If we all store our data in the cloud at data farms, which can run at 75% efficiency or better, instead of three different hard drives somewhere in our homes. There is a big savings on hard drives and energy use here if we use this right, never mind the wasted downtime of upgrades and moves. There is a green benefit to the cloud as well, fewer computers, better managed means less waste. This is where we go to the client's place of business to fix problems, install patches, upgrade systems and perform customizations and training. LayerOnline It also reduces the revenues we receive from onsite services too. Just like when someone buys a life insurance policy the customer service is handled by the home office in Omaha or somewhere like that. With a cloud based application most of these tasks, with the exception of customization and training, are now assumed by the software vendor. The hundreds of companies using Commission Junction and ClickBank each have their own sets of rules and guidelines, though the companies on ClickBank seem to have a much more anything goes feel to them. The Big Name Companies always have long lists of terms and often require that these terms be updated from time to time so they can add new restrictions. Even if the government orders your storage provider to hand over all your information, the only thing they would get is a bunch of encrypted gibberish. By encrypting files yourself at home, you know for a fact that those files have been fully encrypted. Additionally, you are the only person with the encryption key. While there's no real guarantee that files stored in digital format can last for a lifetime, you can actually do something to save them in the right places. The good news is that with today's advanced digital technology, there are various ways to protect your digital images. If you want them to last long, you need to do some backup work because they can also easily get lost through theft, destruction and degradation. Nowadays people are always very busy. you can store files on the Internet, but why would you want to? Most people would not have time to do things like; drive home, copy their file to a thumb drive, and then drive back to work and present their file. Wouldn't it be much easier if you could access your file from anywhere? Once you place a file in the cloud it can be accessed from anywhere that you have Internet connections. That is why cloud drive storage is so popular. Well, the main reason is portability. Many cloud services have phone applications as well, this strongly increases the portability of your files. Several years ago we started out using Windows-based phones from HTC and AT&T mobile. cloud backup One of the biggest challenges of any business owner or self-employed person is scheduling. Since we have a Microsoft exchange server at our Internet hosting company, the system worked reasonably well. Anyone can go out and have this type of e-mail client for about $15 per person per month. My assistant could enter a calendar appointment, and within 15 minutes it would appear on my phone. This is significantly less expensive than buying your own exchange server and trying to maintain it. More importantly it is way cheaper than trying to get back a client you lost because you missed their appointment. Some people call me directly and others call my office which is usually a better way to make sure I show up. cloud drive My confidence in reasonable security in The Cloud is based upon my doing business over the Internet since the early 1990s when the Internet opened to commercial sites. However, it is not obvious that your risk of loss is any greater in The Cloud than it is anywhere else. There is no guarantee of security. The examples with my bank and with my investment company have helped reassure me that they are proactively trying to minimize the risk of loss. The need for you to constantly wade through results upon results from Google or any other sites will be instantly taken away, giving you more time and energy to actually get to the part where you actually start downloading the game. Because there are a number of services that have taken the time to review all of the best possible downloading services to give a fully packaged review website so you don't have to. How is that possible, you ask? Mmm...so you want a site with more free online games than your mind could ever imagine ey? None of this seems to be going away. It's still pretty new to us--like ordering sushi at the Chinese restaurant. Gordon's clients, like my clients (and like my company) are still backing up their files the old-fashioned way. That's because in 2010 small businesses are wary about online services. They're still using internal backup software and saving stuff to hard drives, DVDs and even, in some cases, tapes. Nothing's foolproof, but at least he's got a little more comfort that if a client's internal backup software fails, there'll be a good offsite backup safely stored in the cloud. It's just that, for 50 bucks a year, Rich is adding an extra layer of protection to his clients' backup procedures.