Liberate Your Data!

I dunno about you, but more and more I find my data being housed somewhere else, mainly " the cloud." Meaning that my calendar, documents email, photos and more are not stored locally on my machine, they are stored on some other computer in some far oft land. And that can pose a problem. While these services normally have great reliability and uptime things happen and we can loose access to our data, or, even worse, loose the data all together.


I use several Google products. Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Picasa, even this blog is written using the Blogger product. Google understands that having access to your data is important. Maybe you want to back up your data just to make sure it is sure it is safe. But, there also may come a day when you want to get your data out for good.


There is a small group of engineers over at Google who's only job is to make it easy for you to get your data in and out of Google easily and painlessly. They call themselves The Data Liberation Front and they have a whole website dedicated to teaching us the easiest ways of moving our data in and out of Google. 


When you visit the site the first thing you will notice is that not all Google Products are listed. However the major ones like Blogger, Contacts, Gmail, Picasa and reader are there. 


For most of the sites getting your data out is as easy as exporting. Take Docs for example. From the "More Options" menu you can go to "Export," pick the format (PDF, Microsoft Word, Open Office, etc) and download. What you will get is a compressed file that has all your docs there. 

There are tons more directions on the site. A lot of them point you to the documentation for each of the products. Oh, and another great feature. If you decide to put your data back into Google there are detailed instructions for getting back in.


So protect your data. I can't tell you how many times I have lost documents or photos to a bad hard drive or lost memory stick. I have the vast majority of my data in the cloud but The Data Liberation Front helps me feel at ease that I can make backups of my backups. 


The Data Liberation Front Website



Images From Google CC

Cloud Storage With ZumoDrive

If you are like me you have lots of flash drives and external hard drives storing multiple copies of your documents, pictures, lesson plans, etc. Sometimes it can be a pain. I often leave my drives on my desk in my office and then either have to drive 40 minutes back to get them or suffer until the next time I am around. There has to be a better way?

Now there is. There are lot of online backup storage solutions out there. Some are really easy to use but cost a fortune. Others only allow you to back up all at once and retireve all at once. There is a much better option out there in ZumoDrive.

I have been testing/using ZumoDrive for about 2 months now and it is awesome! I never have to worry about forgetting my drives on my desk, loosing my work or worrying about my drives crashing. I can access my files from anywhere I have an internet connection, including my iPod.

When you signup and install ZumoDrive a new drive appears in your drive list. All you have to do now is drag files there and ZumoDrive does the rest. You can then access those files through that drive or from your online account. You can even share documents via a link that you can send out to colleagues and friends. But what if you want to make changes to a docuement? Simply open it from your ZumoDrive, make your changes and save. ZumoDrive will re-sync with tbe new settings.

Storage starts at 1GB for free and goes up from there. But 25GB is only 7 bucks a month. That is the perfect size for most users.

Check it out!

ZumoDrive