Why not to rely on "The Cloud"

[Richard Dye]

As previously mentioned I had a go with Google Drive (cloud) some years ago but found it clunky so didn’t use it much.

Today I was surprised to see that I was using 7Gb of the available free 15Gb.

A quick look showed that Google Photos had backed up all the photos, images, and video clips I had in my laptop and desktop computers.

Some people say the ‘Cloud’ is just someone else’s computer.

oldMohawk, 'some people' are correct the cloud is just someone else very big computer. I have a 2TB hard drive and extra SD cards for my photos. The 2TB hard drive was $40.00 from Amazon.

 

[Richard Dye]

I use Google but regard it as something useful rather than a friend.
I've used their search since 2000 and still use it probably every day.
I use Gmail and find it very satisfactory and secure. Two factor authentication if required.
I use their Chrome browser although lately Microsoft's chromium Edge is nearly as good.
Chrome Extensions are very useful.
Youtube always interesting and useful.
Google Earth/Streetview/Maps. I like them and hope they keep them going.
Google translate. In Chrome it translates websites on the fly.
I don't use GDrive (15Gb Cloud) too clunky ... I prefer Microsoft.
I don't use Google Photos or any other Photo Apps. Prefer my own methods in my computers.

I know Google robots look for keywords in everything I type on the internet ... they are crawling over the BHF at present.
I have never responded or been influenced by an ad which makes it on to my computer screens.

oldMohawk, I use Google and Microsoft.........Trust me neither are your friend, only when you keep paying! An Apple is just as bad. My wife has an ipad Pro with insurance, we went to a Verizon store for three hours could not fix. Two calls with Apple engineers lasting about 6 hours, they needed to have another call. The next day we are watching our Grandchildren and my wife explained what was going on to our 12 year old Grandson, took him 10 minutes to fix it that was three years ago, guess who we call now? You can't make this up! You should not trust those people even if its all you have.

 

[oldMohawk]

oldMohawk, 'some people' are correct the cloud is just someone else very big computer. I have a 2TB hard drive and extra SD cards for my photos. The 2TB hard drive was $40.00 from Amazon.

Richard, it's amazing how memory, hdd, sd, and ssd prices are so low these days.
My first home computer had a memory of 3.5K and there is a pic of it on the forum see link below ...

1st touch on a Computer

ZX 81 (adverts said it could run a power station), ZX Spectrum, remember the screech and red and blue lines when loading programs, an ICT1902 just like in films, and a flying Laptop! :) Whilst posting earlier, back to reality when my son phoned and said a Trojan in his laptop was corrupting his...

birminghamhistory.co.uk

 

[Robert Ensor (bob)]

Well whatever computer you own will go wrong or become out dated with it's hardware or or programs.
The need to have back up is so important I use the cloud but this is not my only storage choice.
When it comes to the cloud you need blind Faith you send your information and such into where ?, to be looked after by who ?.
I think going down to the corner store and asking Me Arkright to keep it under the counter is just as safe.
Funny as I type this there is a add for Google Cloud platform on the page.
Computers cellphones are temporary.

 

[Richard Dye]

Richard, it's amazing how memory, hdd, sd, and ssd prices are so low these days.
My first home computer had a memory of 3.5K and there is a pic of it on the forum see link below ...

1st touch on a Computer

ZX 81 (adverts said it could run a power station), ZX Spectrum, remember the screech and red and blue lines when loading programs, an ICT1902 just like in films, and a flying Laptop! :) Whilst posting earlier, back to reality when my son phoned and said a Trojan in his laptop was corrupting his...

birminghamhistory.co.uk

oldMohawk, really amazing! I had an original IBM PC with a monochrome monitor and 120 drive. Over time from a catalog I upgraded to a 160 then 320 drive then two 320 drives. Added memory and color monitor basically buying the computer all over again. By that time I could have brought a brand new one with 10 times memory and 3 times faster. In this business standing still is actually going backwards.

 

[mw0njm.]

my first pc. a ibm 8088.640k of ram. memory was £1 a meg. so it only had 4. the.hard drive was 10meg. and a ega monitor.
i had hours.of pleaser with that. Then comes the dreaded www. and i had dial up. wow 560k speed.too slow to catch a cold.you could not download anything it took to long.and no buffers.... cloud.back then was a thing in the sky...I got by with out it then,and pretty sure i can now...

 

[sospiri]

Eric,

I agree as our grass turns to straw in the summer, but a lot of artists have chosen to make their homes here and are quite happy that they did, including one who lived in Switzerland for many years. I'm not a beach lover at all - never was when I lived in Bournemouth for nigh on 40 years - and prefer to spend my time in the mountains. Each to his own, but keep on painting.

Maurice

 

[Radiorails]

My experience, a few years ago and on two different occasions with Windows, did not give me any confidence in them. I got the impression they worked from tip sheet and went through it hoping to reach one that sorted things out for you. Usually all the solutions they spoke of I had already tried, without success. They never did so I set myself the task of doing my own checking. Usually I did not take too long and often a we search was more to the point and helpful. Other than component failure, most glitches seem to occur due to an update, which can change your settings or a mistake by yourself which changes settings.
ne thing about Linux, which I use, rather then Windows is that you do have to become more pc literate to enable any issues to be dealt with. I did have a frustrating time recently when WiFi was not available om my laptop (a SONY VAIO). Ethernet was fine but that is not the solution for a portable laptop. It was only when I noticed less lights on the edge of the laptop that I realised I had inadvertently switched off WiFI. There is a small, but obscure slide switch on the front edge of the laptop. Often issues are simply corrected but it can be hard to find the correct method to achieve it.

 

[Richard Dye]

my first pc. a ibm 8088.640k of ram. memory was £1 a meg. so it only had 4. the.hard drive was 10meg. and a ega monitor.
i had hours.of pleaser with that. Then comes the dreaded www. and i had dial up. wow 560k speed.too slow to catch a cold.you could not download anything it took to long.and no buffers.... cloud.back then was a thing in the sky...I got by with out it then,and pretty sure i can now...

mw0njm, I'm with you!
Unfortunately as the old saying goes, you control what you control & we don't! I remember Bill Gates saying something like we will never need more than 128K of ram to support Microsoft programs, that was quickly lost in the dust as they wrote more and more complex programs. Then on a tour of the IBM PC manufacturing plant in NC, we were told, we would never have sound on IBM PC's!

 

[Richard Dye]

My experience, a few years ago and on two different occasions with Windows, did not give me any confidence in them. I got the impression they worked from tip sheet and went through it hoping to reach one that sorted things out for you. Usually all the solutions they spoke of I had already tried, without success. They never did so I set myself the task of doing my own checking. Usually I did not take too long and often a we search was more to the point and helpful. Other than component failure, most glitches seem to occur due to an update, which can change your settings or a mistake by yourself which changes settings.
ne thing about Linux, which I use, rather then Windows is that you do have to become more pc literate to enable any issues to be dealt with. I did have a frustrating time recently when WiFi was not available om my laptop (a SONY VAIO). Ethernet was fine but that is not the solution for a portable laptop. It was only when I noticed less lights on the edge of the laptop that I realised I had inadvertently switched off WiFI. There is a small, but obscure slide switch on the front edge of the laptop. Often issues are simply corrected but it can be hard to find the correct method to achieve it.

Ah, been there done that with the Sony and the slide switch! I love the Sony but that switch has driven me nut (which might not be hard) over the years!

 

[oldMohawk]

I never use Clouds for back-ups. I back up very important data to a usb flash drive and back that up to a another flash drive. My family photos get backed up to an external usb hard drive and duplicated on the data partitions of my computers. I use an iPhone for photos so Apple back them up on the iCloud but a OneDrive app in the iPhone automatically moves them to Windows.

I like OneDrive because it simply looks like a normal drive on my Win 10 devices and I can drag files in an out with the mouse. I can also see them on my iPad/iPhone.

My ISP offers a free 1Tb Cloud which could store everything I've ever done but I can't be bothered with it.

I suppose the ultimate cloud-using device is a Chromebook ...

 

[oldMohawk]

I had a query from Microsoft this morning asking
'What did I think of OneDrive and would I recommend it to a friend' ...

I said I thought it was very useful and would recommend it to a friend ...

As mentioned in earlier posts I access it every day and am presently using 2.8Gb of the free 5Gb.

I do not regard it as secure but maybe the Personal Vault on it is ...

 

[Morturn]

What a strange question for Microsoft to ask. As if I have conversations with my friends about the merits of windows 10 operating systems

 

[Eric Gibson]

I got a message saying there was no more room in my Personal Vault, never even knew there was one, what had happened was I connected my dash cam to the computer and downloaded the contents to watch on screen, there were nineteen videos.
I didn't know they were going to this personal vault as well.

 

[oldMohawk]

Maybe Microsoft are thinking of having something like Chromebooks where the operating system is on their servers.

I was a bit surprised to see I have used 2.8Gb but it seems if there is space on a drive I will quickly fill it ...

 

[sospiri]

Are you using it as your trash can, Phil?

Maurice

 

[oldMohawk]

Are you using it as your trash can, Phil?

Maurice

Genuine user Maurice ... although it could do with a clean-up. Plenty of stuff for MS to browse through although I don't think they do. I suppose I'm using it as a convenient network drive but it needs a fast connection.
It's free at the moment so I use it ...