I’ve been lucky over the years, only once having a computer die on me. However, a more devastating blow was losing our first home to fire a few years back. That changes your life!

Ever since that time, I’ve used various means of storing away my critical document files – external hard drives, thumb drives, CD-ROMs, all of which I would store at different locations. It’s a messy and cumbersome solution at best, requiring that I remember to carry along the storage device, and also meaning that I frequently had different versions of the same document file in different locations.

Enter “cloud storage”! I’ve had an MSN Skydrive account for some time now, and it’s very handy for storing images especially. Photo albums can be created and then shared with any one who has a computer connection, even if they don’t have an MSN account. Or, the album can be made private, and shared only with friends and family. Neat service.

About two weeks ago, I snapped to Google’s new “Docs” service. Just for setting up a Gmail account (free, by the way), I can store up to 1GB of documents and have access to them from any computer with an internet connection. This means I always (well, almost always) have access to my documents…the latest version…and can update the file from anywhere.

If you are creating an irreplaceable work and need to make sure that it is stored in a place where it won’t be destroyed, and where you have almost universal access, then consider “cloud storage” and get those precious files off your computer, or backed up somewhere.

Hope this helps in protecting your next great novel.

Write on!

JR

www.jackriston.com

www.forallthemarbles.net