Life In the Cloud: 10 Easy Steps

Imagine it for a second. Your beloved computer hard drive crashes, and there goes all your data. You didn't feel like doing backups because you never expected it to happen. You take your computer to the repair store and they say, "sorry, nothin' we can do. But in the future you should backup your data about twice a week." Goodbye, old emails! See you later pictures and videos from that trip to Florida last year. Sayonara music from friends and documents from college.

Yeah, I've been there, I know how it goes. About a year ago my drive randomly crashed, and at the Mac store on life support I could only pull off a small bit of files. Luckily, I had done a backup a few weeks back so most of my data was intact, but what if I didn't have to worry about that? That experience set me off on a long and incessant path to figure out the key to cutting that hardware umbilical cord... so to speak. I'm at the point now where someone can set my computer on fire, put it out with a bucket of water, run over it with an 18-wheeler, and then smash it up good with bat wrapped in barb wire, and I wouldn't really mind (um, apart from having to buy a new computer...). And the best part is, I don't even have to think about it. Sure, I do backups, but that's more of a formality. Interested? If so, keep reading.

Turns out there's something called "The Cloud," which is a bit of a nebulous (GRE word, represent) concept for describing your information being on the internet. Your info isn't tied to the hardware, it's up there in the clouds of cyberspace, ready to be accessed at any time. That might sound a bit sketchy at first, but if you use the right sites then that info is pretty well protected. What it means is that you could be at your computer, your other OS on your computer, your smart phone, your tablet, your girlfriend's computer, your neighbor's computer, your local library's computer, or traveling in another country and happening to find a device that connects to the internet in the middle of nowhere, and you will have access not only to the same data, but essentially all of the data you use on a regular basis. You might be familiar with sites like Facebook or Twitter or this Blogspot, where you don't mind logging on anywhere and checking your info. Those are examples of web applications, and long story short the web has come to the point where we can monopolize on them for this "Cloud" business. Heck, even Google came out with an operating system that is completely online.

Let's get your life in the Cloud! For free, of course. I'll also be covering offline support, but although mobile support is available on your smart phone or tablet for all of these, that's beyond the scope of this post.

1. Your Browser Alright, so since your browser is the thing that allows you to visit all of the sites that contain your data, naturally that should be our first step for setting up the cloud. With the right browser, you can automatically sync your bookmarks, passwords, settings, and more so that any time you sign in on that browser on another computer you will have the experience you are used to. Your options are Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and if you go into the settings it can be easily set up.
   Offline support: You can install Google Gears for easy offline access to many of your Google sites and more.
   
2. Your Email and Contacts Chances are you already use an email that you can check right from your browser, such as Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail. If not, I recommend Gmail. In fact, if you have the other two just switch to Gmail; it's better anyway, and it'll come in handy later on down the list. So if you always check your email and contacts in your browser, then congrats, you're already in the Cloud for that one! Plus if you turn on Google Gears you can view it offline.
   Offline support: Your browser with Google Gears is nice and all, but if you're like me maybe you enjoy using the mail program on your computer, such as Mac Mail or Microsoft Outlook Express. They're easy to use and messages are automatically saved for offline viewing. The problem for me was that any changes I made on those programs wouldn't show up online, such as unread/read email or folders, so I'd have to pick one or the other. The solution: IMAP. Simply speaking, it keeps your mail online and mail program synced up tight. Find out how to configure it for your device or program here. Oh yeah, and you can sync to your computer's contact list too, but you have to do some searching for that.
   
3. Your Phone "Wait, even info from my phone can be synced the cloud?!" Yes, that's right. It's called Google Voice. If making and receiving calls directly from Gmail in your browser, sending and receiving text messages via the Google Voice website, checking your voicemail online and a whole lot more all for free sound like something you're interested in, then go and sign up now. No more worrying about losing that info when you "accidentally" get drunk and throw your phone in the lake.
   Offline support: It's connected to your phone. Any texts or calls you receive (with your permission) go right to your phone, and you can even check your voicemail the old fashioned way by calling your number and putting in your password, if you are so inclined.
   
4. Your Calendar That paper calendar hanging on the wall is nice and all, sure. You get a big view of upcoming events and even have a pretty picture to go along with it. But what happens when you decide to make plans when you're not standing in that spot? Perhaps you take an organizer book around with you, but consider this: there's so much technology around us that maybe it's easier to use the computer or smart phone you already have. For that reason, Google Calendar to the rescue. Like Gmail, it's just a really good web application - you can easily make recurring events/holidays and invite others to those events/holidays through email, or remind yourself through email or popups.
   Offline support: Like Gmail, you can use Google Gears to view and edit it offline. But also like Gmail, I do actually prefer to use the Mac calendar since it's on my desktop and ready to interact seamlessly with other desktop applications. For that too, we have a solution: Calendar sync. So I just use my Mac iCal app as usual, and it'll sync with Google when internet is available, for whenever I want to view my events somewhere, anywhere else.
   
5. Your Documents If you've noticed a pattern here, perhaps you're expecting me to name Google Docs as your Cloud documents solution. After all, it's a full word processor that allows you to make documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms, which automatically save online and can be downloaded in Office formats and other common formats. While this is indeed cool, I think most people at their usual computers won't be going straight for Google Docs to write a paper, at least not yet. So let's say you want to keep your desktop Documents folder backed up, which may be a good amount of your files. I recommend Dropbox. It's a program that runs in the background to keep all files in a certain folder synced online as well as on every computer that you install it on. Now that's what I'm talking about, Cloud support at its best! In the words of one user (my parents) whose computer crashed about 2 weeks ago, "If it wasn't for Dropbox, we would have lost everything!" Dropbox is supposed upgrade in the future to also automatically sync all those files to Google Docs and vice versa (OMFG, AWESOME), but in the meantime you can use Syncplicity as a third party between the two. Technically, yes, you can use Syncplicity instead of Dropbox altogether, but the former unfortunately doesn't have the kind of support on all operating systems and mobile systems that the latter does.
   Offline support: Since Dropbox runs in the background, offline support is the name of the game.
   
6. Your Notebook It wasn't long ago that even I was carrying around a small pocket notebook to take short notes on. Thoughts, phone numbers, to-dos, etc. I often see people who do the same thing but with large and unruly books they keep in their bags. Well, that just won't do anymore. Even my college solution of using Microsoft OneNote in classes wasn't accessible unless I used my own computer to run Windows inside my Mac, hoping that neither OS would crash. How annoying. While the Google solution Google Notebook is available, it's very basic and I wouldn't really recommend it. I can confidently say your best bet is Evernote. It's available as a program for every system you can think of, and as an extension for Firefox and Chrome browsers. Taking and keeping notes of everything that pops into your cranium in sync has never been so easy, and even the web application online is FANTASTIC - looks and runs just like a solid desktop program.
   Offline support: The program you can download to your desktop is fully available offline. Like Dropbox, this is what being in the Cloud is all about. Go to the website and check out all the cool features of this revolutionary program!
   
7. Your To-do list The need for a to-do list is one thing that tends to increase with technology. The more things we can do, the more things we want to do, right? Unfortunately, it's very easy to lose site of those things we decide to do, due to limitations in memory or organization. The appeal of a to-do list is wide - being able to put things all in one place, organized or to-be-organized, and providing the immense satisfaction of crossing them off. haha Wouldn't it be great if technology made that easy for us? For me, this Cloud feature was one of the most desired, and yet the most elusive of the 10. I've known about Google Tasks and others for a while, but they were just too simplistic for me. I needed something bigger, something better. I needed Remember the Milk. Hello fully customizable To-dos, from repeating tasks and smart lists of tasks with specific criteria, to extremely broad support on many sites and systems. This is the answer, my friends. Go sign up for your account.
   Offline support: Offline support for RTM is almost entirely limited to mobile support. Apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android are available and they are excellent BUT, and this is an important BUT, we've come to an exception for our free resources. If you want to be able to sync your iPhone and iPad more than once a day, or use the Android app at all, you need to upgrade to a Pro account. This will set you back... $25... a year. As a rule, I don't pay that kind of money for apps, even $1. I made an exception for RTM because at long last I've found what I was looking for. Consider it. But that's only if you need offline/mobile support.
   
   And with that, I feel like most of what I do to keep my life organized has been summed up. That's not to say that the last 3 steps aren't important, but just that the first 7 are ones that I highly recommend for everyone. These last three are on an as-needed basis.
   
8. Your Pictures and Videos The concept of this step should be pretty easy to cover, I think. You have your hard drive full of pictures and videos from trips and other occasions, and obviously you don't want to lose those with your drive. I'd recommend uploading your pictures to Picasa and your videos to YouTube. Both are sites run by Google, and both allow you to upload without necessarily making them available to the public. You can re-download them from the sites if you need them again, or just use the Picasa App for your desktop to keep your pictures on your hard drive and site in sync. YouTube has unlimited space, and if you need more space for Picasa you can upgrade.
   IMPORTANT NOTE: The problem with this step is that it requires you to, outside of using the Picasa App, manually upload them to these sites. And that takes time. You can use Dropbox, but pics and vids are big and take up space, especially if they're high quality. Maybe it's a work-in-progress.
   Offline support: The idea here is that you have your pictures and videos offline already, and by uploading them you're putting a copy in the Cloud. But offline when not using your main drive, again apart from the Picasa App, your easy syncing options are limited. Like I said, a work-in-progress.
   
9. Your Music Oh my, a Cloud solution for your music collection? This puzzled me for a while, because if you're like me, you have however many 10s of gigs of music on your drive that you've collected from friends over the years, libraries, downloads, purchases, etc. etc. I don't want to lose that, and neither do you, but without an external drive you're tough out of luck on saving it or listening to it elsewhere, right? Wrong. Got 2 solutions for ya. Solution one is Last.fm, where you can download an app that will track the music you listen to on your computer. I downloaded that sucker back in 2005 thinking it'd be cool to see charts and info about what I've listened to over the years. Recently, I realized that in addition to showing lists of songs you've listened to, there are links to listen to that music on the site for free. Then I found I could use the site to search for and play just about any artist or song I wanted to. SWEET. Solution two is mSpot, another program that runs in the background, but this one actually uploads up to 5 gigs of your music to their website for free before upgrades. Then you can stream (read: listen to) your music either on their website, or on apps for your smart phone.
   Offline support: Like the last step, you're copying your data online, so there's no need to worry about there being no offline support. But unlike the last step, this is done without even thinking about it. Bada bing, bada boom.
   
10. Your Learning You didn't think I could finish these steps without mentioning my favorite program, which doesn't get the attention it rightly deserves, do you? I usually spend around 2 hours every day concentrating on this little app. The reason for this step stems from the memory problem I mentioned in step 7 about to-dos. If there's one thing that we humans can do well, it's learn. And we enjoy it too, if it's not constantly mixed with the specter of "studying." But if we don't keep up with what we learn, our brain moves it out of easily accessible memory. Are you going to go back and read those college notes or make yourself keep writing papers? Forget about it! Get the Spaced Repetition System (SRS) Anki and become efficient about learning things. Here's a little secret: psychologists have known for years that spacing out learning times creates better long-term retention, and computer programmers have used that to create a tool that is (if I may borrow a great man's words) the most important education tool of the last century or more. Get ahead of the game and download this program, the best of its kind, to make your own virtual flash cards. This is how I learn Japanese, how you can truly learn any language or material fast. It keeps all of your learning in one place, and syncs online so you can review on its website too.
    Offline support: At its core this is a desktop application. You can add facts to learn, and then sync to the Cloud so you can re-sync on any other system that you use the program on, which then becomes something you can do offline. I also like to keep backups in Dropbox (can you tell I really like that program?) just in case.

Phew, that's about it I guess. I've come a long way in that year since my computer crashed. It sucked and I learned from it, so I share with you guys to hopefully prevent those kinds of accidents from phasing you. If you take anything away, it's that Google is leading in the Cloud revolution, but there are some other cool apps and sites that shouldn't be overlooked. There's no way I could keep this to 30-45 minutes like most of my practice posts for the GRE, but oh well! I've been wanted to write about this for a while. Now you guys know where a lot of my time goes. ~_^ But this is only the beginning to life in the Cloud! Go out and check for yourself.