Several times earlier
this year (in Feb. & May) we discussed Cloud Computing, but things are
changing and there are more and more companies offering us the ability to store
on their clouds (which means on their servers) So- the discussion continues...
There is no doubt that
cloud computing is here to stay. Many of us have been using "cloud
computing" for years without realizing it - If you use a hotmail,
yahoo, AOL or Gmail account" for your emails, you go to the specific
company's website, via the internet, enter your user name & password (from
any computer in the world) and your email messages appear. You can then
write/compose new emails - all the while the computer you are sitting at, is
simply a vehicle allowing us to see and type - but all of our emails are
actually being stored and/or written on/from their computers....hence
"cloud computing"
Today many of these same
email vendors are providing us with additional free space, so that in addition
to our emails we can also store our documents, photos, movies & music in
another part of our "email account" - like having an additional file
cabinet... Why would we do that?
Well, like your emails,
you can access any of these items stored on their "cloud" when you
are away from your computer (home or work) because remember it's stored on
their computer - in their cloud...
If you have multiple
devices - you may want to "sync" them, so that when you enter
information on one device, it appears on all your devices...
For example:
You have a Windows based
computer, a Smartphone & a tablet - if you have a Gmail account and use the Google
Drive Cloud - whatever is entered in these on one computer shows
up on the rest
Or You have an iPhone,
iPad and MacBook - by simply having an iCloud ID and password (and the iCloud ID
can be your existing email address w/hotmail, Gmail, etc..) you can select in
the settings of your iCloud what you want to share among your devices-Photos,
emails, contacts, calendars, etc..
Or maybe you have a
Windows PC, an Android Smartphone and a MacBook - you could simply choose to
have the Apple iCloud on all your devices to share your
music, data & moves...
And the combination goes
on and one..
If you have been using
hotmail/live/msn accounts - you have "SkyDrive" which
is their free cloud computing for us to store data and photos - but anyone can
go to SkyDrive.com and download the app and receive a certain amount of storage
for FREE - Gmail users have the free Picasa Web Albums and Google
Drive cloud; and again anyone can use this or Apple/MAC's iCloud or any
of the other hundreds of companies... most allow some free storage - others
charge an annual or monthly fee - some based on the amount of storage, some are
by computer - it varies..
Shop around and remember
you can use multiple "cloud services"; I know some people who store
all their music in iTunes synced with the iCloud; and use their SkyDrive for
their documents; maybe DropBox for their data from
work; Google Drive w/Picasa Web Albums for their photos
and Carbonite, so everything is backed up every time they
are on the computer (no limit) but this service doesn't allow you to use a
syncing feature (yet)!
The list of companies
offering cloud computing is growing every day. Each has their own
features, it depends on what you are looking for... I always think it's better
to begin with the FREE services while you learn, and once you've mastered that
and understand what it is you are using, then you can always switch to or add
another service if needed...Here is the link to an article recently published
about some of the popular "cloud computing companies" -
