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..