I used to get quite frustrated at times when I needed a file which was on my computer at work, but I wanted to look at it at home. Sometimes I would save a file on a flash drive, but I would end up having 3 copies of it - the original one on my work computer, one on the flash drive and one at home. It meant I had to remember to copy the file back on to the flash drive, and also remember to take the flash drive back to work. Quite a hassle, really. Then I discovered Dropbox which would back up my files and save them in the cloud i.e. on a server on the internet. When I got home and started my computer, any files I had changed at work would also appear changed at home - magic!
Once I opened an Excel file in a Linux computer and it seemed fine when saved it. The next time I opened the file, all the formatting had gone. Aaaagh! Usually, that would be it, and I would have to put in all the formatting again. Luckily, I had saved it in Dropbox and I could go back to the version before the formatting had been cleared. Phew!
Whenever I have some large files I want to share, for example a 100 MB video file, I just put it in my Sugarsync folder then get a link to the folder on the website. I can send this link to anyone and they can then click on it and download it - very easy!
Using cloud computing to save files automatically is a no-brainer in my opinion. You just have to set it up once then forget about backing up after that. Here are some websites for companies that offer cloud back up services:
www.sugarsync.com (5GB free to start with)
www.dropbox.com (2GB free to start with)
www.cx.com (10GB free to start with)
If you want to read some reviews, you could start here:
Or just google "cloud backup" and see the results.
