I haven’t use the “my documents” folder once this semester. It is exhilarating. Today, I keep most things in various Google apps and docs, DropBox, and in a few weeks, probably in iCloud too.
It is no secret that cloud computing and file storage is the future. It is more reliable and imbues a seriously liberating feeling. It is freeing to know that if my computer or stolen, crashes, or made otherwise inaccessible, the content and valuable substance is still available and unharmed. I can log on to any computer, nearly any mobile device, tablet, or gadget with an Internet browser and access my email, schoolwork, photos, files, and music from any server. The convenience is undeniable.
Last year, most of my life was trapped on my desktop and external hard drives. But gone are the days of clicking through “My Computer” to find and save content, back it up, and upload it onto other servers. I used to be neurotic and anxious about saving my word processing in multiple formats so as to avoid the all too common horror stories of lost or unsaved work. But with the cloud and Google Docs, I don’t even think about saving my files, it just happens.
Write an essay on a Google doc and make an edit? Of course the most recent version is saved as is a history of all edits. In my opinion, the “save” button is headed to wherever the floppy disk went.
All the worry and struggle involved with saving and accessing files is quickly diminishing and I feel so much more flexible and mobile because of it.
The one thing I question is whether I will keep having many different cloud based services for various purposes, or if eventually I will have everything (music, photos, docs, etc) in one single location.
I’d love to have hub or dashboard that lets me manage of all my cloud based services at once. Add that to my wish list. Or consider it a “Request for Startup.”
Talia Goldberg 