Moving To The Cloud
You might have noticed that, of late, I've been undertaking a bit of an IT audit about here. Starting with my online security review and then, more recently, changing how I manage photos.
What's came out of the exercise is that I'm now "embracing the cloud". I keep telling Karen this and she says something along the lines of "Embracing the cloud? What the hell are you talking about!? Shurrup".
Somebody suggested I put all my passwords in the cloud. At first I thought that was crazy. Then, on reflection, realised it made perfect sense and now I have complete peace of mind that I'll never forget my passwords and can use them from any device (that supports 1Password).
Now I just can't stop myself from putting all the files that are important to me in to the Dropbox folder. Starting with all my Office document which relate to the running of Rockall Design - namely the one Excel file I've used for invoicing for the last 8 years, but also all Word invoice files and other bits.
Next I plan on moving local code files to Dropbox. Such as Flex project folders and Visual Studio folders. At the moment a daily backup task copies all local code files to the NAS box I mentioned. No reason, that I can see, why I can't just put them in Dropbox.
None of this is really cloud-computing though, is it. It's just fancy synchronised backup.
My only real use of cloud computing so far is that I've started using Google Docs to store "Excel" documents that I would traditionally have passed back-n-forth with clients to track project issues. I know there are better ways of doing this but some clients just prefer a spread-sheet and Docs makes this a lot easier than emailing versioned copies of a file.
There's no doubting the cloud will play an increasing part of our computing futures. For now though I'm only really happy if I know there's a copy of a file on a PC I can physically touch. I'm just a bit old-fashioned like that.
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Jake
I too like the idea of everything being available everywhere. My big concern is the same about any form of backup - what if it goes wrong?
What if Dropbox go out of business? Have you lost vital data, or do you still have a local backup? Do you have another cloud backup provider to backup your backup?
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With Dropbox it just syncs any file in your "My Dropbox" to the "cloud". The files exists in the cloud *and* on your hard-drive. If Dropbox (or whoever, as I guess they all work in a similar way) goes bust then you have your original (but now un-backed up) files in place. You just need to hurry to find an alternative.
As somebody point out yesterday anything could happen and there's always the chance that an evil insider at dropbox could maliciously delete your content on both sides. Unlikely, I know.
I guess it always pays to keep your own backup on the likes of a NAS box at home that you update every week or so. Manual backups you have to remember to update never works though does it?
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Dropbox is indeed a very nice thing to have. I've been using it for quite some time now and I am really happy. I use it mainly for work.
And I (unfortunately) got to test it last year when the HD of my work PC just crashed on me. Just went into the office, picked up a new machine, installed Dropbox and 10 minutes later I was back on track. Worth every penny.
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I use Dropbox for those files I want on all my systems and SugarSync to back up everything on the one PC that I use every day. I broke down and bought the 30Gb package, backed up all my critical files and if anything happens to my PC, I can just pull what I need back down to a new machine.
<set blatant plug on>
If you want an extra 500mb - 10gb of space, sign up here.
https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=ebhqmhyjr2g35
<set blatant plug off>
Hey, it gets me more free space every time someone signs up that way.
Another nice thing about DropBox is the ability to share files with friends. A lot easier than emailing things back and forth.
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Hey, stop trying to pinch my own referrals! I've already got an extra 3gb thanks to the above links.
Dropbox is good for sharing files with customers too.
A few months back an IT admin person from a customer tried to email me a 2gb NSF file (you'd think he'd know better) and was all surprised when I didn't receive it. Needless to say I pointed him to dropbox.com which worked a charm.
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Have you seen the news that Sage accounts are doing a cloud offering - http://www.sageone.co.uk.
Dont get me wrong. Sage accounts (on the PC) is a repugnant horrible piece of software. Here's hoping the cloud version is better. But anything to allow my accountant, bookeeper and I to actually keep the accounts up to date is a good idea.. ;-)
---* Bill
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Mine have never complained about my self-baked Excel file of 8 years, so I keep on sending them that. Maybe that's why they charge so much. Is spending 2k a year on accountancy too much?
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I think DropBox is a very nice idea, and I use it myself too. However, I would never consider it a "backup-solution".
For example: if your pc gets ifnected with a virus, one that deletes all files. When it reaches your dropbox-folder, it will delete all those files too, thereby losing all your off-site data too. There is no way to get your files back, unless the DropBox-people have a daily back-up system in place for all their users.
I wonder if there is something like DropBox which allows "real" backup, and is not too expensive.
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Okay, I need to learn to read before I post something :p
Seems that DropBox has a 30-day "undo" history....
I dind't say anything, ok ? :-)
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With your Prominic server you were in the cloud before the hype!
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Have you seen Windows Live Mesh Beta (mesh.com - which is now moving into the Live tools) which is free from MS? It works in a similar way to DropBox, and although that has a lowly 5Gb by comparison, it does allow some very good folder specific sharing to anyone else with a Live ID. You also get a "virtual desktop" to manage all the files.
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