Wednesday, November 10, 2010

In the "Cloud"

The “Cloud” is where you can store/access data, software, and other things that do not need to use up your own hardware and memory.  Many different companies such as Google, Amazon, and Flickr offer this service.  Some other great examples are "Google Docs" and "Dropbox." It is pretty neat because that means businesses have advantages of having this virtual space along with other benefits as their asset and even individual users don’t have to fret and panic in case something happens to their computers (lost, stolen, broken, etc) and there is a way to get back the data and files they’ve lost.  There are, however, some disadvantages such as:  a) whatever company that provides “cloud” space to the user has the control over the data that he/she stores; the user could be locked out of their own stuff / their accounts are exposed to the chance of being deleted at the "cloud"-providing company's discretion; and b) when there is no access to the “cloud”/internet, the user cannot get to the data/files that belongs to them.

If I don’t have access to my everyday, main laptop/computer for 2 weeks because it was damaged, I would seek access to another computer first; then, I would check if it has some of the software that I usually use; internet access/checking emails, etc will be easier because they can be accessed anywhere as long as there is internet connection; however, I will encounter problems because whatever computer I am temporarily using would not have any of my old files to refer to just in case.  I would probably try to find these items in my email inboxes because I might have attached them and sent them to myself from a school computer in classes,etc.  Also, software such as word processing, digital image editing, or presentation organization/preparation programs will be quite easy to find in other computers as well.  As long as I have access to another computer, I would be able to survive those couple of weeks without my old laptop/computer although encountering some inconvenience would still be inevitable.  However, a lot of these issues have possibility of being remedied if I remember the risk, be smart, and carefully take advantage of “cloud” services.


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