Though I was not affected by the Gmail lockout a couple of weeks ago, and even though full service was restored (as far as I know,) it was definitely a strike against cloud computing and made me concerned for the information that I keep on Google services.
I use GDocs to collaborate with cowriters and often for jotting down notes or even writing on the go. I have several computers and having in progress works in the cloud saves me from keeping track of jump drives (which is a good thing, as I suck at that.)
I love Google. Let me just preface anything I’m going to say with that. I love Google. Seriously. However, it’s not perfect and any computer system can fall prey to DDOS or just plain equipment failure. So rather than scream and cry and get angry with Google for something that can and will happen to any service provider, I decided to find another service to back up my Google data.
There are many options, but these are the two I chose. One, just a good old fashioned back up to my hard drive using gdoc back up. This keeps the files in your possession, however, you do need to make sure that it’s running. Two, I chose Backupify. I’ve just started the service, so I can’t tell you how it will play out, but currently you can have up to five accounts backed up for free. This includes Facebook and Twitter (I don’t say anything important enough to keep on those, but you might) and your Gmail, Blogger, etc. You get up to 2GB of data for free. After that, they jack up the price.
The free plan only backs up weekly, but for me, at the moment, that’s good enough. I might pay the $5/month if I like the service.
Anyway, just a little tidbit. I know a few of you also collab on Gdocs and thought this info might be handy.
Thanks for the Heads Up Clancy. Have installed the Gdocs backup. Now to get around to backing up my hard drive….
How’s the writing going?
Alison
There’s lots of cloud computing for backing up your hard drive for low cost. If you’re interested I can give you a few links. I’m just a little bit paranoid, I guess.
Just a little.
The writing is a little blocked lately. I’m in editing world. Have a novella and 2 novels that are coming out in the next few months and then two out trying to find homes. I had a mad prolific time and now I’m just kind of tired, but keeping busy with lots to edit.
Working on a WIP m/m scifi that I’m trying to make myself proactively edit, but I just keep getting stuck. It’s written, just needs me to go through it to clarify things, tweak some wording. Just having trouble being motivated.
Probably more than you wanted to hear 😉
How is your writing going? Oh! I have a real live Kindle. I need to get “Caught.” That plot really intrigued me.
Doing now before I forget.
I actually just had a m/f futuristic/scifi novel accepted by TotalEbound. They had a call out for scifi so I jumped at it. Hard genre to sell.
The problem is tech heads are sometimes not into the sex, not that there’s a lot of sex in my book, but one beta reader (young) squirmed a bit at that aspect.
It was the first thing I ever wrote and used to post chapters on line in a group I was in. Carina Press knocked it back. I wasn’t sure what to do then, but I figured get it accepted and then see if it needed tweaking to what they wanted.
I’m not really into m/f now and it was going to be the first in a series….
Let me know if you want me to look at your m/m scifi.
Now the m/f is out of the way and my wine book is at the printer I have no excuse. My writing is all in my head at the moment. I have one novel I’m seriously re-writing and another I’m adding scene outlines to all the time but haven’t started writing a word yet, then there are two sequels I’ve promised.
More than you probably wanted to know too…. 🙂
Good luck and keep in touch.
I had no idea scifi was hard to place. But that’s me, write first, ask questions later. Perhaps this is why no one wants to issue me a gun….
Congrats on finding it a home, though! I can’t imagine it would be that difficult for you, you’re a good writer.
I may take you up on looking at the scifi. It’s with a beta right now and then I’ll want to have a poke at her comments. It’s sort of a big story with a lot of action so I’m feeling a bit out of my element. I think that’s what’s stalled me in a couple of projects–great ambition, but even after the research, still not feeling secure enough to move forward.
Sounds like you’re on the precipice of some hot, hard, fast writing, though! It’s fun to talk a little shop, see how others work the process. I’m still jealous of the wine book 🙂