Time (and technology) continue to march forward, and it's time for New Years resolutions again. This year, you should include some technology-related resolutions that take advantage of "cloud" applications—software that uses the power of Internet-based servers to deliver services to your PC or mobile gadget—to to make your life simpler and better in 2011. Here are some tips on resolutions you should keep in the coming year:
- Resolve to do back-ups. In the new year, get all your important data backed up in two ways: to a local removable or network drive, and to a "cloud" backup service on the Internet, such as Carbonite Online Backup, Mozy, iDrive or Acronis. Why two ways? Because a local backup is better for when you accidentally lose a file or something goes wrong with your hard drive, but a "cloud" backup will protect your data if something bigger happens—like a fire or flood, or if someone breaks in and steals your computer (and the backups, too). One computer pro I know kept "religious" backups of his home PC, but both the PC and his backups were stolen—so he lost everything that he hadn't kept mirrored to a cloud account.
- Resolve to put your digital photos in a "cloud" service, too. While backing your computer up protects your files from disappearing, using an Internet photo service such as Flickr or Picasa will let you share them with family wherever you are—without you having to lug a computer around to show them or fill up the memory of your smart phone. You can do the same with Adobe's Photoshop.com site, regardless of whether or not you use Adobe's photo editing software. All of these services let you get to photos you store on them from any web browser, or from an app on a smart phone—so you can pull out your phone and show relatives and friends a virtual photo album wherever you are. And you can even connect some digital picture frames to some of these services over your home wireless network.
- Make your PC more secure with cloud-based antivirus software. One common problem with anti-viruses is that they depend on frequent downloads of new databases of "signatures" to recognize threats. But no matter how often youd download antivirus updates, there's always something new coming that might slip through the cracks. But cloud-based antivirus software uses a central database on the software provider's servers instead, and uses the power of those servers to do signature checking—using up less of your computer's processing power and disk space. This makes cloud-based antiviruses perfect for netbooks and other portable devices. There are even free cloud-based antivirus options out there now that will provide basic protection and not cost you a thing, such as Panda Cloud Antivirus . On the Mac and PC, you can get Kapersky Lab's Anti-Virus for about $40 for a year of protection (with a 30-day free trial) that adds even more cloud power, checking the "reputation" of websites against an online database to warn you of malicious web pages.
- Get your family calendar online. By connecting your family with an Internet calendar service, you can make sure everyone knows when important events are, and that they get prodded with alerts from whatever device they decide to use. I've written about how Google Calendar can help keep your whole family's schedule in sync, and there are other services that work as well—such as Yahoo's Calendar service. And you can connect your calendars to devices like your iPhone as well, so that you get alerted when dates and appointments are coming up. I use our family calendar to keep track of my daughter's growing slate after-school activities, and to make sure I never miss a pick-up.
Have any technology resolutions for 2011? Let's hear 'em in the comments!
