All About "The Cloud"

Maybe you've seen commercials where they talk about 'the cloud.' If you listen carefully, you'll notice a lot more advertisements mentioning the cloud.  Cell phone, computer, software and hardware companies are all telling you how you can use the cloud.

So, what is 'The Cloud', and how can or will it help you?

The Cloud has two main parts, and they are both easy to understand.

1.  The cloud is simply on line storage.  By having all your files, or just the ones you choose, stored on the internet, you save space on your hard drive, you can get to your files from any computer, and you can share those files with anyone you give the address to (and password if they are protected). If you have a group project, you can store the file on the cloud and each person can add to it and upload the new version for everyone to see.

Copying things to a flash drive is great if the person is there with you. But if they are far or you won't be seeing them, you can use the cloud to share and transfer.  Many, many sites offer from 1 to 25 gigabytes of cloud storage for free. An earlier post listed some of them, but I will list them again later in this post.

2.  The cloud has applications you can use.  What does this mean?  Instead of having Microsoft Word or Power Point on your computer, you can access these applications from the cloud.  Any one with a Gmail account can access Google Apps and use their whole line up of applications for free.

The cloud means you don't have to store as much on your computer, which means cell phones and tablets are going to more and more be people's main choice of computer.

Finally, the cloud is a great way to back up anything and everything you don't want to lose on your computer.

Click Here for a link to previous post listing on line storage options.

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