The Cloud?

[neksmerj]

I'm a bit of a dummy when it comes to computers, hence my question.

What is the "iCloud" and how do I use it and why?

Ken

[derekcohen]

The cloud is simply a hard drive on the Internet. For example, Google Drive. Join and they give you about 5-10Gb free. You can save your important records there, photos, music, etc. That is handy in case of a computer meltdown. It is also handy to share large files with others, when you provide someone to have (limited) access to the website hard drive.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[China]

Just remember whatever you put on/in the cloud is public knowledge

[Glenn.Visca]

ICloud ... Being one of Apple's Cloud based applications, allows you to automatically share your content (files) between Apple devices and/or Windows PCs (with iCloud for windows).

Meaning that: if you take a photo with your iPhone, it can be automatically shared/available on all your other devices. Equally music, videos etc.

As Derek said (I think it was Derek), this can also serve as a form of backup.

Be mindful of data usage though.

[Lappa]

Just remember whatever you put on/in the cloud is public knowledge

only if you make it so or account gets hacked

[China]

Like I said it is public knowledge

[kiwigeo]

Like I said it is public knowledge

No more public than your ATM PIN code as long as you don't divulge it.

[Stewie D]

Yes I have to agree. Apple take their clients data and privacy ( read their recent spat with the FBI ) very seriously and unless you are stupid enough to give someone else the key to your safe then your data should be secure.

Stewie

[fletty]

Ladies and Gents I am struggling.
I think I understand the concept of the Cloud BUT I'm having trouble with using it. My main, and immediate, problem is this. I have an iMac, iPad and iPhone and 50GB of cloud storage. I take a lot of photos on both my iPhone and various cameras. I understand that my iPhone pics also 'appear' on my iPad and iMac and presumably via the cloud. My phone and iPad memories are now fully loaded BUT, when I try to free up memory by deleting, I receive the message that IF I continue the "picture will be deleted from the iCloud library on ALL of my devices" which is a terrifying warning to someone like me!
I presume that these pictures will remain in the cloud but, if none of my devices 'tell' me that the photo exists, then it might as well not exist? To add to this, I download my cameras to the iMac as a bulk storage, but I also label and keep the SD cards in a postage stamp filing album. If I am going to use a picture from a camera in (say) this forum, I download it to my iPad and reduce it in size. Then, the downloaded full size file and its compressed twin, 'migrate' to my iPhone as well!
Unfortunately, I am now locked up with overloaded memories otherwise I would take a picture on my iPhone, give it time to migrate, delete it on the phone and see IF it survives on iPad and/or iMac?
How do others do it?

(nearly overwhelmed) fletty

[rwbuild]

Why even bother with the cloud, if it breaks and it will sooner or later, you have nothing but your own sd cards so no problem.
Get a portable terabyte digital hard drive and store them there as well.

[derekcohen]

As I understand, each device offers the option of connecting (synching) to the cloud. Simply unsynch the device(s) you wish to isolate, and then delete what you want on them.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[truckjohn]

Its pretty easy to sync your device. You do it through settings in the control panel. Once you choose to sync your device - it automatically does it.

Now.... My crotchety gripe....

My main issue is that we think of online things as permanent records when they are not. These online sources depend on someone else's server working... That company staying viable... The owner paying the fees... All that...

I got a stark reminder of this last summer... My build logs of my first 5 guitars were on a particular internet forum. The forum owner had a stroke and passed away... And his forum (which lived on a server he owned) died with him. The internet archives have very little from his site... And just like that - its gone.

And so while I think the Cloud may be a useful thing - its like storing your junk in your neighbor's garage. Its fine while he is OK with the agreement... But you loose all your stuff when he changes his mind. One of these days - some executive with Apple realizes that they are spending half a billion dollars a year storing other people's stuff for free.....

[fletty]

I love the metaphor of "storing your junk in your neighbours garage" as that is where my sapele is stashed!
Thanks for the suggestions above. I will 'unsynch', delete something not important and see if it only disappears from that device.
With reference to Truckjohns post above, with portable storage (SD, microSD, flash etc) being so cheap, I do label and store them as well and, with reference to Ray's post, I do have a 2 TB HD drive attached to my main computer. SO, for virtually every digital image I have ever taken, I have it stored, on HDD attached to iMac, and in the cloud, and on SD/microSD/flash if taken on a camera AND many are also stored on my iPhone and iPad if recently taken on the iPhone or recently compressed to be posted on a forum etc. I am aware that all of these media have potential archival horizons but, then again, so do I!

fletty

[BobL]

One of these days - some executive with Apple realizes that they are spending half a billion dollars a year storing other people's stuff for free.....

I doubt it costs them a single cent and hence will never give it up - if anything they will increase the size of free storage.
50Gb is just a bait to convince people to upgrade to paid storage which many end up doing.

But most folks don't realise that Apple makes significant money out of running the cloud for so called "free". The data stored on the cloud is extensively mined in general terms and the information is used by Apple and also sold to others. Apple say they will not divulge personal information but nowhere do they say they will not divulge aggregated depersonalised information.

The 50Gb free limit is the current break point at which Apple thinks they can get sufficient return on investment.

[derekcohen]

I have a paid account with Dropbox, which is one of the original iCloud memory banks. It costs about $10 p.m. This gives me a little extra peace of mind as I backup all my work files every day to it (as well as to a portable hard drive). The advantage of Dropbox is that others can access those parts I permit, which makes passing large files to others possible, and I can access any of this information from anywhere in the world.

The hard drive on my 6 year old MacBook Pro crashed 3 weeks ago ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Chris Parks]

The idea of the cloud is great, the information is off the premises, backed up and maintained by professionals etc so is most probably as safe as it can be in our digital world, all this except for one thing in Oz, our upload speeds are so dismal it makes using the cloud on a large volume basis practically impossible. If and when everyone is on the NBN and it actually works as designed then the cloud becomes the place to store large files. We don't get the NBN until the end of 2018 and possibly later so I am going to go a different way and create my own remote cloud. I will buy a multi disc NAS, copy all the info presently sitting on our main NAS (we have two) and put that NAS at my daughter's place integrated into their network. That way we don't have the problem of uploading many terrabytes of information via the internet (never going to happen) and it gets backed up with the small differences that happen on a scheduled basis. Overkill? maybe but it gives me piece of mind as I have had two major data losses, both reputable NAS's and I am determined to prevent a third. It would all be unnecessary if we had 21st century internet but our politicians of all persuasions are doing their level best to prevent that happening.

[NCArcher]

I have a paid account with Dropbox, which is one of the original iCloud memory banks. The advantage of Dropbox is that others can access those parts I permit, which makes passing large files to others possible, and I can access any of this information from anywhere in the world.

Regards from Perth

Derek
Drop box is great and I use it for work as well.
We did have an issue last year though. Drop box saves all your work and updates files as they are changed. It then syncs to everyone else that has access to those changed files and updates the files on everyones computer. Everybody has access to the latest version of the files. Great you say but my boss (thank goodness it was the boss) clicked on a ransom virus. His laptop was encrypted before he worked out what was happening. Dropbox then saw that all these files had changed and immediately uploaded the changes. I happened to notice the notification that my computer was updating 16,000 files and immediately stopped the sync. I told everyone else in the office to turn their dropbox sync off straight away but we were too slow.
My bosses computer was toast, needed a complete wipe and reinstall. The ones who stopped the sync needed a fair amount of maintenance to restore the encrypted files. We were saved by one person whose laptop was turned off and wasn't affected.
We did lose a bit of information that he didn't have access to.
I don't know how you protect against something like that as it is not downloading the virus just the changed files. Something to be aware of for any auto syncing to the cloud.

[Chris Parks]

Yes, as Tony says these ransom virii will access any mounted drive and this is one reason I want a remote drive that is only accessed on demand and not mounted on a permanent basis. He told me this same story some time ago and it was then I decided on an unmounted remote drive.

[derekcohen]

The way I use Dropbox is to backup manually. That means just uploading to Dropbox any new files created during the day, and I will do this at the end of the day. It takes a few minutes to do, but at least I have control over the information. I do the same with a portable hard drive every few days. This way I am not going to lose more than a few hours work.

Regards from Perth

Derek