The cloud is wonderful. Google Apps, Twitter, Gmail, etc. It’s a great way of making sure everything you have is available wherever you are. That said, could there ever come a day when Google’s apps aren’t available to you?
It’s possible.
If you have stored anything of value in the cloud, make sure you have a local copy. If you have stored anything of value on your local computer, make sure there’s a cloud copy.
Could Google ever fail?
It’s possible.
Lehman Brothers was a venerable institution, a 148 year old firm, that lost it all. Or Merrill Lynch, which vanished overnight after 94 years. In turbulent times, anything is possible.
How much trouble would you be in if the cloud weren’t available when you woke up tomorrow morning?
Not saying any of the Web 2.0 companies we’ve come to love and rely on are in danger, but given how much uncertainty there is, you owe it to yourself to be backing up your important stuff. Buy an external hard drive or two – 4 GB USB flash drives are $3 now and 320 GB drives the size of a hip flask are $150 – (disclosure: paid affiliate links for the Student Loan Network) – and keep copies of the things that matter to you.
Other useful tips:
Back up Google Docs with Greasemonkey and Firefox
Back up GMail with Thunderbird
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That's why I'm loving Dropbox. Put something in a folder on your computer and it's available in the cloud, plus ever other computer you installed the (small) program on. As soon as the program starts on the other computers, it syncs the changes. You can roll back revisions as well. It's a syncing app, but it also means you have this distributed backup system, especially if you keep all the computers on all the time (i.e. leave your work computer on). Plus it's free for 2GB. I normally don't plug a product like that, but it's great to do the trifecta of back up: locally, remotely, and in the cloud.
That’s why I’m loving Dropbox. Put something in a folder on your computer and it’s available in the cloud, plus ever other computer you installed the (small) program on. As soon as the program starts on the other computers, it syncs the changes. You can roll back revisions as well. It’s a syncing app, but it also means you have this distributed backup system, especially if you keep all the computers on all the time (i.e. leave your work computer on). Plus it’s free for 2GB. I normally don’t plug a product like that, but it’s great to do the trifecta of back up: locally, remotely, and in the cloud.
That's why I'm loving Dropbox. Put something in a folder on your computer and it's available in the cloud, plus ever other computer you installed the (small) program on. As soon as the program starts on the other computers, it syncs the changes. You can roll back revisions as well. It's a syncing app, but it also means you have this distributed backup system, especially if you keep all the computers on all the time (i.e. leave your work computer on). Plus it's free for 2GB. I normally don't plug a product like that, but it's great to do the trifecta of back up: locally, remotely, and in the cloud.