My computer has been in the ICU for the past couple of days. He got jumped in a shady part of town when he wasn’t paying attention. He’s been nursed back to health, but he seems to have amnesia. He can’t remember anything. That story might seem familiar for many people. One minute you are surfing the Web and the next your computer is acting like a drunken street corner preacher; spouting off nonsense and behaving badly.
Viruses happen, drivers crash, and often a system reinstall has to be completed. If you are not prepared for such a moment you are likely to lose everything that resides on your computer. Many of you might be saying, “Jordan I’m fine, I have an external hard drive. Everything is going to be A-Okay”. Well fellow Web travelers, it is time to throw away your parachute pants along with that external hard drive. It’s 2010.
External hard drives are great when a disaster only befalls your computer but what happens in a fire or a ninja home invasion? That’s why I will be breaking down four cloud based back-up services that I think you just might fancy.
You have a 9 out of 10 chance of ninja attack
Without getting technical, cloud based computing basically means any service that is based specifically on utilizing the Internet for shared resources, software, and information. Therefore, even if those crafty ninja’s manage to make away with both your PC and external hard drive, all your information will still be stored online safely. Here are four services that are ninja proof.
Aside from sporting an awesome website, Box.net has been around for quite awhile. The service allows you 1GB for free and up to 15GB for $19.99 a month for personal users. They also offer higher pricing lists for businesses. The nifty thing about Box.net is that it supports a slew of third party integrations within your files – everything from Gmail to Twitter.
Additionally, Box.net allows multiple users to pass files back and forth with multiple security features for admin. They even have a reporting feature that allows you to audit the files on Box.net from uploads, downloads, logins, etc to see if Johnson really is on top of those T.P.S. reports.
Dropbox might be the most well known out of all the cloud based services. The main allure of Dropbox is how incredibly easy it is to use. Dropbox allows up to 2GB for free with upwards of 100 GB for $19.99 a month. It does install a small program on your PC but you will not notice any change to performance on your computer.
Another great feature is the ability to create public folders which allow families and friends to see anything you put in said public folder. Trip to Bermuda? Forget the constant emails and just pluck it down in the Dropbox Public folder. You as the user also have the ability to monitor who can and cannot view your public folder.
The beta Windows Live Sync is the love child of LiveMesh and the original Windows Live Sync. The two previous programs were so similar that they decided to merge the two together this year. Sync can be downloaded alone or within the Windows Essentials package. Basically Essentials is the shabang for Windows 7 encompassing photo, video, mail, etc into one organized package.
Sync does pretty much everything that Dropbox and Box.net do, but only Vista and Windows 7 users are invited to the party. Sync allows up to 2GB of free storage.
Not to be confused with the evil language learning creature for children –Muzzy. Mozy comes out the gate with the trend of 2GB free storage, but the awesome thing about Mozy it that they allow you to pay only $4.95 a month for unlimited storage. Instead of paying for space you are not using Mozy grows as you put more items in.
You can also regulate how much bandwidth you want to dedicate to Mozy, allowing you to run the heavy machinery when you need without impediment.
Yo soy completely terrified of Muzzy
It looks like everyone is jumping into the cloud, and to protect all of the valuable memories and information on your computer it looks to be a pretty easy choice. If there are any other services that you prefer over those I mentioned please let everyone know in the comments section.
