Personal Cloud

[hardtailstar]

Does anybody use the cloud 100%?

 

Im half way there as I use G+, Gdrive and Gmusic.

 

I only use these services at a minimum but just wondered what people thought.

 

My computer is needing upgrading but im wondering if I should just buy a chrome book or tablet. Ive already got a laptop which is used as a back up to my computer.

 

Before anyone says the Pixel is out of my price range.

[SYNACK]

I'm surprised that anyone could have that much trust in their ISP and cloud provider. If you were hosting it yourself I could understand but I can't trust my ISP to be up for 24 hours at a time and Google has created and destroyed more services (thanks to non-market-share-winning usage) than I use such that I would not trust them with anything I did not have a full local backup of myself.

 

I am interested in any alternate views though, I would like to try and understand them.

[hardtailstar]

I'm surprised that anyone could have that much trust in their ISP and cloud provider. If you were hosting it yourself I could understand but I can't trust my ISP to be up for 24 hours at a time and Google has created and destroyed more services (thanks to non-market-share-winning usage) than I use such that I would not trust them with anything I did not have a full local backup of myself.

 

I am interested in any alternate views though, I would like to try and understand them.

 

currently I have a back up of what's in the cloud, just wondering if people used it fully.

 

I still keep a back up at home but just ease of use when out and about without having to carry a laptop about, I could just take my tablet around.

[EduTech]

I have all of my documents & photo's stored on Sky Drive, I sometimes have items locally stored but generally configuration files etc. I store large files on External Hard Disk such as Executable s or/ ISO images. Everywhere I go outside of my home I have access to the internet be that Public WiFi provided by the likes of o2, BT, Virgin etc. 3G Tethering on my Windows Phone/iPhone etc.

 

I do have copies of my files on the local machine generally, this is Synchronized with Sky Drive.

 

I use Windows 8 across my devices for both Home & Business. I have a Windows Phone which also provides me access to my Sky Drive and likewise my iPhone. I use One Note often and this gets stored on Sky Drive also. If I am not on my computer, then I use the Web Apps. :-)

 

Junk, such as downloaded documents for reading, photo snip's etc just get stored locally on the machine and I just delete them every now and again as i have no reason to keep them so don't care if i loose them either and I do not ever need them across my devices.

 

James.

Edited February 22, 2013 by EduTech

[hardtailstar]

I have all of my documents & photo's stored on Sky Drive, I sometimes have items locally stored but generally configuration files etc. I store large files on External Hard Disk such as Executable s or/ ISO images. Everywhere I go outside of my home I have access to the internet be that Public WiFi provided by the likes of o2, BT, Virgin etc. 3G Tethering on my Windows Phone/iPhone etc.

 

I do have copies of my files on the local machine generally, this is Synchronized with Sky Drive.

 

I use Windows 8 across my devices for both Home & Business. I have a Windows Phone which also provides me access to my Sky Drive and likewise my iPhone. I use One Note often and this gets stored on Sky Drive also. If I am not on my computer, then I use the Web Apps. :-)

 

Junk, such as downloaded documents for reading, photo snip's etc just get stored locally on the machine and I just delete them every now and again as i have no reason to keep them so don't care if i loose them either and I do not ever need them across my devices.

 

James.

 

how long have you been in the cloud so to speak?

[EduTech]

how long have you been in the cloud so to speak?

 

I can't even remember to be honest, been using it since early days of Sky Drive to be honest and just used it more and more. Only probably been using it properly about 12 months.

 

James.

[rich_tech]

I am fairly cloud orientated looking at it now, I switched all my Docs and Photos to Skydrive here about 3 months back now(lucky enough to have an old account with the 25gb limit for free here), I dont host my music online (fairly small music collection here really, about 20 CDs or less) but I use streaming services really like youtube/grooveshark quite a lot more than hosting stuff on my PC, all my games currently installed are also through steam at the moment or other services like blizzard stuff being off their website rather than physical media based installations.

 

Use my Google account as main email and calendar based stuff.

 

I also have accounts with Dropbox and Ubuntu one from their services

[hardtailstar]

I am fairly cloud orientated looking at it now, I switched all my Docs and Photos to Skydrive here about 3 months back now(lucky enough to have an old account with the 25gb limit for free here), I dont host my music online (fairly small music collection here really, about 20 CDs or less) but I use streaming services really like youtube/grooveshark quite a lot more than hosting stuff on my PC, all my games currently installed are also through steam at the moment or other services like blizzard stuff being off their website rather than physical media based installations.

 

Use my Google account as main email and calendar based stuff.

 

I also have accounts with Dropbox and Ubuntu one from their services

 

any difficulties using the different services?

[rich_tech]

Skydrive is integrated well through the app, I find on the PC in windows (it helps that I also log onto this machine with my hotmail account), the UI is also much improved on the website now.

 

Dropbox is used at the moment primarily by me as an alternative backup to iCloud for my iphone (I will probably get rid of my iPhone after its contract is up and go back to Android based phone's here, as I just don't buy into the whole "apple" ethos and the iphone just isn't me, it feels wrong for me as a phone, I am also fed up of the battery issue I have on it as well as it dying on my 4S because of updates not being tested by apple)

 

Grooveshark and most online services I log onto through Google and use that as a unilogin where possible, which stops it being laboursome with these online websites.

 

Google stuff I either use via the website or the outlook installed on my PC and it works well enough.

 

Only thing I would say, is its obviously a bit of a pain in the a**e using a lot of "different yet samey" services for different things.

 

Ubuntu account I have just been playing with a bit on and off while I use Linux on my machine, of all accounts its nothing serious in its usage.

[jamesfed]

I started using SkyDrive when it first came out and was web only - I saw the potential but didn't use it for much more than just storing files that I might need to get to.

At the same time I was still using a USB memory stick to move data around from college/home which worked better because it was more covenant.

 

Since the SkyDrive PC client came out (that allows offline syncing) I pretty much did a rip and replace over night moving all of my personal docs and a sizeable amount of other work into SkyDrive. I still keep my photos/video on a NAS box at home (way too many to keep on SkyDrive even with the 25GB storage size).

 

The advantage has been pure ease of use - I've got SkyDrive on my Windows Phone, Home Desktop, Surface Tablet PC, Work PC and a Notebook that I use to run a youth group I am a staff member at.

 

At all locations I have a pretty decent broadband speed with Wi-Fi site wide however should the internet die I'm at no loss - the data is synced and saved locally on the PC

[Danp]

I have installed Owncloud on my own server and am trying to use that more now.

[CAM]

I sync my phone with the Exchange server at work for calendar use only. Currently experimenting with Google Docs as a home replacement for Office as well. Haven't really uploaded anything to Google Drive.

 

I also have a very large collection of music in various file formats that I'm not sure what to do with.

[Rawns]

I've uploaded almost all of my music to Google Music now. Even though I have an iPad with it all on, it's nice to know I can stream it from any device with a browser and internet connection. Plus, it's another form of backup.

 

I have very few documents that I would need constant access to so a full personal Cloud solution for me is not needed. I do have a Dropbox account that I use for some files (like my KeePass database or odd photos), but I mainly use it to upload large documents and download them to my iPad.

 

I have a vast amount of photos (about 16,000?) and they, along with my music and films/TV collection are all stored on a ReadyNAS drive. It has 2 X 1TB raided drives in it so I always have a copy in case on drive fails. Again, no real need for me to have constant access to my photos or films, however I do keep thinking that it would not be a bad idea to upload my photos somewhere. I could always open up access to my NAS across the internet but I doubt I'll ever need to.

[Rawns]

I also have a very large collection of music in various file formats that I'm not sure what to do with.

 

Google Music allows the storage of 20,000 tracks for free. It's quite good too as it will try and match what your uploading to what they already have saving you some bandwidth. You can then play them from a browaser, smartphone or any other device with an internet connection. It also allows the downloading of your library if you loose your local copies.

 

If it's all on an external drive, make use of your sites high speed connection?

Edited February 25, 2013 by Rawns

[CAM]

I'll give that a try, hopefully Google recognises most of my tracks. From odd bands at gigs to Nyan Cat remixes.

[plexer]

The cloud is great until it doens't work such a live.com currently

 

Ben

[jamesfed]

The cloud is great until it doens't work such a live.com currently

 

Ben

 

Working fine here?

[edutech4schools]

I love the Google Music service. I was looking for a way to choose my fav music and create playlists that would be the same any device and Gmusic is great for this.

 

EDIT: the tablet version is much better than the phone

Edited February 25, 2013 by edutech4schools