the Cloud

[????]

I know nothing about technology, when I started work on my desk on day1 was an ashtray, a phone, a pad of paper and pens and a Rolodex. So I seek your help techies. I back up stuff on my PC reasonably often but the cloud in some form or another just must make sense. I want to put all our photos ns music up there about 2000 photos and 6000 tracks. Plus other bits nd bobs and bobs and this will grow. I want easy access, ownership and easy downloading

Am I being sensible?

Who should I use?

Etc etc

[El Pibe]

Nothing wrong with it.

Plenty of options, google+, google drive, iCloud (if you're all ipaddy/Maccy), dropbox, and defacto clouds like flickr, photobox etc.

I'd be loathe to only have stuff on the cloud and nothing locally just because service providers can go through bouts of being a bit unreliable, which could be frustrating.

Also there's the uneasy sense that you don't own your own media anymore, which is in fact true if you use facebook as a photo storage mechanism.

DOes iTunes work seamlessly with iCloud? I daren't try (not to mention I'm reripping everything I won....again....this time to apple lossless as MP3s really are dreadful aren't they!!

[DulwichFox]

Buy yourself an Iomega Home Cloud.

It sits in your Home so is safe. You can upload what you like.

Good that you data is not stuck on a server in some unknown location.

Comes with Quick Protect so you can select the files/folders on your PC that you want to save

each time you update them. You can keep several versions of the same file so you can revert back to an older version.

You get a unique yourname.myiomega.com domain name so you can access your files anywhere (free for first year)

Then about ?10.00 per year after that.

So you can even Manage your cloud Remotely. (password protected)

Comes with 1 Terabyte 2 Terabyte Maybe higher. and from around ?80.00 or less

Fox.

[*Bob*]

The thorny storage / backup issue rears its head all too often for me.

How are NAS drives - in comparison to a direct connection through, say, firewire800?

[right-clicking]

Now is the the time to be signing up to the cloud services, you might of noticed that there are more and more offers and incentives for you to subscribe? they want you as a potential source of income!! The offers at present are generous. I have 10GB with google 25GB with microsoft's skydrive. I back up locally on an external drive and use the cloud for sharing, synchronicity is the key, upload from your phone to the cloud, get home and download to your desktop, out on the go? view it on your laptop. once the file is uploaded it becomes mobile!!

NAS servers are a great option as you only have one source of data, stream it to whatever device you have on your network be it phone tablet laptop or desktop or even your internet TV. To Bob, it will be as fast as your router!!

[????]

Cheers everyone.

Few questions

I've a pC and an Ipad (no smart phone). My missus does academic work on the PC.

If we go I-cloud could we upload everything there word files etc or is it the normal apple snapple exclusive rubbish.

Does/can i-cloud work as a back up for my non-I tunes music ie can I download it onto a new machine etc(I know there's I-match but I think that just matches your non-Itunes Music from a pc but you don't own it)

vise versa - if I go for a non apple route be that Cloud or homecloud, can I put apple stuff there and stream it? Ie play songs on my wireless speakers etc

All stooopid questions but it's not always that clear on product specs.

As an aside, EP agree on crappness of MP3s to 'uncompress' the sound (or whatever you do)will I have to upload all my CDs again?

[El Pibe]

sadly yes.

The difference is immediately noticeable though.

Lossless formats are supposed to be identical to the source (though Apple lossless does run some compression unlike FLAC and AIFF), but I do still notice a big difference between the CD and the iPod

I'm putting that down to the relatively cheap DAC on the ipod, am considering getting a seperate DAC, though I'm drawing the line at getting scary interconnects!

It'd be good to have a split this into a new thread function wouldn't it. Adminnnnn.......

[red devil]

What wireless speaker system do you use ?????...

[????]

I'm looking to buy for me recent (significant) birthday. Zeppelin maybe, or the BOSE one.... doing a bit of research but will happily listen to any recommendations

[Loz]

I have a local NAS (one of these) which I back up regularly to another USB disk. I put 2 x 1TB disks in it, so I have 1TB of storage on mirrored disks. I actually use about 20% of this!

With a little fiddling with your router you can make it visible externally (it has the security needed) and you could even back it up to the cloud. The underlying OS is Linux which you can telnet into, so anything is possible.

[womanofdulwich]

Please can someone translate ALL the above into something a non techie can understand?

Is the cloud a bit like i tunes for files?? I feel I losing touch..............

[red devil]

???? Wrote:

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> I'm looking to buy for me recent (significant)

> birthday. Zeppelin maybe, or the BOSE one....

> doing a bit of research but will happily listen to

> any recommendations

I have a Sonos system, it was recommended by an AV specialist I know, who at the time said it was a better system than the Bose.

It can be controlled via your PC and iPod etc

http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/Play3?lang=en-us&region=uk&gclid=CNnvmI7j6bICFQ_MtAodAlMARg

Available at Amazon, John Lewis etc.

Good technical back-up, for instance this explains all about lossy v lossless compressions*

https://www.sonos.com/graphics/rn/FAQ825/sonos_music_primer.pdf

Lots of tutorials on YouTube too.

Happy Belated Birthday :)

* Just for you WoD ;-)

[????]

Cheers RD. That looks good (and a few ? cheaper too) I will put it on my research list.

[El Pibe]

The cloud is a new term for a not especially new concept, it basically means getting someone or somewhere else to store your data rather than on a physical disk on your computer or plugged into your computer.

It also implies that you can then get hold of your info from any computer or smart phone.

It could be files, such as diocuments, music files, photos etc, buyt it can also be bookmarks, contacts for your phone, appointments on a calendar etc.

If you have a smaert phone chances are it regularly backs itself up to google/iCloud all by itself, so you may be using a cloud already.

[*Bob*]

right-clicking Wrote:

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To Bob, it will be as fast as your router!!

Does it retrieve/send data as 'immediately' as a physically connected drive? Or is there a noticeable delay as your computer connects wirelessly to the router?

[DulwichFox]

womanofdulwich Wrote:

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> Please can someone translate ALL the above into

> something a non techie can understand?

> Is the cloud a bit like i tunes for files?? I

> feel I losing touch..............

Basically when you turn on Apple's iCloud your devices no longer Automatically Sync to iTunes.

It is all controlled by the Cloud.

You turn on which Data you wish to send to the cloud.

Do not confuse iCloud (Apple) with the Personal Cloud I was talking about earlier in this thread.

Fox.

[*Bob*]

RE wireless music: don't think anyone can beat a good ol' Airport Express (or two) for cost (and it's not often you can say that about Apple products). And it fixed our patchy wireless reception at the same time.

Spotify and iTunes plays on iPad faultlessly (tested over an extensive, er, session) and have no issues with quality personally.

[Loz]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> right-clicking Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> To Bob, it will be as fast as your router!!

>

> Does it retrieve/send data as 'immediately' as a

> physically connected drive? Or is there a

> noticeable delay as your computer connects

> wirelessly to the router?

It will be as 'immediate' in setting up the download/stream (providing you have previously connected), but wireless (usually 54-108 Mbps) will always be slower than wired connection (usually 1 Gbps). Once you wander out to the internet you then drop to your ISP connection speed, which depends on your ISP and, for non-fibre connections, distance from the exchange.

[Loz]

womanofdulwich Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Please can someone translate ALL the above into

> something a non techie can understand?

> Is the cloud a bit like i tunes for files?? I

> feel I losing touch..............

Put simply, 'Cloud' is putting stuff onto a server or storage system provided by a professional supplier from a remote data centre that is accessible via the internet. Stuff that you would have, previously, had on a computer or storage in your house/office.

You probably use 'Cloud' already - Hotmail/Gmail are cloud email applications. In Hotmail now you can open a Word document in a cloud version of MS Word (so you don't need it locally installed as you used to).

That's a very simplistic explanation - cloud is much bigger than that, but that's how it will effect you at the moment.

You gain:

- better and more resistant hardware used

- usually (but not always) backed up

- flexibility in that you pay for what you use

- portability - you can access your stuff wherever you have internet access, not just from your home

You lose:

- ability to get your stuff if your internet link is down

- (arguably) some control - who can access you data? This is notable if your cloud provider has any US links.

- it can cost more, but not always.

[DulwichFox]

With a Personal Cloud it is basically a Large Disk. 4 TeraBytes is 4 X 1,024 gigabytes of data storage.

Much Bigger than your Hard Drive.

Directly connected to your Router. Password protected form the outside world.

You can control who has access to which folders and who has Admin control of your Device.

Much safer and a lot cheaper than paying for space and access to a remote server you have no control over.

You can simply turn your home server off.

You will need some Techy Knoweledge as to Port Forwarding (Opening the port your Device Uses)

so that you can pass through any Firewall set up.

You cannot do this with the Router supplied by BT for their Infinity Service.

Fox.

[*Bob*]

My current backup system comprises the stuff on the computer itself; then there's the backup of the stuff on the computer by another physically connected drive which is hidden under two foot of cabling at the back of a cupboard behind some other stuff (to deter the quick-rummaging thief). Then there are the 341 DVDs of old jobs which might need to be resurrected at some point. Unbacked-up, which is a worry. Then there's the 'suicide' drive, kept in a lead-lined box encased in Kryptonite at a different address, containing the really important stuff .. so that should our own house be obliterated in the first wave of nuclear strikes, there would still remain some data upon which to rebuild our shattered lives. Though it's probably well out of date now.

[Loz]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> With a Personal Cloud it is basically a Large Disk. 4 TeraBytes is 4 X 1,024 gigabytes of data

> storage.

>

> Much Bigger than your Hard Drive.

>

> Directly connected to your Router. Password protected form the outside world.

> You can control who has access to which folders and who has Admin control of your Device.

That's more of a home NAS than a cloud, like the QNAP box I use. The whole concept of the Cloud is that the physical location of the server/data isn't an issue.

Not too many years ago, you used to buy 'leased lines' between offices to connect them which ran along a defined path. Along came new technology which ran them through switched networks, which we depicted on diagrams as a cloud. I think that is where the term came from. You knew where data entered the cloud and where it exited, but what physical path the data took was unknown to you. It's sort of the same concept - you have a virtual location for your data, but the physical location is rather irrelevant.

[Salsaboy]

I just photocopy everything and keep it at my mum's house.

[????]

Salsaboy Wrote:

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> I just photocopy everything and keep it at my

> mum's house.

What? even, er, THOSE photos?

[maxxi]

???? Wrote:

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> Salsaboy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I just photocopy everything and keep it at my

> > mum's house.

>

>

> What? even, er, THOSE photos?

Plastered all over the walls in the 'special' room...