We have a computer network at our house that all our computers are connected to either by cable or wirelessly. Instead of saving files on our individual computers, we save them to our private folders on the server, where they are backed up every night. This is a great system — everything important is routinely backed up, and our hard drives don’t get full. The downside is that if I take my laptop to a cafe, or if I want to work on a workstation at the library or some other location, I don’t have access to my files.
There are a lot of ways around this problem. I could copy the documents I want to take with me onto my laptop’s hard drive. Or I could copy the documents to a cd or to one of those little USB drives you can put on a key chain. The downside is that the document wouldn’t get backed up, and I could possibly lose the cd or the drive.
Naturally, Google has come up with something even better: Google Docs & Spreadsheets. You can upload your document or spreadsheet to Google, edit it, save it, share it, or archive it. You can create new documents, too.
So now I have no excuse not to work on my stories when I’m away from home…
Filed under: technology, writing
I think I would rather take my chances with the little USB flash drive. At least there I’d have a better idea how many people might be reading my documents.
As a society I think we are becoming too used to voluntarily giving up our privacy rights. This looks like one more step in that direction.