Disaster Strikes in the Cloud
Here is one of the smartest ideas I've ever encountered. Mistakes are valuable because we analyse our mistakes. We take success for granted, even though it may be due to dumb luck or a total misconception of the situation.
When trouble hits, you put your learning cap on.
In this case, it was the sudden death of my iPhone. I'll let you know how we brought it back to life, but the important lesson was in the consequences of the crash.
If this had happened to the machine that runs Outlook, I'd be in serious trouble. I would stand to lose all my e-mail history, which is 90% of the records I keep of my life. At the very least, I would be reduced to going directly to Shaw to get new e-mails and to use the klunky on-line app to send mail.
Documents saved on the PC would be lost unless backed up (who does backups?)
Applications lost on the PC would need to be re-installed and, in some cases, re-purchased.
The cloud-based approach is utterly different. All important documents were held "in the cloud" in the Gmail and Mobile Me services. I could access any of these services and all of the important data in them using my iPod, Mac or any of my PC's. In fact, from any connected computer in the world. I was inconvenienced temporarily by the fact that I needed to pack around my IPad for a few hours to get real-time e-mail. But getting real-time e-mail was never an option with the stand-alone PC.
Even the iPhone applications were automatically backed up in iTunes whenever I synced to the Mac Mini. The Mini itself was being automatically backed up by an application called "Time Machine" -- similar to traditional backup programs except that it requires zero interaction on my part.
As it happens, the iPhone just needed a "hard reset", a fact I learned from the store's "Genius Bar" where you can get a real person who actually knows what he's talking about to help you with the most trivial of problems. That trick was in the manual of course, but who reads manuals?
As far as I know, no such service was ever available for PC users. It illustrates the fact that the "cloud" approach doesn't de-personalize computer related services. When the personal touch is needed, it's there, along with a phone that knows who I am and where I am at all times. It's a computer (family) that keeps all my important crud safe at all times whether I'm worrying about it or not.
My effortless recovery from disaster confirmed that I'm headed in the right direction, abandoning the "personal computer" paradigm that Microsoft has built over the last 3 decades for the cloud-based approach being lead by vendors such as Apple. Even so, I'd like to see Apple (for instance) throw off some of the remaining vestiges of PC-think. For example, I'd like to buy ONE license for Aperture software and run it anywhere I like. Right now, these licenses and thousands like them are tied to one piece of hardware. Yuk. iOS applications (that run on the iPhone, iPad etc.) are licensed this way (more or less). Time for the big brother apps to catch up.
When trouble hits, you put your learning cap on.
In this case, it was the sudden death of my iPhone. I'll let you know how we brought it back to life, but the important lesson was in the consequences of the crash.
If this had happened to the machine that runs Outlook, I'd be in serious trouble. I would stand to lose all my e-mail history, which is 90% of the records I keep of my life. At the very least, I would be reduced to going directly to Shaw to get new e-mails and to use the klunky on-line app to send mail.
Documents saved on the PC would be lost unless backed up (who does backups?)
Applications lost on the PC would need to be re-installed and, in some cases, re-purchased.
The cloud-based approach is utterly different. All important documents were held "in the cloud" in the Gmail and Mobile Me services. I could access any of these services and all of the important data in them using my iPod, Mac or any of my PC's. In fact, from any connected computer in the world. I was inconvenienced temporarily by the fact that I needed to pack around my IPad for a few hours to get real-time e-mail. But getting real-time e-mail was never an option with the stand-alone PC.
Even the iPhone applications were automatically backed up in iTunes whenever I synced to the Mac Mini. The Mini itself was being automatically backed up by an application called "Time Machine" -- similar to traditional backup programs except that it requires zero interaction on my part.
As it happens, the iPhone just needed a "hard reset", a fact I learned from the store's "Genius Bar" where you can get a real person who actually knows what he's talking about to help you with the most trivial of problems. That trick was in the manual of course, but who reads manuals?
As far as I know, no such service was ever available for PC users. It illustrates the fact that the "cloud" approach doesn't de-personalize computer related services. When the personal touch is needed, it's there, along with a phone that knows who I am and where I am at all times. It's a computer (family) that keeps all my important crud safe at all times whether I'm worrying about it or not.
My effortless recovery from disaster confirmed that I'm headed in the right direction, abandoning the "personal computer" paradigm that Microsoft has built over the last 3 decades for the cloud-based approach being lead by vendors such as Apple. Even so, I'd like to see Apple (for instance) throw off some of the remaining vestiges of PC-think. For example, I'd like to buy ONE license for Aperture software and run it anywhere I like. Right now, these licenses and thousands like them are tied to one piece of hardware. Yuk. iOS applications (that run on the iPhone, iPad etc.) are licensed this way (more or less). Time for the big brother apps to catch up.
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