Tuesday, April 7, 2015

In the Cloud





Yep, I had one of those days on Monday. I walked into my office, turned on my computer and what I saw next made me sigh. It was the circle/slash symbol on my Mac laptop as it was starting up. But I didn't feel the dread of discovering that I had lost my data. On the contrary, nearly EVERYTHING save about ten documents (that have to be in Word format for now) I use on a daily basis is IN THE CLOUD. The reason I was disappointed was that I did not have a spare computer available to immediately continue working. I actually felt angst since I knew I COULD be working on something, but had to hunt for an available workstation or laptop first.

Some may say, "Wow, that's scary!  Aren't you afraid that your stuff is somewhere else?"  Actually, I am not.   My information is in my Google Apps account. From Google's Security page:
Google maintains a number of geographically distributed data centers. Google’s computing clusters are designed with resiliency and redundancy in mind, eliminating single points of failure and minimizing the impact of common equipment failures and environmental risks. Access to our data centers is restricted to authorized personnel.
 How did I start working in the Cloud?  I did the following:
  • Use Google Drive to store all of my documents, spreadsheets and presentations. In addition, I can create surveys and automated quizzes using Google Forms. 
  • Use Google Calendar to keep track of all of my appointments. In turn, I can access the school's Google calendar to stay up to date on events. 
  • Use Google Mail in Chrome to manage my email inbox. 
  • Use Google Plus to store photos and photo albums
I still use iTunes. But my personal music is in my iTunes account or backed up on my personal computer at home. I use Time Machine to back up my personal Mac to a USB Hard Drive.

Did I achieve this overnight? Some could switch cold turkey, but not me. No, it took me a while (about a year) to migrate my information over to Google. But I consider it time well spent since I am no longer tied to a specific computer to be productive. I can log into a PC, Mac, or Chromebook anywhere I have an Internet connection to access my information.

Interested in moving to the CLOUD? Here are some places to start learning how:

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