Some risks with free cloud services

A ‘more or less” funny experience from a geek.

 

“I am a big fan of cloud services. I’ve been migrating more and more of my local services to the cloud. (…)

I also like moving to the cloud because I tend to access my information from a lot of different locations and computers. I work in my main office, my den, my living room, on my tablet, on my laptop, in the studio, in the garage, and so forth. Keeping all my data synchronized on all those machines gets old after a while. (…)

But cloud services have their failings, as well. And I’m not talking about the usual crashes and cyberattacks. 

No, sometimes the service just goes away.

Google users are familiar with the phenomenon. Loyal users of Google Health were disappointed last November when the service was shut down. Del.icio.us users almost lost their minds when it appeared the service was being shuttered by Yahoo, only to have it bought up at the last minute. (…)

And then the author tells how his wife has been disappointed recently loosing a  favorite list management software…

as a conclusion,

“

Does that mean I’m going to stop using cloud services? Heck no. But I do intend to at least check into the business model of the services I’m using. If it looks like there’s no way it’ll make any money and be a cost drain, I probably will do my best to, at the very least, keep backups, reports, or dumps of any of the data I entrust to the cloud provider.

The silver lining in this tale? Forewarned is forearmed. Now you know you need to be sure you can get your data out before the cloud services dissipate.“

Gewirtz, David. The curse of free cloud services: a cautionary tale. ZD Net, May 24, 2012. Available from: 
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/the-curse-of-free-cloud-services-a-cautionary-tale/590?tag=nl.e539
 [Accessed 24th of May 2012]

 

 

 

Social tools for US Libraries: an update

Based on a new report by Joseph McKendrick.  The Digital Squeeze: Libraries at the Crossroads surveyed 730 public, academic, special, education, and government libraries in the US.

“Librarians report a levelling off in the use of Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with customers and the use of wikis and blogs is declining.  However, more of them are using collaborative tools including the sharing of web pages, subject guides, and the use of document-sharing, photo and video sharing web apps.

Libraries, unsurprisingly, reported an increased demand for ebooks, wireless connectivity and other technology tools and services.  More than one-third of the respondents reported that they spent more money on information technology hardware, software, and related IT services over the past year. 

More libraries are moving to the cloud for operational support and content storage.  26% of them are already offering e-readers, with one respondent stating that this activity will be an area of ‘extreme growth’.

 

Skelton, Val. Libraries, the digital squeeze and ebooks. InformationToday Europe, 12th of April 2012. Available from: 
http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Libraries-the-digital-squeeze-and-ebooks-81910.aspx
 [Accessed 13th April 2012]

MS Office in the clouds

The Google enterprise blog announces the availability of a new product – Google Cloud Connect - which seeks to make it easier for people using Google Docs and Microsoft Office to collaborate on working with documents.

The application works between Google Docs and Microsoft Office to synchronise changes to documents made by different editors in close to real-time.

Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google Cloud without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google docs. As the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version.

Once in the Google Cloud, documents can be easily shared and even simultaneously edited by multiple people, from right within Office. A full revision history is kept as the files are edited, and users can revert to earlier versions in one click.

According to Google, it will soon make the feature available free of charge to the general public.
My opinion: could be a great step beyond for the global adoption of cloud computing by a large audience

More info at:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/11/bridge-to-cloud-google-cloud-connect.html