If you’re not familiar with “cloud storage”, the basic concept is that your files live on another server, as opposed to your own machine.
For example, just like your email is stored at “gmail.com”, if you use Google Documents, those docs live, breathe, and get edited off of Google’s server.
The source of inspiration for this movement is the mobile age – now that things like the iPhone can do so much, it’s to your advantage to be able to access your documents and such from anywhere, just like with your email.
I’ve been really getting into it with my personal writing, and also a lot of business stuff, as well. It’s nice because I can write on my home computer at one time, then on my netbook if I’m not at home, all without having to carry a USB, tranferring files around, keeping track of which is the most current, etc.
Plus, if I’m with someone I want to show something to, I can do it immediately, so long as there’s a net connection – I don’t have to be like, “oh let me email it to you later.”
With all of those positives, my one concern has always been, “What if someone blows up Google’s server farm?”
Then I see this headline the other day:
So that…stinks for anyone using a Sidekick from T-Mobile.
There’s also the concern of hackers, etc – what if someone gets into my Google account and just deletes all my docs? I’ve been hacked before – it’s not unthinkable it will happen again one day.
I guess the solution is to do a good offline back-up of everything, just in case. This is definitely going to be an emerging issue, because everything is moving to the cloud.
(btw here’s a good link for how to back-up Google Docs, if you do indeed use it. I do it once a week.)
