A couple of weeks ago I was working on my computer when suddenly my external 500 GB hard disk started making a weird (kind of funny) noise. Yes, it was the famous “click of death” and my external disk was formally dead.

I never let my disk fall and even though it was an external disk almost never traveled with it. So, why did it die? Who knows, that’s not the case here, what’s important here is the fact that without notice I “lost” all of the information I had there and if it wasn’t for the “all in the cloud” configuration I’ll explain you in a bit, I would’ve burst into tears right in that moment, seriously.

We are in the so called Information Age simply because information has become our most valuable asset. The information can be in the format of data, knowledge or whatever, but the more valuable the information becomes to us, the more we want to preserve it and the more we worry about its safety.

The Internet, its possibilities and the advancements in technology we have nowadays are empowering users with an infrastructure that when we learn how to use it, we can boost our productivity and the safety of our information enormously.

I don’t know how I would feel if I lose the years and years of valuable information I have. Have you thought what happens if you lose everything? Your excel spreadsheets? Your pictures? Your videos?

Because of this I started building a data infrastructure in the so called cloud, and after the death of my hard drive and the better accessibility and productivity I’ve got to my information, I decided to explain here how I did it.

What is the cloud?

Whenever we refer to the cloud we refer to “a place” in the Internet where our information is remotely stored, accessed and edited. For example, if you upload a picture to an online photo service like Flickr, you can say that your photo is in the cloud, why?

• Because you can access it from anywhere you have Internet access
• Because you have no idea where (physically) it is, and you don’t care
• Because you can share its location with anyone in the world, so they can access to it as well

Would you like all of you information to have these properties?

You can get cloud services that offer these characteristics to any kind of files and needs. Are you a photographer? There are cloud services focused on photos. Are you a Videographer? There are cloud services specialized on Videos… So on and so on.

For a typical computer-internet user a complete cloud scenario would be ideal. Most people normally have photos, videos, files, documents… So the easier we can have all of this saved and accessible the better.

So, how do I have my information in the cloud today?

Let me explain which cloud-Internet services I use for my daily digital needs. There are others that serve the same purpose so do your research if these don’t fit you.

Email: Probably this is the only cloud service you’re already using. Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail are the most commons. Gmail is the best online email service out there, and I personally recommend it because by getting a Gmail account you’ll be getting a Google Account, which will be later used for other cloud services offered by Google as well.

Documents: Google Docs is the best free, online office suite out there. By creating your Google Account you can access your Google Docs account. You’ll have a word processor, spreadsheets, presentations (Power Point) and much more.

The best thing about this service is that you can create and edit your files from anywhere, share them, and collaborate. It’s amazing.

Files: There are a lot services that let you save your files online. My favorite is Dropbox. You can configure it to your mobiles devices, your computer and even access your files via their web interface. The best thing about it is that you configure one folder on your computer to be synced with Dropbox. What I do is I put all of my files in this folder and they are synced online automagically and I won’t even notice. It’s very nice when I’m traveling and I need to access one specific file that I know is on my computer. I just go to my Dropbox account and access my folder.

Contacts: You normally have your contacts on your cellphone and email. With cloud services like Gmail you will have automatic synchronization of all of your contacts.

Calendars: When I see people carrying small notebook-like agendas I wonder if they’ve ever lost it. A couple of years back I lost my agenda along with the contacts I had in the last pages. It was chaos. With your Google Account you can use the excellent and popular Google Calendar. It’s totally online and it syncs with your computer calendar client and your mobile devices. You lost your computer, you lost your phone, or you are using your friend’s computer? No problem, access Google Calendar online and that’s it.

Photos: There are a lot of online photo services. The best for me is Google Picasa Web Albums, it’s free, you can increase the space to 20GB for just $5 a year and it’s also synced with your Google account.  Here you will be able to host all of your photos with lots of features.

Google also offers two software to edit and sync your photos:

1. Picasa: A complete photo management and editing suite. It’s an application that you download and install on your computer. Works on Windows, Linux and Mac.
2. Picnic: It’s an amazing online photo editing software. You can say it is a cloud-based software.

Music: Why would you like to have GBs and GBs of music on your hard drive? You can use Spotify, Pandora, iTunes or Google Music. I personally use Spotify as my music library. Whatever I feel like hearing I just go there and search for it. If I want to listen to a personalized radio I’ll use Pandora. Or if you want just to upload all of your music and listen to it from anywhere just upload it to Google Music.

Videos: You can upload your videos to YouTube or Vimeo. They are both great and you can: 1. Upload videos in HD format, 2. Set them private or public. 3. You can share them easily. 4. You can see them anywhere.

So, as you can see I can just set my computer on fire right now and I will have:

• All of my files on Dropbox
• All my pictures on Picasa
• All of the music I want on Spotify and Pandora
• All of my documents on Google Docs
• All of my events on Google Calendar
• All of my contacts on Google Contacts
• All of my mails con Gmail

I know what you are saying:

• “What if those services fail?”
• “What if they shut it down?”
• “They own my files and information!”

Here is my theory on this matter:

In life there is only one thing for sure, and that is death. The only thing I know for sure is that I will die someday. The rest in life is a game of probabilities.

So, what are the chances that those big cloud services fail? They have millions and millions of users worldwide, hundreds of engineers and millions of dollars invested on optimization and security.

Is it possible that these services fail and we lose all of our information? Yes, it is possible. Is it unlikely? VERY.

Ask yourself one last question: What is more likely to fail, your $300 external hard disk or these services?

It’s very clear that all of your information is more secure, more accessible and more useful in the cloud than anywhere else, and if you want to feel even safer you can have a backup of your information on a hard disk. You can do this backup every 6 months or so and that’s it.

If you spend one weekend configuring and learning how to use the cloud scenario I’ve described here you won’t have to worry about backups any more, you will have more accessibility and you will be more productive. This is the way I do it.

Hope you enjoyed this post and let me know what you think on your comments.

Thanks.