition. See below. These winners will receive a t-shirt in the mail (even though not displayed here). Here are a few of the winners and some good examples of application entries in the competition.

  Saving Calculator – Simon Engvall (simon). Calculate how much to save every month to finally be able to afford what you always dreamt of.

RPN CalculatorandShortcut Haskell applications – Christer Nilsson (christernilsson). Christer submitted two applications, where the Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) Calculator pictured above was the most impressive. It enables you to calculate in the same way as the more advanced HP calculators for scientific use. The calculator is kind of a mashup built on the originally supplied Calculator application found in icloud. The Haskell application is a fun game challenging your mind.

Unit TransformerandThe Mind Reader – Hampus Sjöberg (Cocodrilo). Unit Transformer is an application showing some of the visual user interface capabilities of icloud. The Mind Reader is the application that always knows the answer and more importantly – what you are thinking of!

mFlashcard– Magnus Kronnäs (MagnusK). An application that brings you back thinking on the flashcard applications found on Mac’s. This could be a really good application if it also embodied the social aspects of icloud and let the community supply questionnaires and see results.

Summary

Xcerion and the icloud Beta Team would like to thank all participants in this competition and also thank all developers for their support. A special extra congratulation goes out to all the winners!

Stay tuned to what is happening around icloud and always remember to check back into icloud from time to time to see the progress. icloud is at this point being engineered by 35 full time developers, in other words there is a lot of exciting things going on that will surface in the coming months. We are dedicated in bringing you the world’s best Cloud OS experience, icloud – the social Cloud OS.

Daniel Arthursson, CEO Marcus Bristav, CTO

Application Designer, Write and faster loading

Apr 11, 2008 at 09:32 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

Today we're releasing a couple of new applications.

Application Designer

This is a pretty nice application where you can build other applications. It has a visual user interface designer where you can drag and drop components and visually build interfaces. Makes life a lot simpler for application developers and can speed up development significantly. It also has some other features to help speed up authoring of process files as well. Check out our video that demos this application soon.

Write

This is an application where you can edit rich text documents. It's still a bit limited in functionality, although it has most of the most needed features, and we intend to add a lot more as we go forward.

Invite a friend

You can now invite friends from inside icloud. Look for the new icon on the desktop and make sure to invite all your friends :)

Other things

The most significant thing we've done is to add a so called Content Delivery Network (CDN). The intention with this is to make static resources, such as images, available on servers around the world. This should decrease bootup times for users outside Sweden and Europe a lot. The basic parts of the OS has also gained a lot of improvements and bug fixes. Enjoy!

A new name for our "Cloud OS", icloud

Feb 20, 2008 at 09:00 PM Written by Daniel Arthursson

Today we re-branded our cloud OS into a name more suitable for the service. We have worked many months on securing this new name and we are very happy that we finally have the opportunity to announce and present it for all of you.

As from today, you will see the new name when you log into the OS. Icloud and the cloud logo are present directly on the desktop. Everyone familiar with XIOS/3 has seen the little cloud symbol before. We have also created a new web site for the service, accessible under http://icloud.com. You may log on directly through icloud.com. XIOS/3 (Xcerion XML Internet Operating System/3) will continue to be the name of the technology, but icloud will be the name of the service. Xcerion will be the brand behind the internally developed applications on icloud. You can learn more in the following press release: Xcerion’s social “Cloud OS” in the sky – icloud We have also set a new goal, to internally release 20 applications on icloud in 2008 and another 30 applications in 2009, a total of 50 quality applications. If you got suggestions on applications that icloud could not do without, please let us know. Today we also released a new application, Money Manager, an application for managing your personal finances. Stay tuned to what is happening on icloud the coming months, I can promise you that all of us are working hard to make the service better for every day with more interesting applications to find. As you see another busy day at Xcerion, but things are strongly moving forward. Thanks for your support, Daniel Arthurson, CEO Xcerion

New and improved applications - IM and Dayplan

Feb 13, 2008 at 03:30 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

First I just wanted to remind all you developers that we have extended the deadline for the developer competition. Hope you will help us to get some "killer apps" into our Cloud. Another release is now out. This time it included improvements to Instant Messaging and the addition of the brand new Dayplan application. The release also included a number of small fixes at various places in the Operating System and our other applications.

Dayplan

The Dayplan application is a Calendar application. The functionality today is to schedule and view appointments and tasks in a week or a day view.

Watch this short demo video to see it in action. The Dayplan application will see a LOT of updates going forward and will actually act as a sort of platform for a lot of other funcionality. The next stop will be to integrate our coming Mail service (in a month or two), and then we will make it easy to work with the Calendar (and tasks) in a group fashion to facilitate heavy collaboration. What next? We'll see... But I can assure that the XIOS platform is really well suited to build information rich functionality that is to be shared between groups (this is XIOS real sweet spot).

IM- Instant Messaging improvements

The following is the main improvements we added:

- Organize your buddies in folders - A lot better "Add Contacts" view where you can actually see who the search results relate to :) - Better status updates of your buddies Watch this demo video to see it in action. Remember, we are still quite early in the Beta. We are only running on one datacenter located in Sweden so network latency times can unfortunately slow things down a bit when running XIOS/3 outside of Europe. We are currently implementing a Content Delivery Network (CDN) solution that will speed things up for everybody.   FYI: Developer documentation is available if you right click on the Help icon on the desktop. You may also view the XML source code of any application if you open the System Manager and hits the Views and Processes tab and then the Edit button. Also please invite your buddies to join our Beta . Thank you for participating in creating the worlds first real "Cloud OS".

/Marcus Bristav, CTO Xcerion 

Our "Cloud OS" is growing. More apps launched

Dec 21, 2007 at 10:12 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

Ok, I know. We need to be more frequent with the blogging. As always we are busy working on making our "Cloud OS" faster, more stable and with more functionality and apps. It is great to see that we have so many online in our "Cloud OS" now and that the platform works really good.

We also just received our first Test Review (by the GigaOm network)

Since we are adding things pretty much every week I would want to give everybody a tip to always stay to up-to-date with the latest features of XIOS/3. Every time you log in you can check in the Control panel if there are any new applications (found under System and then the Applications tab) or new widgets (found under Desktop and then the widgets tab).

Presentation App + Presentation Video Demo

We have now released the initial version of our Presentation Application. It is the first Office App in a series of several others to come. It's an application to build slide shows in. It's still pretty basic but we'll add a lot more features in due time. Right now we wanted to get it out and to show all you developers an example of what is really possible to build on our platform (and really fast to) make sure you give us your feedback on it.

You should see the icon for Presentation on your desktop when you log in but, if you don't, you can activate it in the Control panel. You find the Control panel in the System menu on the far left on the desktop, you then click on the System button in the left menu in the control panel, activate the Applications tab to the right and then scroll till you find the Presentation item in the list. Click on the item and then choose where you want it to be seen (on the desktop or in the menu or both).

Also make sure to check out the new demo video that shows off the Presentation Application.

MediaPlayer

The Mediaplayer Application is the first basic foundation for a much larger media application that will be able to play radio, music and video. First initial launch only includes functionality to play Internet radio stations that use Windows Media Player. Soon we will incorporate Real Player and we are checking out the options when it comes to video support.

Other news

We released a couple of new widgets a while ago. One of them is the RSS reader and another widget shows the weather in your area of choice where you need to search for your place using the widget application (just right click on the widget and then click Search location). Keep in mind that the web service we're fetching data from doesn't support non-ascii characters.

iLauncher

Another neat feature is the possibility to create icons on the desktop that represents other web applications. Right click on the desktop and choose New... -> iLauncher Shortcut and then enter the address of the application to create the icon. If you then double click the created icon you will get a new XIOS window with the other web app in it.

More things will follow shortly. See you in the "Cloud".

New demo video

Nov 13, 2007 at 07:14 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

We have just uploaded a new demo video that demonstrates transactions. Check it out!

Another week, more features in XIOS/3

Nov 10, 2007 at 11:37 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

This week we have been focused on more bugfixing. Thank you for all your Beta feedback. We've also made the UI a bit more responsive. When you open an application you now immediately get notified through an hour glass. We'll try to make more of these fixes over the next coming weeks in order to make the end user experience top notch. We're also looking into other optimization stuff in order to avoid some server requests which will render an even faster UI. Other new things to note: - You can upload images and use them as wall papers on the desktop. You upload through the Document Explorer and choose wall paper in the control panel. - We've deployed a few hundred new icons that you can use in your applications. You can find them through the Icon Browser. Stay tuned, because next week we will add several new features. Have a nice weekend and make sure you help us spread the word of Xcerion. Remember, Software should be Free!

New release

Nov 02, 2007 at 04:10 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

We just released some new code to the servers. It's been a week with a lot of bug fixes and with some extra focus on the drag and drop functionality.You now have the ability to drag files in the Document Explorer and from the Explorer to other applications and to the desktop. What happens depends on the application you drop the file on. I have to say that this functionality is pretty cool :) Going forward we will try to have a new release every week or so with fixes and we will always try to have at least one new feature included. This weeks feature is the drag and drop. We've also had some emails from developers about the lack of proper developer documentation. You can rest assure that we are working on this and we will release it ASAP. We are sorry about this delay. Thank you for the positive feedback regarding the video we released. I will try to make a new demo movie next week. This time we'll be using more normal screencast tools in order to make the picture more clear on what is really happening on the screen:) Make sure that you keep an eye on your email today since we are letting another batch of testers on the system tonight. Have a great weekend!

Short status update

Oct 23, 2007 at 03:05 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

Short status update on what's happening

Some words from me again. I just wanted to let you know that we're working very hard with the issues reported on the Beta. Thank you for all the good feedback! The things we've worked the most with is to fix some issues in the layout engine (and of course a few other things). The client is more stable now and we're currently giving another batch of people access to their long awaited Beta accounts. I need a bit more verification on a few things before we let too many people in XIOS/3. We have received an incredible amount of signups the last few weeks and we want to make sure that everybody gets a good and solid user experience. We also made a XIOS/3 demo video the other day. It answers some of the questions raised here at the blog. Check it out if you haven't already. It shows off a couple of cool features and proves the potential with XIOS/3.

Also, there was a number of questions in the comments to my previous entry. 

Q: When will you have Firefox support? It's a deal breaker for me...

A: As soon as possible. I'm a heavy Firefox user myself and have done a lot of development previously using Firefox and Firebug as my main tools. I miss that and want to get back to it. It's however a challenge to make it work so it'll take a while before it's done. I don't want to make any promises on a time frame though.

Q: Is there really a Beta going on?

A: Yes, but it's still very limited. We're expanding the Beta rapidly from now on.

Q: Where do I download the IDE?

A: The IDE is part of the OS, built in XML and will run inside it (YES you can continue to develop on the IDE within the IDE). It's not part of the initial beta release and will come later on. In the beta release you use a supplied text XML editor.

Be patient, you will all soon have your Beta accounts.

Welcome to Xcerion's blog

Oct 05, 2007 at 11:00 PM Written by Marcus Bristav

Xcerion's XIOS/3 beta has arrived.

Hello and welcome to XBlog, the source of official news and thoughts from Xcerion. I’m Marcus Bristav, CTO, and together with other Xcerion Team members I will post blogs here regularly. As one of the architects of the XIOS/3 platform, I've been part of the Xcerion team since 2002 when I joined the company together with Peter Wahlgren (another Xcerion key team member). Back then there were only four of us crammed down in a basement, but we were all convinced that we could speed up the software development process by using XML and high-level abstractions in a client/server environment.  I loved the challenge!

It's exciting to see how close we are to the goal we envisioned from the beginning; a live system with real users and developers that can build software we haven't even dreamed of! I believe that we, together with the developers worldwide, can build something new; something that the Internet has promised since its inception.

So, what’s this fuzz about?

The platform consists of two main parts: a server part and a client part.

The client is completely browser based and uses standard technologies from modern browsers. It consists of a ton of javascript and XSLTs (at least compared to "normal" web applications). It is in itself an execution environment where application developers can build and run web applications written and defined in languages developed by Xcerion. The UI, data flow and most of the logic is generated and executed in the client. The server stores the data and handles everything related to file permissions, groups, communities, indexing and searching etc...

The languages developed by Xcerion are fairly high level, oriented towards reading and manipulating data as well as describing and interacting with the UI. This will help application developers to build new applications surprisingly fast. To knock up a prototype takes a fraction of the time it would take to build it in languages like C++ or Java. To make the prototype production ready doesn’t take longer. We also have a number of features specifically aimed at building communities that you can use to make your application even more interesting and web 2.0-ish.

And there’s more. Normally when you've prototyped and developed an application (insanely fast in this case) you still have the problem of building a scalable architecture on the server side, thinking and re-thinking, spending a lot of money on hardware, banging your head on database limitations etc. Using XIOS/3, this will become history. In XIOS/3 you just share your application with a push of a button and you’re done! It really shouldn't be any harder than that.

It's also possible to connect to external systems in order to access other services or data, whatever those might be. But from the start, connectivity will be restricted to HTTP but we'll implement other ways within short.

To put it into fewer words: it's a browser based development and runtime environment where everything is stored on a central server. You can, and should, build applications on top of it and share with the rest of the community. Why? Because it's fun, free and useful. And it's simple!

Well… maybe I have turned up the expectations a bit now…

Back to the Beta

The platform that we’ve just released is a limited beta. This means that we are allowing beta users to gain access whilst we are still are doing a lot of tweaking. Everything won't be perfect from day one but we will do our best to make it as good as possible. Remember, this an entirely new concept that no one has done before.

  

As in the case with all new software, we expect to find some unexpected features that we must find and remove before we can remove the beta label. In order for us to get to that state we'll need feedback. We rely on you to help us with the information that can create a more reliable environment.  You need to take the platform for a tough test drive. And the best way to do that is to test the available applications, and more importantly, build new ones.

At this early stage, the most important thing to explore is what’s possible and what’s not. From day one, the platform supports the most basic functions: to navigate, to configure and to build new things. We do however have some really cool applications in the pipeline.  These applications will be released as soon as they are ready.

  

There are also a number of issues that we are working very hard to resolve. My pet peeve is lack of Firefox support. As you may correctly conclude we currently only support IE6 and IE7. There are historical reasons for this. For a while, IE was actually the best browser, at least feature-wise, and thus the only one that provided the functionality we needed. The situation is quite the opposite now, and has been for a while, and we're working on adapting our platform to that reality.

Ok, that was an introduction and a teaser.

Some topics to come are: Document explorer, Desktop, Cloud OS, server based file system, XML, communities and browser based development environment.

Also don’t forget to check out the following info on Xcerion.com:

• Xcerion technology
• FAQ

Also, why not tell your buddies to sign up for icloud .

Stay tuned :)