Non-digital cloud. -- Photo by Nancy Woods
In her Technorati article “How iCloud will Change the Process of Writing,” Maria-Louise Overgaard says she’s looking forward to being able to save her writing in iCloud because it will mean she no longer has to e-mail copies of her writing to herself to make sure she has access to it from whatever device she’s working on.
What is iCloud? According to SearchCloudComputing.com, it’s a computer service that provides online storage and applications, with the following advantages:
-
Easy and inexpensive set-up because hardware, application and bandwidth costs are covered by the provider.
-
Scalability to meet needs.
-
No wasted resources because you pay for what you use.
That kind of computer storage sure sounds handy, but what about security? Can iCloud files be hacked? And, if I understand it correctly, iCloud isn’t going to work when I’m working away from my office in a location that doesn’t have Internet access. Which means, for now at least, I’m sticking with my portable hard drive.
Nancy Woods 
I decided to experiment on using my Facebook profile to comment – I like the comments options you show. Re: the iCloud – isn’t this just another FTP-like service that people have been using for years now? At our company, instead of e-mailing large files to printers and other vendors, we upload files to a service called Box.net and then just e-mail a link to retrieve the files. Same idea, right?
But I’m with you, Nancy. Solely relying on wireless technology is risky business. I’ll stick to my thumb drive for the time being, too!
LikeLike