For a couple of years I’ve had applications that allow me to work in the cloud (the internet) and sync data up to servers, but as weeks and months go by, I find more and more useful apps that allow me to centralize my data in a single place and have access from multiple devices. I now very rarely have the sinking feeling of “oh I left the document on my other computer”.
Word / Excel documents
I design most of my Word and Excel documents locally in Word and Excel, but when the formatting is how I like it, I then upload them to Google Docs. For anyone that hasn’t used Google Docs, it basically provides you with a free Word/Excel version where you can access and edit your Word and Excel documents over the web and collaborate with others. I can access these on my iPhone, Netbook and any PC via a web connection.
Note taking
I’ve been using Evernote for since it came out, and now it’s up in the cloud, I find it’s really useful to use Evernote for all my important notes. I can access these on my iPhone, Netbook and any PC via a web connection.
Tasks
I use RTM (Remember The Milk) and this is a great task scheduler that you can access from multiple computers including my iPhone. It also allows me to set reminders which I also receive directly on my iPhone.
Email
For personal use I use Google Mail, and Google Mail is not only a great free online email system but it has a kick ass spam filter, better than most other spam filters including Spamcop. This allows me to access my email on the web from any computer and also direct on my iPhone and receive push email direct to the iPhone to let me know when new mail comes in!
For work usage I use Microsoft Exchange 2007 which similar to Google Mail also has a web interface called Microsoft Outlook Web Access, and I also have this configured on my iPhone to receive push notifications so I receive the email immediately on the iPhone.
File Syncing
I use Microsoft Live Sync (used to be called FolderShare) to synchronise folders between multiple computers. This allows me to work across multiple laptops when I need to. e.g. I have a very complicated spreadsheet that has about 100 macros and these macros hang/freeze on Vista using Office 2007 but don’t hang on my other idental Vista tablet running Office 2003. This allows me update the spreadsheet on my main laptop then have it sync to the other within minutes and then run the macros and have it sync back all automatically.
Online Storage
To save files online so I can have them accessible across multiple devices I also use Microsoft SkyDrive which gives you a mounted drive within Windows that you can then open like a normal drive and access files to open, edit or create new files.
Cloud computing is getting more popular by the day and soon will be something that most of us use in every day life.
Are there any cloud applications that you use on a daily basis that I haven’t listed above? If so, leave me a comment.
