Full Circle Magazine FR

Hi, everyone! Welcome back to Ask the New Guy! If you have a simple question and want an answer that doesn’t require intimate knowledge of who Linus Torvalds is angry at this week, contact me at copil.yanez@gmail.com. Today’s question is: Q: I keep hearing about “the cloud.” What is The Cloud? Is it dangerous? What does it smell like? A: In talking about The Cloud, I like to give the same sage advice my dad always gave me when he encountered a strange cloud in the house: He who smelt it, dealt it. The advice isn’t actually too far off. The Cloud can mean different things to different people, and its purpose and function are closely associated with he or she who “smelt it,” meaning, the company or program that offers cloud services determines how it will work in practice.

When we talk about The Cloud, we’re talking about offloading computing or storage duties to someone else’s machine. Everything from gaming, to listening to music, to storing family pictures, can be done in The Cloud. But wait, you say. I’ve spent countless hours accumulating pictures of my My Little Pony collection. Why would I let someone else store them for me? Unless he, too, was a bronie? Here are just a few advantages to doing things in the cloud: 1. Your data is backed up: In the event of a catastrophic Four Loko spill on your laptop at a LAN party, all those funny sloth jpgs are safe and sound. 2. Your data is safe: Even if you’re careful to back up your files to an external hard drive and print out all your emails on a weekly basis and store them in a fireproof safe like I do, you’re still not likely to have your data replicated across as many servers as the typical cloud storage service like Ubuntu One, Dropbox, or Google Drive. 3. Your data is accessible anywhere: You’re totally hitting it off with a cute guy you just met at your local LARP Con and want to show him your Galadriel cosplay. Just bring up your cloud service app on your smartphone, show him the pictures and, boom, you’re dating that Aragorn lookalike! 4. Your data is private: You are the only one with access to the Jersey Shore style book you created for yourself.

Sounds good, right? Well, there are some downsides. 1. Your data is NOT backed up: Sure, your preferred service is storing a scanned copy of your birth certificate so you send the original to your parents for safe keeping. But your cloud service just went down for maintenance and you’re being inaugurated as the next President of the United States in TWENTY MINUTES! Your data may be backed up, but what does that mean if you can’t access the backup? This is bad. Just ask Barack Obama. 2. Your data is NOT safe: Replication on the other end is great! Until every one of their servers are subpoenaed by the Department of Justice. This exact thing happened to cloud storage service Megaupload.com. There’s a remote possibility those users will get their stuff back from the US government. But you’re more likely to get a full body rubdown by the TSA, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. 3. Your data is NOT accessible anywhere: Oh look, you got a new tablet! Cool. Yeah, our service doesn’t roll out for that device for another thirty days. Sorry. Now you’re stuck dating the guy who looks like Bilbo. 4. Your data is NOT private: No one but you has access to your files. Except the government. And disgruntled ex-employees. And hackers. And your nosy mom.

Okay, so are we clear on the pros and cons? Look, the truth is cloud services are great and getting better every day. Yes, there are some dangers and you should still back up your files in a place you, and only you, have access to. Where do you hide your vaping supplies from your wife? That’s probably a good place to store your backup drive. If you’re willing to accept the small downside to using cloud services, you’ll reap the many rewards of doing so. One of the greatest benefits to me that might be of interest to new Ubuntu users is the ability to walk away from a disastrous install and start fresh without worrying that all your precious memories just disappeared because you followed some joker’s suggestion to type “rm -rf /” at the command line. (Don’t do it! It does filthy things and you’ll hate yourself in the morning). By keeping your most important files, photos, music, and downloads backed up, you can cleanly reinstall the distro of your choice and simply download your files from the cloud when you’re ready. Not surprisingly, Ubuntu offers an easy way to set up some cloud storage and start using it almost immediately. It’s called Ubuntu One, it’s free, and you’re almost done setting it up – it’s that simple.

Ubuntu 12.10 comes with Ubuntu One pre-installed and loaded on the left-hand app drawer. Find and click the icon that looks like this: You’ll get this window: Click the button that says “I don’t have an account yet - sign me up.” You’ll go through some typical setup procedures including a Captcha. If you fail the Captcha, double check. You might not be human. Ubuntu One will send you a secret code (it’s all very NSA, need-to-know type stuff). Enter that into the registration screen and click Next. You’ll have the option to select which folders you want to sync to The Cloud. I suggest Desktop and Documents at the very least. You can add more at any time. Click Finish, and Ubuntu One will start syncing those folders for you. Depending on how much stuff you have in those folders, it may take a while. The next time you click the Ubuntu One icon, you’ll be greeted by name – which is a little creepy – but whatever. From now on, anything you add to the folders you asked Ubuntu One to sync will automagically get uploaded to The Cloud and be available on any other device with access to that account. So, if you started Ubuntu One from your desktop, and then log into Ubuntu One from your laptop, you’ll have access to the files from your desktop. Note that you’re not accessing your desktop, just the files that were copied from there and stored in Ubuntu One’s cloud service. Make a change to one of those files and the changes will be reflected in the file the next time you access it from your desktop (or anywhere else).

If you have a smartphone, you can search the app store for Ubuntu One and download it. Once you log in with your credentials, you’ll have access to your files on the go. Ubuntu One gives you up to 5 gigabytes of free storage, but you can pay for more if you need it. You can store music files as well, but you won’t be able to stream those files to another device unless you upgrade to the Music Streaming package which is $3.99 per month. Upgrading also nets you a total of 20 gigs of storage which you can use for anything you want, not just music. Your collection of Justin Bieber fan-fic erotica is now safe for the ages. Can you smell that? That’s what freedom smells like! Now you can mess with your Ubuntu install, play around with settings, dual boot into the latest unstable version, stay up all night, sleep all day, and live life on the edge! You don’t care, you’re a rock star! And all your important files are always available simply by logging into Ubuntu One! Play around with Ubuntu One. If you don’t like it, you can disconnect the file syncing and try something else like Dropbox or Google Drive or any number of other services. Most will have a free version that’s pretty good for most casual users. My dad would be so proud of you! And just for the record, it was usually him “dealting” it. Good luck and happy Ubuntuing!