Would you give up alcohol for one year to prevent losing your digital data?

If you had to chose between losing all of your digital data or give up alcohol for one year? What would you choose? If you choose giving up alcohol then you can enjoy your year of sobriety along with 34% of other people that would choose to make the same sacrifice.

A 2011 survey, conducted by Wakefield Research and Carbonite, found out what some people would be prepared to sacrifice to save their data.

• “It’s More Valuable Than Vacation Time”:  50% would rather lose all of their vacation time for an entire year than lose all of the files on their computer.
• “It’s Even More Precious Than My Wedding Ring”:  38% of married Americans feel that it would be worse to lose everything on their computer than to lose their wedding ring.
• “I’d Pay Dearly to Get My Data Back“: 62% said they would pay to get back their lost data if their computer crashed; 21% said they would pay $500 and 27% said they would pay as much as they needed to get their documents and files back.
• “I’d Sacrifice Something I Love to Save My Data”: People would go to extremes to immediately recover all of their data if it were lost.
  • 34% would give up beer and wine for a year;
  • 31% would give up coffee for a year;
  • 23% would give up their cell phone for a month; and
  • 18% would give up their free time to mow their neighbor’s lawn for a year.

  Survey Reference

Storing your data on the cloud is great way to store your files without having to mess around with back-up drive.

Cloud Storage Tools that I Use.

Carbonite stores a complete back-up of your computer online – so in the event of a total crash you should be able to restore all of your system files and personal files. I have used Carbonite before, but I was not too impressed with the way that it worked, however I am sure they are constantly improving their service – check their facebook page to gauge user satisfaction levels.

I LOVE Dropbox-  for storing files that I use regularly and I also use DWD Drive for a back up of images, music and other documents that I do not use regularly.

I use Lastpass for managing passwords and Google Apps for mail.

Microsoft enters the Google Cloud

Well this is some good news to end the week!

Google announced this week that Google Apps users can now transfer Microsoft Office files into the Google Cloud AND you can share and edit your Microsoft docs in real time. Now, if you are not a Google Docs user then you are probably wandering what the fuss is all about. Basically, what this means is that you can now sync your Microsoft documents (excel, word & power point) so that other collaborators (that you have granted access to) can work on the same Microsoft document at the same time! It also means that you can access your Microsoft documents anywhere, any time from any computer.

Google first announced this feature last year but as of this week it is now out of beta and available for all to use.

Prior to this update, if you wanted to share a Microsoft document via your Google Docs account you had to upload the document (this is boring and takes time) and once uploaded you would lose 80% of the editing and formatting functions that are available within Microsoft programs. These two problems made the system of sharing existing Microsoft documents via the Google cloud kinda clunky and not so effective.

This technology (known as cloud computing) has been available for quite some time and Google is not the only provider. The beauty of this recent update is that I don’t need to leave my Google Apps account to store, edit and share Microsoft Docs AND I can retain the formatting and editing function offered within the Microsoft programs. Thank you Google and Microsoft.

I have been using Google Apps for the last four years and they are constantly releasing new updates but today’s news is definitely up there with the best updates of all time.