WHAT’S ALL THIS STUFF ABOUT THINGS ON THE CLOUD?

To give a short answer to the question above, when in addition to or instead of storing documents on your computer, you store them on a remote server, that is called storing it on the cloud. You store and retrieve that data through the internet, so it seems like it is stored on the cloud. In the past most computer users just filed material on their own computer or some external device such as a CD, DVD, or flash drive that they physically connected to their computer to store or retrieve information.

Modern PCs come with lots of storage space, but mobile devices don’t have as much. Some computers (chromebooks, in particular) come with very little storage. With limited space on the device, it makes sense to store some of your data on the cloud. It’s not only data; some tools, such as word processing programs might be in the cloud rather than on your computer.

Bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, and all that stuff

Since data is stored in forms of bytes, I’d like to clarify what that is. A byte is a unit of electronic data. The words a cat take five bytes, one for each letter and one for the space. A picture of a cat will take a lot more than five bytes because the picture is made up of little colored dots on the screen, called pixels. The picture of the cat above takes 21,800 bytes or 21.8 kilobytes. If the resolution of the cat picture were better, there would be more pixels per square inch, and it would take a lot more bytes.  A kilobyte (KB) is 1,000 bytes. A megabyte (MB) is a million bytes. A billion bytes is gigabyte (GB). Some new computers come with a trillion bytes of storage, a terabyte (TB).

Mobile devices and chromebooks

Cell phones and tablets can come with as little as 8GB of storage, although some have a lot more. The operating system of the phone usually takes about 5 GB, leaving only 3GB for data. Once you start downloading apps and taking pictures, the phone will quickly run out of space to put anything else. The same applies to the tablet, so it makes sense to store some of your data on the cloud rather than on your device. For example, if you have a lot of Kindle books on your tablet, you can make more space by taking some of the eBooks off the device. What you are doing is storing these superfluous books on the cloud. You can easily put them back on your tablet any time you want to.

Chromebooks are becoming very popular in schools because they cost a lot less than Macs or Windows PCs. You don’t need to download Microsoft Office onto you chromebook. You can use Google Docs online for free. You can store any data you create on Google Drive, up to 15 GB free.

Google Drive and One Drive

Another reason to store things cloud holders like Google Drive or One Drive is that you can use the free office products, like word processing, spread sheets, and presentation (power point) software.

To store something on One Drive, you need an Outlook email address. Go to your Outlook email and click on the nine little squares in the upper left. That will open a menu that includes Documents. Click on that to open it. Then you can paste any documents that you want to save on the cloud.

The procedure is just about the same for Google Drive. Go to Google and click on the nine little squares on the upper right. That will open a menu that includes Google Drive. As with One Drive, you can paste any document that you want to save.

Some people store data on the cloud to protect it. When I am working on a project, I usually remember to save it on a storage device like a flash drive. But I worry. What if there is a fire that destroys my computer and my flash drive? What if my computer crashes, and I can’t retrieve anything from it? If I store a copy of the project on the cloud, I will be able to retrieve it even if the original has been destroyed..

WINDOWS 10

The iPhone Changed Everything

The launch of the Apple iPhone on June 29, 2007, changed everything. Up to that time the Windows operating system (OS) was on 90 percent of computers worldwide. The iPhone was soon followed by the iPad, also by Apple. People could get mobile computers, computers that they could carry with them and get on the internet. In October 2008, the first android phone was released. Android phones and tablets used open-source software, and any manufacturer could make them. Soon there were a lot more Apple and android devices than Windows machines connecting to the internet.

Microsoft Losing Ground

Microsoft realized it was losing ground. They decided to emulate Apple. Like Apple, Microsoft was going to manufacture its own devices (Surface) and phones (Windows phone) and a brand-spanking new OS (Windows 8). Furthermore, since so many people were getting on the internet with mobile devices, Microsoft would make the interface of the new OS like the interface of Apple and android devices. They would create tiles that users could move around on a touch screen, just the iPhone.

Except, it wasn’t like the iPhone or the android phone. It was brand new. It wasn’t like previous editions of Windows either, so users had to research how to do simple, everyday things like find the control panel or even shut the damned thing off. The launch of Windows 8 was greeted with a huge Boo! For the next year, most people who bought new computers wanted them to run on Windows 7, rather than 8.

Windows 8 was thrust onto the public on October 26, 2012. A month later Steve Sinofsky, head of the Windows Division of Microsoft, was gone. A little over a month after that, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, announced that he would be leaving as soon as the company could find a new CEO.

A year later Satya Nadella was appointed CEO of the giant software company. He was faced with the huge job of cleaning up the mess that Sinofsky and Ballmer had left. By that time Windows 8.1 had been launched. 8.1 nudged the system back toward the Windows 7 interface. For example, the start button was restored. It was a free upgrade for anyone who had Windows 8.

Windows 10

In October 2014, Microsoft began releasing beta (trial) versions of the new OS, Windows 10. Anyone who wanted could download it and try it out. By July it was released to the public at large. Best of all, it was free. Microsoft was giving something away for free? Yes, they wanted people to get away from the disaster that was Windows 8. The new system was not free to everyone, but if you had Windows 8 or 8.1, you could download 10 free. Not only that, but if you had Windows 7 in your computer, you could also download 10 for free. Not only could you get Windows 10 free, but Microsoft kept sending messages to Windows 7 users, urging them to download 10 before it was too late. Actually users had a year to make up their mind. If you download Windows 10 on your 7, 8, or 8.1 machine before July 29, 2016, it will be free. If you download it after that, you will have to pay for it.

What is it like?

Windows 10 has some of the same problems that are found in Windows 8. The start button is back, and the irritating charms menu is gone. I still had to search around to find the control panel. The desktop is full of tiles, which seem useless to me if you don’t have a touch screen. You can get rid of them if you want, though. The new browser, Edge, is supposed to be pretty good, but I had a lot of trouble finding my favorites. Other people have told me the same thing. Instead of using Edge, I still use the chrome browser. There is a digital assistant, Cortana. You can speak to her when you want to find information rather than typing it. However, you can do the same with Chrome. Cortana will coordinate your schedule and stuff like that, but you would have to use Outlook for your calendar. I use Google calendar and don’t want to change that.

What to do?

I have a desktop with Windows 7 and a laptop with Windows 10. I really disliked Windows 8, so as soon as I could, I downloaded 10 onto my laptop. It’s okay, but I prefer Windows 7. I keep fighting off Microsoft’s efforts to download Windows 10 on my desktop. For me the only drawback to Windows 7 is that a certain point (January 2020) Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 7 with security updates. That computer will be seven or eight years old by then. I don’t know whether it will still be alive, but if I am still using it, it will not be safe to use it to go on the internet.

But I found something new recently. It’s product called Start 10, from Stardock. It changes the interface of a Windows 10 computer to something very much like Windows 7. It costs $5. I loaded it only my laptop a couple of days ago. I’m going to try it for a few weeks. If I continue to like it, I will download Windows 7 onto my desktop and then put Start 10 on it, so that if I have the computer in 2020, Microsoft will continue to provide security updates.

BOOKS AND THE INTERNET

I read 56 books last year. That doesn’t count books that I started and decided not to finish.  At least half of these were eBooks. Some people say they prefer good, old-fashioned paper books. “I like the feel of a regular book in my hands,” they will say. I don’t believe it for a minute. When you’re reading a good story, you don’t think about the physical characteristics of the device containing the story because you’re lost in the story.

Advantages of an eBook

In fact there some advantages to having your story in an eBook rather than a paper book. One advantage is that if you come across an unfamiliar word in your reading, you can press down on it, and the definition will pop up. Don’t laugh at me, but a couple of times I have felt my hand move toward an unfamiliar word in a paper book before I realized that it doesn’t work that way.

If the print is too small for you, you can increase the size in an electronic book. You don’t have to worry about losing your place in an eBook because the device will remember it for you. If you’re going someplace and want to take several books with you, you can take all of them in one device.

The most popular eReader is the Kindle. One of the advantages of Kindle is that you don’t have to buy a dedicated Kindle device. You can download Kindle software FREE for any tablet, smart phone, or PC. I usually read eBooks on my tablet, but once when my tablet was in the shop, I read an eBook on my laptop. At another time I took my tablet on a trip to New York, I didn’t have it fully charged up, and it ran out of juice on the return trip. I was able to open to the same book on my phone. Even though the screen on the phone is small, I was able to increase the size of the print so it was comfortable to read.

Kindle Books

Kindle readers are the most popular device, and Kindle is also the most popular publisher of electronic books, so it has the most variety from which to choose. Most popular books are available in Kindle as well as print form. A lot of Kindle books are free. As I started this blog, I downloaded five books on building a blog. Three of them were free, and the other two were inexpensive.

You can get a lot of good deals on Kindle books through Book Bub. https://www.bookbub.com/home/https://www.bookbub.com/home/ I get an email every day from Book Bub, which offers a half a dozen books discounted or free. I read the reviews on books that sound interesting and then download the book if I think I will like it. If you like getting free books, go to Book Bub and sign up.

eBooks from the Public Library

Yes, you can get electronic books from the public library. I usually borrow literary fiction from the library. When I started getting eBooks from the library about five years ago, they had 131 books in this category. Now they have over 3,000. I can borrow these books sitting in an easy chair at home. I just go to the library website, sign in, and go through the book selection. Once I choose a book, I can download it onto my tablet and have it for two weeks. If I am out of town, I can order eBooks from my library by going to their web site. If the eBook I want is out, I can get on a waiting list.

Gutenberg.org

There are of course lots of sources of electronic books, but one of the best is http://www.gutenberg.org/ This outfit takes books that are no longer covered by copyright and puts them in electronic form. They have, for example, most of the older classic works of literature, and they are free to download.

Paper Books from the Library

I still like to read paper books, and most of these I get from the library. I find the internet helpful in getting these books. When I read a review of a book that sounds interesting, I check to see if the library has it. If they have it and it is in, I will pick it up the next time I go to the library. If it is out, I will put myself on the waiting list. When it becomes available, the library will send me an email. I read pretty fast, but if I get behind and the book becomes due before I have finished it, I can renew it over the internet. It’s all very handy.

eBooks by Carl Perrin

I can’t end this without inviting you to take a look at some of my eBooks.:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=Carl+Perrin

DROP BOX

Former head of the CIA General Petraeus, a married man, had a fling with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. In order to keep their relationship secret, instead of sending their billets doux to each other over traditional email, they used a drop box. Unfortunately Paula had sent some anonymous threatening email to Jill Kelley, who reported it to the FBI. The FBI traced to threatening email to Paul Broadwell’s computer. While they looking around, the also found the drop box with the love letters to and from the general.

I learned later that Drop Box is a computer app which allows users to share documents online. For example, if a group of people are working on a project together, they can post it on the internet. That way, anyone who has the password to the Drop Box can access the project.

You don’t have to share your Drop Box account with anyone else. You can just use it to save information that you don’t want to carry around with you, but you want to be able to get at. For example, you can create a file on your PC and access it with your cell phone when you’re away from home. That’s the way I use it.

Book List

I have a list of books I want to read. When I read a review of a book that sounds interesting, I put it on my book list. It’s an excel spread sheet, arranged alphabetically by author. I used to print that out and take it to the library with me, but I kept losing the printout. Now I have it in Drop Box. When I go to the library, I just take out my cell phone, and there’s the book list.

Shopping List

This is a list of those little sundries that I want to get when I am at Target or Walmart or some other store: notebook paper, pocket calendar, pens, stuff like that. I used to write those things down and a piece of paper and take it to the store with me. But sometimes I would forget my list. Now I have it in my phone under Drop Box.

Pass Code

I have the pass code for the WiFi in the computer room. It is on paper in my brief case, but if I don’t have my brief case with me, I can get it from Drop Box

Computer News

I give a talk every week about computers in the news. I get the news articles from the internet and save them on my PC. Before I give the talk, I put the news articles I want to talk about on Drop Box. At the meeting I open Drop Box on my tablet because it’s easier to read than the cell phone.

These are some of the ways that I use Drop Box, There are hundreds of possible ways to use, other than carrying on a torrid affair with some hottie.

Maybe you’re wondering if I am planning a General Petraeus, if I am going to have a wild fling with some red hot mama. To that question, I have to say, “It is highly unlikely that at my age (85), I would have enough energy to attempt such a thing.”

Also Janet told me that if she catches me up to any hanky panky, she will kill me, and I am much too young to die. So if some of you women are eager to have your way with me, you can just fugetaboutit.

YOU PAY HOW MUCH FOR CELL PHONE SERVICE?

A year or so ago someone I know told me that her family of four spends $240 a month on cell phone service. I was shocked. My wife and I spend about $12 a month. Clearly we used our phones a lot less than this family of four, but we get all the service we want. What can account for the difference?

I decided to take a look at various plans offered by cell phone providers and the cost of each. Janet and I are retired. We have internet-connected phones at home, so we don’t have as much need for cell phone service. Like most older couples, our cell phones are primarily for emergencies. What I wanted to do, then, was to compare low-cost cell phones and service for people who wanted a cell phone but didn’t plan to use it a lot.

Another consideration was whether to get a flip for just making and receiving calls or a smart phone with which we can check our email or download Angry Birds as well as make phone calls if we want. In our particular case, it made more sense economically to get a smart phone. I tell you more about that later.

In the last year or so the cost of cell phone service has gone down, so perhaps the woman I told you about in the first sentence does not pay as much for her phone service as she did a year ago. Telephone companies have dropped their prices because of competition from providers who use the internet rather than telephone networks to connect. Cable Vision, a New York area cable company offers a service called Free Wheel. With this service customers can get unlimited talk, text, and data. If you are already For Cable Vision customer the service costs only $10 a month. Others can sign up for $30 a month. You have to have a Moto G phone for Free Wheel, but it is a pretty good phone and costs only $100. The limitation of Free Wheel is that works ONLY in WiFi areas.

A similar service is Google Fi, which uses WiFi if it is available, but otherwise uses regular cell phone networks. Unlimited talk and text are $20 a month. Data is $10 per GB (gigabyte). There is no annual contract with Google Fi, but you must use a Nexus phone. They generally cost from $350 -$500. The one person I know who used Google Fi loves it.

Traditional telephone companies used to offer expensive cell phones for about $200. The rest of the real cost of $500 and $600 phone was added to the monthly bill with a two-year contract. Let’s take a look at some of the least expensive phones and plans that are available now.

VERIZON

LG Revere 3 smart phone $50

1GB data, unlimited talk and text $30/month 

AT&T

LG Xpression smart phone $140

This plan would be for people who actually use their phone “only for emergencies.”

Talk 25ȼ/minute

Text 20 ȼ/message

Data 1ȼ/5 kb (kilobyte)

T-MOBILE

Used LG 450 $30

Unlimited talk and text and 2 GB data $50/month

STRAIGHT TALK

Reconditioned Moto e $20

1500 minutes talk/month, 100 MB (megabyte) data $30/month

CONSUMER CELLULAR

Talk -   0          $10/month + 25 ȼ minute for actual talk time.

                        250 minutes                 $15/month

Data & text -               30 texts                       30MB data      $2.50/month

                                                1500 texts       150MB data    $5.00/month

There is no annual contract with Consumer Cellular, and you can change your monthly contract right up to the last day of the month. So if you are on the $15 a month talk plan and haven’t made any calls, you can change it to the $10 a month plan. If you make more calls the next month, you can change it again.

Another advantage with Consumer Cellular is that if you are a member of AARP, you get a 5 percent discount on all plans.

TRACFONE

This is the plan that Janet and I are on. For about $12 a month with two phones we can make all the calls we want, although some people would want to make a lot more calls.

Janet has a refurbished LG Optimus Dynamic phone, which cost $10. I have a Moto e phone, which cost $100 new. Tracfone has refurnished Moto e phones on sale for $60.

Tracfone service is secured through a Tracfone Service Card. The least expensive of these plans is $20. In the past for the $20 you would get 60 minutes of talk time, and it would be good for 90 days. If you hadn’t used your 60 minutes within the three months, it would roll over as long as you renewed it before the expiration date.

However, if you get a smart phone, including to $10 LG, the $20 card will get you triple minutes as long as you have the phone. That means for three months you have 180 minutes of talk time, 180 text messages, and 180 GB of data. If you go on the internet in a WiFi area, the data does not count against your 180 GB of data.

I said that our phone service costs $12 a month for two phones. How do I get that? If we have the service refilled automatically every 90 days, the service costs only $18, $6 a month times two phones.

I rarely send a text message, and I don’t make many calls on my phone, but I go on the internet every day, usually just to check the weather, the news, or my email. Sometimes if I am in a waiting room or have time on my hands, I will open a kindle book on the phone and read for a while. I still don’t use much of my data because much of the time I go on the internet on my phone in a WiFi area. Every three months I get 180 more GB. What I don’t use rolls over into the next month. At this point it will be over two months until my service card needs to be refilled, and I have 725 GB of data available in my account.

Tracfone did not pay me to write this, but if you want to write to Tracfone and suggest that they send me a few bucks, I won’t object.

DIGILAND 7-INCH TABLET

About four years ago I bought an 11-inch Asus tablet. I used it mostly for reading, eBooks borrowed from the public library and kindle books. Occasionally I would check my e-mail, the news or weather, or google something, but it was mostly a reader. I loved it and read dozens of books on it each year. In the last year, however, it began to get very buggy, so I decided to get a new tablet. I wanted to get a good one, so I considered getting an iPad mini, maybe a refurbished one. (Money is a consideration for me.)

A refurbished iPad mini was going to cost at least a couple of hundred dollars, so I was intrigued when I started reading about the Kindle Fire 7. They were available at Best Buy for $50. I had a $25 gift certificate for Best Buy, so I could get the tablet for just $25 more.

Once I started setting it up, I realized it didn’t seem like a dedicated kindle and more like an android tablet, which in fact it was. It took me only a half an hour to set it up because Google had all my info stored from the old tablet.

I was amazed at how easy it was to use and how well it worked. Very quickly I was reading books I had downloaded from the public library as well as kindle books that I had in my kindle library. One thing that surprised me was that kindle software did not come with the tablet, but it was easy to download it from the Play Store.

I liked it so well that I told a lot of people I know what a great buy it was, a wonderful

7-inch tablet for only $50. At least one person bought a Kindle Fire 7 based on my recommendation. He had some trouble setting his tablet up and asked me to help him. I noticed that his tablet was a little different from mine. For one thing, the power button was in a different place. I thought maybe it was just a different version of the Kindle Fire, but he had bought it was the same place I bought mine, Best Buy, and the same price: $49.99. I also noticed that although he had the Amazon store on his tablet, he didn’t have the Google play store. I told him (perhaps incorrectly) that once he got his tablet set up, he would be able to download from the play store.

I still thought I had a Kindle Fire, and I liked it so well that I decided to write a review of it. As I went on the internet to check some stats, I realized that my tablet was not a kindle but a Digiland android, even though Best Buy told me it was a Kindle Fire. It was the same price and size and very similar in design. It even had the same stats: 8GB (gigabytes) of storage, 1.3 GHz quad core processor, and 2 GB RAM. What all that stuff means is that it has limited storage but a fast processor with enough memory (RAM) to make it perform pretty quickly. They both have WiFi, which allows them to connect wirelessly to the internet. They also both have blue tooth, which allows them to connect wirelessly to keyboards, etc. You can add up to 128GB  of storage to the kindle fire by adding a Micro-SD. There is also a space for a Micro-SD on the Digiland tablet.

 If you run out of storage space on your tablet, you can store up to 5GB on the Amazon cloud free. You can also store up to 15GB on Google Drive. Microsoft Azure also offers free storage space on the cloud.

Both tablets have fair resolution (1024 x 600 pixels). You can download and watch videos on both through such products as Hulu and Netflix. One thing that is different is the operating system. The kindle uses the kindle fire OS 5. The Digiland has android 5.1 (lollipop), which is one of the latest versions of android.

When the first personal computers started coming years ago, I asked people, “What can you do with them?” An answer I often got was, “What you can do is limited only by your imagination.” I never found that answer very satisfactory, but it was true, and it is still true today. Although I see the Kindle Fire 7 or the Android Digiland useful primarily as electronic readers where you might check your email or the news or weather once in a while, these devices are fully functioning computers. You could use them to write a book if you want. You can get an inexpensive blue tooth (wireless) keyboard and download a free word processing program from the Play Store or the Amazon store. Once you get started on your book, you can store it someplace in the cloud.

Let me know when your book is coming out.