Living In The Clouds
I know that a number of people in my web friends circles already do this, but this afternoon I have converted all my mail accounts (except one!) to work through Google mail. I know Daze is a big fanboy and he’s part of the reason I have done it.
It was always quite a scary proposition to have all my personal data live on the web and it had always stopped me from taking the plunge. After reading a few articles about living in the “cloud” (ie having everything on the web rather than stored locally) I decided that if big name techie people can do it and be safe then why can’t I?
With my life changing the way it is I have less access to my own PC and that can make it awkward if someone wants to get me an important document. By putting all my domain email addresses (4 of them) into Google I can log on from anywhere and view as I need to.
I haven’t used Google Docs or Calendar yet but have been using Google Reader for a number of months with great success. I guess I could start using them much more and I will get the same benefits as with email.
The next step is to grab one of my old pen drives (USB memory stick), put a mobile Linux distro (I haven’t decided which one yet) on it and run PCs from that. It means that I can boot any (USB bootable) PC to my pen drive, get to my favourites, reference documents and other useful info without ever going near the host OS or hard disks. Of course, I could just go for the mobile version of Firefox for the moment although that would restrict me to using either a Windows or Linux machine for compatibility.
So, do you do live in the clouds or are you scared to trust Google (like I was) and are still tethered to your PC? What problems have you found? Got any useful tips or tricks that you want to share?
No Responses to “Living In The Clouds”
Adcuz - June 26th, 2008
Always used web based mail as I’m always on different computers. It’s the forward.. one day all apps will be web based (maybe).
Adcuzs last blog post..Night Photography At Itchen Bridge In Southampton
Daze - June 27th, 2008
Good move, sweet.
As far as cloud-stuff goes, I use Gmail (have done for 4+ years), Google Docs for “some” documents, but not all, and Google notebook which is really handy to take notes since I can pick them back up on any computer.
Bookmarking is dealt with by Del.icio.us (just moved from Google bookmarks) and that’s pretty much it.
I’ve never, yet, had any problems.
Dazes last blog post..The (long-awaited) Dazecoop.co.uk redesign
Pete - June 29th, 2008
I don’t do the cloud thing completely yet because I run Exchange for e-mail and access everything via VPN so it’s not an issue for me..yet.
But having said that, all of my important documents are stored in various places around the web in case I ever need access to them, so it’s half and half for me right now.
George - July 7th, 2008
Started using “the cloud” about a week ago and find it’s great. I am still using Outlook as well at the moment but thinking of dumping it when I have all my mailing groups set up on GoogleMail.
I like the way you can send an attachment to an email from Google with the file being sent from your PC.
I’ve got Google desktop set up with Mail, Notebook, Reader, Docs and Calendar - very useful
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