Cloud Storage, and why you should care

If you're not in the know, "the could" is a term used to refer to an anonymous mass of computers connected to the Internet.  It usually also implies redundancy, meaning that what's on "the cloud" isn't on a single server somewhere (that's just "the Internet") but it's distributed across a bunch of them.

Your emails, for example, can be on your PC where they'll disappear when your hard disk crash, on an Internet server that probably better backups than you do, or on the cloud where they'll survive you.

There's a lot of services offered on the cloud, but what we're interested in now is storage.  There's a lot of cloud storage providers.  The more useful one is Dropbox.  Why?  First, because it works well on every computer and mobile platform.  And because they give you two gigabytes of free storage.  And let you share folders with other dropbox users.  But more importantly, because many Android apps support backing up and syncing their data on it.

Let's take an example: Epistle.  It's a dead simple notepad.  Open note, write text, close note.  But it supports backup to dropbox, and sync back on start.  So you can access it's folder on your PC and edit files there.  Type whatever's on your mind while you're on the PC, be it a poem, gift ideas, instructions or anything else, then read and edit them on the go from your android.  Pocket does the same with an encrypted file containing your passwords and other personal info.  Titanium Backup (Pro version) can send your apps and data backups to dropbox in case your phone's lost or destroyed.

Once you have created a dropbox account, install the official Dropbox app that'll let you access all the files you've stored on that service.  And all the files and folders other users have shared with you.

Do consider though that while most service providers do their best to protect your data, things in or out of their control can happen.  While what you store there is probably safer than what's on that PC in the living room running and old unpatched version of windows and connected to that misconfigured wireless router, it's not 100% secure either.  Your basic approach should be to store private and confidential information there only if encrypted with strong cryptography.  More on that another day