here you are working at your computer
huh
what's that noise suddenly a meteorite
crashes to earth specifically into your
living room sadly your computer is no
more but thankfully all your music
photos and important documents are
stored online in the cloud when
something is stored in the cloud that
means it's stored on Internet servers
instead of on your computer it's like
having an extra harddrive one that you
can access anywhere and anytime you're
connected to the Internet in the past
you only had a home computer in the
software you installed on it now you can
take your files anywhere
thanks to cloud-based applications
called Web Apps which run inside your
internet browser a web app that you may
already use is Google Docs it's free you
don't have to install anything to use it
and it allows you to create several
different types of projects you can
access everything that you create in
Google Docs from any computer or device
with an internet connection since you
only need a connected device to access
the cloud you can take your music photos
and videos with you wherever you go for
instance if you take a photo on your
smartphone and upload it to a cloud
based photo storage service like Flickr
or Picasa you can access that photo on
any of your other devices on your
computer
or even on your TV you can share your
vacation photos with friends and family
while you're still on vacation with your
photos and other multimedia stored in
the cloud you'll never have to worry
about losing them to a computer
malfunction or rogue meteorite ever
again storing files in the cloud is a
great way to protect your important
files from accidents viruses and more
you can use cloud-based storage services
like Mozy or Carbonite to backup the
contents of your computer these services
run continually and backup automatically
so you'll always have the most recent
versions of your files stored and secure
online servers if something bad happens
to your computer you can easily transfer
your backup files from your storage
service to another device so what are
you waiting for no matter how you use
your computer tablet or smartphone the
cloud has something to offer you
whether it's checking your email when
you're traveling backing up the photos
and music that you love or using web
apps to work in different locations the
cloud can and already is making your
life and the technology in it are
manageable