Posts tagged college
Secret ‘data centers’ – A trip into the secret, online ‘cloud’
Nov 5th
San Jose, California (CNN) — One day, while uploading yet another text file to the Google Docs Web site, I started to wonder: When I save this file online, where does it actually go?
I store tons of information on the Internet instead of just on my laptop or work computer. Often, I do this specifically so I can access information from both places, or from my mobile phone if I need it on-the-go.
Without realizing it, I’d started cloud computing, that nebulous term that refers to the idea that computing power is moving off home PCs and laptops and onto the Web.
I keep thousands of photos on Flickr. I’ve also got them on Facebook and tucked away in five years of Gmail messages. My videos are on 12seconds and YouTube (including a really embarrassing one of me landing on my face during a college diving meet). I’ve blogged from Madagascar on Blogger; my tech writing is on WordPress; and I post random snippets of info on Tumblr and Twitter.
This is not just data. It’s my life. And I would be sick if I lost it. Previous generations stored their family photos and important documents in safety deposit boxes or under the mattress. Here it is 2009, and I have no idea where my data lives.
I was curious and I wanted to find the scattered bits of my online life before dumping everything on my laptop onto the Web.
So I decided to go on a scavenger hunt into the cloud.
Read more at CNN
