CGrindahl wrote:
I've no doubt there are more sophisticated techies in our group. I have to admit I spent the morning digging out of a hole I created for myself by turning to iCloud to facilitate communication between my multiple Apple products. I keep a MacBook Air at Sue's home and though I never work on photos with that 13 inch laptop, I do occasionally work on text documents. It seemed sensible to put documents in iCloud so I could access them when at her home.
Yesterday I had occasion to seek out a quote I'd put in a file, intending to share it with a friend. It wasn't there! The folder in which I'd deposited it was there but it was empty. I've been accumulating documents in that folder for many years. Losing them would be very painful. I thought to go into TimeMachine to find the backup but that folder was empty too. So I rebooted the computer, hoping it was just an electronic hiccup. After restarting the folder was still empty. I reached out to my friend in India who has shepherded me through many a computer glitch and finally spoke with him this morning. He was aghast that I'd place documents in the cloud.
By the time we connected the files had appeared once again. I have no idea how they left or how they returned, but the experience seemed to demonstrate what he was talking about... that the cloud is susceptible to problems and is therefore not a good place to keep valuable documents. So I spent part of the morning bringing those files back to my iMac and to turn off that aspect of iCloud. From now on I'll use it only for my calendar and contacts. A word to the wise... though as I said, I expect there are many more savvy folks on this thread who wouldn't create such a problem for themselves. My friend said the best way to accomplish what I'd been trying to accomplish would be to upload files using Dropbox... mmm, think I'll check that out again.
Dropbox and Google Drive are the only cloud storage I use. Both are reliable enough for business use. Next on my list is a “personal cloud” based at home. I have many 3TB drives that aren’t being used, so I hope to RAID a bunch together.
The problem with Apple's iCloud is that rather than simply being a repository for files, it actually removes those files from your computer's hard drive. My friend Alan informed me that with Dropbox any change made to a file residing in Dropbox is automatically transmitted to every device where that file is stored. That's pretty sweet.
I've used Dropbox in the past, but that was always to transfer files that were too large for the email service providers to handle. I generally used it with Rinie when we were sharing large photo files with one another. I eventually closed my account since I never used it. I think it is time to open another account so I can handle files for myself. I'll leave it to techies like you Kevin to create your own "cloud."
Microsoft Office 365 OneDrive is the same way. Yes, I use it on my Macs
Files are stored locally and in the OneDrive cloud. Any changes made are replicated to the other copies wherever they are located. I use that both at work and my personal Office365 business accounts. My son uses Google Drive at college.
