Table of contents for Issue 7 in Cloud Computing The Complete Manual

Learn how to make the most of the cloud for home & business! Cloud computing has been with us for a while now, giving home, small to medium business and enterprise users a new way in which to support and utilise their infrastructure and data. While the cloud may come with many concerns, chiefly that of security of data, it’s one of the fastest growing and interesting aspects of modern computing. With The Cloud Computing User Manual we will show you how to implement and better utilise the cloud: personally or for your business. We also look at how to secure and even build your own cloud service. Master your tech @ www.pclpublications.com…

FROM CUMULUS TO CIRRUS The considered and accepted evolution of the cloud, from concept to daily use, starts as far back as the 1950s. 1955 According to a popular myth, John McCarthy, the computer scientist who coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’, dreamed up the concept of computing time-sharing. In those days, computing cost millions of dollars, so McCarthy came up with the idea of renting time-shared computing resources to companies who couldn’t afford it. This moment is regarded as the beginning of the cloud concept. 1969 J.C.R Licklider developed ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a network that eventually became the basis of the Internet. Using McCarthy’s initial concept, Licklider’s vision was “for everyone on the globe to be interconnected and accessing programs and data at any site, from anywhere”.…

AHEAD IN THE CLOUD We’ve touched on a few areas and benefits of using a cloud provider for your business and home use, so let’s break these down a little more. FLEXIBILITY Cloud-based solutions are incredibly flexible in their design. They can grow as your business needs increase and they can be scaled back, should you ever require it. It’s this level of operational agility, or elasticity, that makes a cloud solution perfect for the business and consumer IT model. DISASTER RECOVERY Both businesses, of any size, and home users should be concerned with building a robust disaster recovery solution. In the event of a localised catastrophe, the loss of personal files or critical business data is a nightmare situation. However, recovering it can be quick and easy if it’s…

Cloud storage is the technology’s most utilised service, from individuals to enterprise-sized companies. There are hundreds of cloud storage solutions available, some are fantastic, offering the user or company a wealth of features for a very reasonable price. Others, though, aren’t so good. But which to use, subscribe to, or avoid? Throughout this section we take an in-depth look at a collection of the top-rated cloud storage solutions, and see which are as a good as they claim, and which could do with a bit more work.…

The focus with Sync.com was to create a functioning cloud storage solution, while offering the user a complete package protected behind the company’s unique end-to-end encryption. The free option of 5GB isn’t the best available, but it’s adequate for storing essential, sensitive, or personal data within Sync’s higher-level encryption cloud. There’s no upload or download limits on the free option, no third-party tracking, and file versions and recovery are limited to 30-days. You can additionally, password protect your files and create password protected sharing, along with two-factor authentication and the ability to create three team shared folders. There’s desktop integration available, along with mobile apps that include an automatic camera upload function. However, due to the company’s tight approach to security, there’s no API or thirdparty access to the cloud…

According to pCloud, ‘over 20 million people have chosen pCloud for all of their cloud storage needs’. People who work at the likes of Instagram, X formly Twitter, Nike, LinkedIn, and many more big names use the company; and it’s quite easy to see why. pCloud is designed for ease of use. Its web interface looks similar to that of Windows Explorer, and it’s incredibly quick to browse around as well as upload and download. Otherwise, it offers an enhanced backup and storage area for you to drop your files and folders with unlimited file sizes and unlimited upload and download bandwidth. In addition, there’s also the pCloud Drive software that’s available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and as an add-on for Firefox – and even a Lightroom Plug-in.…

Google is famous, or rather infamous, for pumping millions into the next big project only to drop it after a few years, or even less in some circumstances. Take Google+ for example, a service that was to be Google’s answer to Facebook. While good, it never really enjoyed the kind of virtual footfall that Facebook ever did, and as such Google closed it down mid-2019. Imagine if you’d invested time and effort to create a personal, or work-based Google+ page only to have the rug pulled out from under you? GMAIL Gmail is one of the most popular web-based, cloud email solutions available today. With everything from custom themes to crossplatform compatibility, it’s little wonder that there are over one billion active Gmail accounts. DRIVE Google Drive is the company’s…

ADD CALENDARS You can add another Google account user’s Calendar to your views easily by clicking on the ‘Add a Friend’s Calendar’ box, under the Other Calendars option. This launches a separate window, which sends a message to the other user’s mail account requesting permission. VIDEO CALLS It’s surprisingly easy to add a video call to any Calendar appointment. All you need to do is click on the Create button in Calendar, set up the event, and click Add Video Call. When the invitees receive their Calendar event email, there’ll be a link to a Google Hangouts video chat session. IMPORT CALENDARS You can import all sorts of Interesting Calendars by clicking on the Plus icon next to Other Calendars, and choosing Browse Calendars of Interest from the menu. You…

BACKUPS Automatic backups are important to many users, particularly of their images. Imagine taking an important picture, only to drop your device into the sea moments later. Providing you have a good connection, that image is backed-up and categorised with a time and date stamp. EDITING Each image stored in Photos is editable with a number of filters, along with altering the contrast and colours and rotating. The effects are minimal, but with the right image, they can be quite stunning. METADATA You can even upload images that haven’t been taken by a smartphone. What’s more, if you click on the Info button for a non-smartphone image, it tells you which device took the picture and that device’s settings at the time. SHARED ALBUMS You can easily share your images…

PRICING As Microsoft 365 is subscriptionbased, it means that your versions of the individual apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and so on, are always going to be updated to the latest release. So there’s no concern over compatibility, across versions/other Microsoft 365 users. SUBSCRIPTIONS What’s more, with the Home Subscription you get Microsoft 365 for PC, Mac, tablets and phones (for up to five users in your home) plus, with the company’s OneDrive cloud service, 1TB of storage. You can try it for free for a limited time. COLLABORATE As Microsoft 365 is partly cloud-based, you can set up better collaborations with other users than with previous Office versions. In Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, it’s possible to have multiple people editing a document at the same time. SKYPE SESSIONS Collaboration is…

The way we use technology is ever changing. It’s an evolution of how and where we access our private, personal and work-related data. From the earliest days of the home computer, accessing data and entertainment from cassettes, to the rise of the Internet and terabytes of storage, technology has revolutionised the way we interact with the world around us. One form of this technological evolution is the cloud. The cloud is a term used often without knowing exactly what ‘the cloud’ is, what it does, how it works and what it can offer both the home and business user. The cloud offers many great benefits for those who use it. Storage, email, development, collaboration, sharing, streaming; the list goes on. The future of work and entertainment lies in the cloud.…

ON-DEMAND AVAILABILITY Cloud services come in many guises and bewildering acronyms. Here are ten of the more popular cloud services and what they mean exactly. GAAS GASS (Gaming As A Service) began with massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) such as Ultima Online and EverQuest. There have been a few false starts, such as OnLive and Google Stadia, but Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming and Sony’s PlayStation Plus are doing well. Live games on smartphones and tablets are popular too. CAAS CAAS (Communications As A Service) sounds more complicated than it actually is. Simply put, CAAS is a cloud-based telecoms, messaging and video conferencing solution that uses a company mobile phone plan, with cloud integration to the company’s resources. Skype is another remote video calling service and, at a push, so are…

CLOUD STRUCTURES Let’s take a moment to build the anatomy of the cloud from the ground up. Starting with you, the user, sat in front of your computer or device. STEP 1 While connecting to a cloud resource may seem seamless, there’s actually a lot going on in between you and where the actual item you’re viewing is stored. Starting with you, either as a home user or in the workplace, there’s the PCs, Macs, tablets and so on all connected to a home or work network via a switch. STEP 2 The switch, or switches, are connected to a router, which in turn provides the link to the Internet via an ISP (Internet Service Provider). We’ll view the Internet here as a separate connection, where you’ll browse for websites…

Google is so popular it’s almost become a synonym for the Internet. It has over 1.8 billion Gmail users and two billion monthly active Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) users worldwide, and the already-huge service is set to grow considerably over the coming years. Google’s storage solution, Google Drive, is just one element of the company’s cloud services, but it sits at the core of everything. Back in 2018, Google announced that Drive had stored over 2 trillion files, in 2019, the company was a little vague with its numbers, but it did report that, according to StatCounter, Drive now hosts nearly 10 trillion files; which is an impressive amount. However, it hasn’t always been sunshine and roses for Google. IN THE BEGINNING… When the service launched back in 2012,…

Despite its founder’s notoriety, MEGA doesn’t seem to have suffered any bad press since Dotcom split. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, thanks to the service’s policy of zero-knowledge of what’s stored on its servers, heavy encryption, two-factor authentication and utilising the user’s password as the root encryption key. Details are difficult to obtain; however, the company has stated that over 125 million users enjoy the convenience of MEGA’s enhanced security, as well as the other benefits and features the cloud storage service offers. Primary on the list of features is a decent 20GB of free storage available; there are Pro and Business payment plans on offer, but more on them in a minute. MEGA offers speedy file transfers, with plenty of bandwidth for the user to upload large files…

The SkyDrive name was dropped in 2014 due to a lawsuit involving BskyB, for using the word Sky. The high court ruled that Microsoft had breached BskyB’s trademark, and as such, the Redmond Company redesigned its cloud service together with a new name: OneDrive. Initially, Microsoft offered its free users 10GB of storage, increasing it to as much as 25GB in 2008, but when it was redesigned in 2015, the amount dropped to 5GB of storage for free use. In addition, a number of other plans were also changed as the service began to incorporate the entire Microsoft 365 suite of apps and services. Despite the drop in storage, OneDrive has matured to become possibly the best cloud storage service available. There are plenty of features associated with OneDrive on…

STORAGE 15GB of free space is very good, even by today’s high volume standards. If you need more though, then you can upgrade to 100GB for just £1.59 per month, 200GB for £2.49 per month or 2TB of storage for a mere £7.99 per month. For the SMB user, you can even go up to 30TB; these options don’t become available until you’re already on the 2TB plan. FILE TYPES You can upload any kind of file type into Google Drive, be it a Microsoft Office created file, PDF, image, video or audio. You can even view the contents of Adobe and Microsoft-based file types, as well as archive and text files, from within Drive. COLLABORATION Collaboration is one of them most important aspects, and features, of the modern cloud…

VOICE TYPING The days of using the keyboard for entering text are seriously numbered. If you use Google Chrome, and you have a microphone attached to your system, click the Tools option in the Docs menu, followed by Voice Typing. Make sure the microphone is working, and click the Mic icon to start talking. Click the icon again to stop Voice Typing. FONTS Docs has a good number of fonts from which to choose when creating a new document. If you want, though, simply click on the fonts box, followed by More Fonts. This brings up a new window displaying hundreds more from which to choose. Just click the font to start using it. TRACK CHANGES When you’re collaborating on a document with numerous people, it can be difficult to…

1 SEARCH You can search Google Drive in the same way that you can search Gmail or one of the other Google products. 2 NEW Click the New button to open a new document, spreadsheet, presentation, form or drawing. 3 FOLDERS Your preset Google Drive folders are shown here, along with any that you have created. Click More to see Labels. 4 CURRENT FOLDER The contents of the currently selected folder are shown here. You can change how items are displayed (List or Grid). 5 DISPLAY CONTROLS Change how items in your folders are displayed and how they are sorted. The gear icon lets you access the G Drive settings. 6 UPLOAD LIST When you upload multiple items to Google Drive, the Upload box appears, to show you the progress…

OFFICE IN THE CLOUDS There are quite a lot of cloud services on offer from the Redmond company, but for the sakes of the consumer end user, OneDrive and Microsoft’s online Office apps are by far the most utilised, along with a few others. ONEDRIVE OneDrive is Microsoft’s answer to cloud storage for both consumers and business users alike. The basic plan comes in with a free 5GB of storage available, but you can soon expand that to 100GB or 1TB, all for a fairly reasonable monthly fee. WORD ONLINE You may not be aware of this, but theworld’smostused word processor is available as a cloud application. We are, of course, talking about MS Word. Using its latest version, you can log in to your Microsoft account and use the…

DO MORE WITH ONEDRIVE To start using OneDrive you need a Microsoft account. Head on over to www.onedrive.live.com and click the Sign Up For Free button to begin. STEP 1 Once you’ve signed into your OneDrive account you’ll be presented with the default Files view. From here you can drag and drop any files and content into your OneDrive window to populate it. You can also click the Upload link at the top of the screen to open your OS File Manger to browse for files or folders. STEP 2 You can create folders within OneDrive by clicking on the New link followed by Folder. You’ll then be able to click to enter the new folder and drag files into it, or use the Upload link. You’ll also notice that…

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SILVER LININGS The meaning of the cloud has changed somewhat in recent years, more as it became the new buzzword that pundits and marketing executives liked to throw about. In its most basic, layman’s terms, cloud computing is simply accessing a form of digital resource, or service, that isn’t installed locally on your computer. For the home, consumer user, that could mean accessing Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, or, in some circumstances, even viewing content through the likes of Netflix or listening to music via Spotify. It’s a loose interpretation of what a cloud is, but it’s pretty accurate. From the Small Medium Business (SMB), or Small Medium Enterprises (SME) point of view, it’s a way of consolidating your digital resources and mission-critical content into an always available, online and accessible…

CONCERNS IN THE CLOUD With the responsibility of entire company fortunes and users’ private data, cloud providers do their best to limit problems. Unfortunately, they do appear from time to time. These are some of the issues they might face. UPGRADES While unquestionably beneficial, automatic upgrades in the cloud can have a negative effect too. For example, in 2011, Amazon’s EC2 suffered a huge outage as a planned upgrade went horribly wrong. Storage went offline and, in extreme cases, some customers lost data. MOUNTING COSTS Although the initial cost of cloud ownership is much cheaper than a traditional on-site solution, as the service grows, so can the cost to the company. Social gaming company Zynga moved away from using cloud-based services when the costs started to rise beyond $150 million.…

HOME CLOUDS Agile business models aren’t always at the forefront of what the average user wants from a cloud computing service. So what can the consumer expect when they sign up and move some of their valuable data to the cloud? STORAGE The most significant section of the consumer cloud market is undoubtedly online storage. The likes of Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Apple all cater for the home user with 5GB, 100GB or more, in some circumstances, of storage available. And it’s all accessed via a friendly, and easy to use, portal that integrates all your devices. EMAIL ACCESS The second biggest consumer cloud service is email. Webmail has taken off in the last decade or so, moving away from traditional ISP or work-based email, to offer the user an…

On launch, it was available for iPhone, android, macOS, Windows, and as a web interface, MediaFire’s free cloud storage solution is certainly one to watch. There’s a level of simplicity that makes MediaFire one to check out if you’re thinking of moving on from the likes of Google or you just want another solution in place. SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE Essentially, MediaFire offers a barebones approach to its cloud storage solution. There’s a 10GB free plan available, but with some referral options, such as Tweeting the service, you can upgrade the amount of free storage to 50GB. Upload speeds are very fast, mainly due to the company using geolocation servers, but also the fact that it’s not as congested as Google Drive or Dropbox – despite the big companies having more…

There’s said to be over 2.2 billion files uploaded to Dropbox daily, which is probably why it’s considered as one of the best cloud storage solutions available today. However, it’s been something of a rocky road for the company since it was founded all those years ago. The problems mainly stem from Dropbox’s lack of security, which includes several high-level breaches in the past, and the fact that it doesn’t employ a zero-knowledge policy. It’s not the most privacy-friendly cloud service, it’s been blocked in China since 2014, and it’s not the cheapest or best cloud service available. So why do so many people use it? The main draw to using Dropbox is its ease of use. Many of its users feel quite at home with both the web interface,…

You’ve got to hand it to Apple, when it does something innovative, it works like a charm and becomes the benchmark for other companies to try and attain. iCloud is one of technology’s greatest success stories, and it’s not difficult to see why. After all, if you’re already producing an operating system that runs on some of the world’s most expensive computers, why not seamlessly incorporate a cloud service that quickly becomes a necessity. The big step for iCloud came when Apple made it available to use via an iTunes update, which quickly led to tens of millions of users within days of the launch. As a consequence, alongside the continuing rise of fortunes for Apple, the company was able to pour vast amounts of money and resources into the…

GROUPS Group emails are great, but they can become a distraction when you’re trying to work. Clicking on the More button in a group-wide email and selecting Mute will let you get the message conversations but without the notifications. SETTINGS To get to the Advanced tab, with options to show the next conversation instead of your inbox after you delete, archive or mute a conversation, turn frequent messages into templates and more, click the Settings icon (the cog), click See All Settings and then choose the Advanced tab. ACCOUNTS You can easily switch between multiple Gmail accounts by clicking on your profile image in the top-right corner of the Gmail interface. However, you can also quick change by entering a number into the Gmail address. For example: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox, for one…

TEMPLATES There are different ways of getting started with Google Sheets. You can create a new spreadsheet, upload an existing spreadsheet from a computer, or use a template from the Templates Gallery, to create a spreadsheet with a specific purpose. CONVERSIONS When you upload a spreadsheet into Google Drive, you have the choice to keep your spreadsheet in the original format or convert it into the Google Docs format. If you don’t convert the spreadsheet, you may not be able to access it collaboratively within your teams. SHARING Sharing and collaboration within Sheets is easy. Simply click the Share button in the corner of the screen, then add the Email collaborators and enter the details of those with whom you wish to share the file. This allows you to edit…

1 MAILBOXES These links let you display the messages in those mailboxes. A number next to any mailbox shows the amount of unread messages, rather than the total amount in the mailbox. 2 LABELS Labels allow you to categorise your messages into various pre-set or custom folders. You can save messages under more than one label for better cross-referencing. 3 CHAT CONTROLS This section shows a list of your available Chat contacts, as well as containing the various chat controls: Add Contact, Status Update, etc. You can read more about Gmail Chat later in this section. 4 SEARCH BOX Search for any message or contact in your Gmail inbox. Clicking on the small arrow at the end of the search box allows you to refine your search in several different…

STORAGE Although there’s only 5GB of storage available (which is still quite a lot for most folks), you can easily upgrade to 100GB for just £1.99 per month. Beyond 100GB you can move up to 1TB of storage for just £5.99 per month, or opt for the more comprehensive solution of adding more users (six, with 1TB available each). SECURE VAULT A great feature of OneDrive is its newly added Personal Vault. Here you can store sensitive files in a heightened secure environment, complete with two-step verification, which auto-locks after twenty minutes of inactivity. PHOTOS Photos stored on your OneDrive account can be easily navigated and explored through the All Photos options from the main OneDrive menu. You’ll also be able to create Albums, Tags and share them with others.…

OFFICE FOR EVERYONE Take a moment to sign up for a Microsoft account, then head over to office.live.com. You’ll notice a range of Office icons, click one to get started. STEP 1 There are ten Office cloud options available from the office.live.com site. The familiar, and well used, Word, Excel and PowerPoint take the first three places, with OneNote, access to your OneDrive account, Mail, and so on after that. The last option is Docs.com, the Microsoft collaborative portal; similar to that of Google Docs. STEP 2 Clicking on each of the Office cloud icons will launch the product, asking you to sign in to your Microsoft account and linking the cloud app with your OneDrive account. There are numerous templates within each of the main Office apps from which…