<p>For example, there are many good services, which let you store your documents on the cloud and access them from wherever you might me. Here are a few cloud-based storage services you could start using right away. <br /><br />Windows Live Skydrive <br />Windows Live SkyDrive is one of the few completely free products available on Internet. Once you register with your Windows Live ID, it offers you 25GB of storage space. You can upload files to it and then access them from a web browser. You can keep your files private or share with contacts, or even make them public. (www.skydrive.live.com)<br /><br />Amazon Cloud Drive <br />This is one of the oldest and most secure cloud storage services on Internet, which lets you store music, videos, documents and photos. As a basic user you get 5GB of space free of cost. If you buy music from Amazon MP3 store and save it on Cloud Drive, it won't consume any space. It lets you play songs irrespective of the operating system and the default music player you use. You can also buy more storage space from Amazon. (www.amazon.com/clouddrive)<br />Apple is planning to launch a competing service, iCloud. <br /><br />Box, Dropbox <br />Box gives you 5GB of free space to store and share your documents, photos and videos. By keeping a file in the public folder, you can share it with others. But if you keep it inside the private folder, no one else gets to access it. Box’s integration with web apps like Zoho makes it more useful. If you need more storage, you can buy it. (www.box.net)<br />The fact that Dropbox can be used from Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS devices makes it very popular. Its basic version comes with a free storage of 2GB. (www.dropbox.com)<br /><br />Flickr, Photo Bucket, Picasa <br />Flickr lets you save your photos online. The basic, free version lets you upload 300MB of photos and 2 videos every month. Its paid version does not have any limitations. Using Flickr, you can either share your images or keep them private. Free users cannot upload an image bigger than 10MB. For paid users the limit is 20GB. (www.flickr.com)<br />Photo Bucket offers just 500 MB of storage space for free. But it offers photo editing tools, which, in fact, is the highlight of this service. It has a good privacy mechanism, which allows you to protect your photos with passwords and share them selectively. <br /><br />Photo Bucket also has robust communities. You can share you photos with like minded people and also take part in competitions. (www.photobucket.com)<br />Using Picasa, you can store and share 1GB of images, and need not pay a <br />single penny for that. You can make your images private or share them with others. It comes with a desktop client, which makes it very easy to upload photos. More over, while uploading pictures, it places no restriction on the size of the pictures. It could be as small or as big as you want. (www.google.picasa.com)<br /><br />SOS online backup <br />This is an advanced cloud storage service, which helps you take planned and unplanned backups. Its SOS Wizard checks your computer and backs up the data automatically. <br />You can even use its service to take backups every hour or so, just to ensure that you do not lose anything. This service is very useful but not free.<br />(www.sosonlinebackup.com)<br /><br /><em>The writer blogs at PCsPlace.com and ReviewUnit.com</em></p>
<p>For example, there are many good services, which let you store your documents on the cloud and access them from wherever you might me. Here are a few cloud-based storage services you could start using right away. <br /><br />Windows Live Skydrive <br />Windows Live SkyDrive is one of the few completely free products available on Internet. Once you register with your Windows Live ID, it offers you 25GB of storage space. You can upload files to it and then access them from a web browser. You can keep your files private or share with contacts, or even make them public. (www.skydrive.live.com)<br /><br />Amazon Cloud Drive <br />This is one of the oldest and most secure cloud storage services on Internet, which lets you store music, videos, documents and photos. As a basic user you get 5GB of space free of cost. If you buy music from Amazon MP3 store and save it on Cloud Drive, it won't consume any space. It lets you play songs irrespective of the operating system and the default music player you use. You can also buy more storage space from Amazon. (www.amazon.com/clouddrive)<br />Apple is planning to launch a competing service, iCloud. <br /><br />Box, Dropbox <br />Box gives you 5GB of free space to store and share your documents, photos and videos. By keeping a file in the public folder, you can share it with others. But if you keep it inside the private folder, no one else gets to access it. Box’s integration with web apps like Zoho makes it more useful. If you need more storage, you can buy it. (www.box.net)<br />The fact that Dropbox can be used from Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS devices makes it very popular. Its basic version comes with a free storage of 2GB. (www.dropbox.com)<br /><br />Flickr, Photo Bucket, Picasa <br />Flickr lets you save your photos online. The basic, free version lets you upload 300MB of photos and 2 videos every month. Its paid version does not have any limitations. Using Flickr, you can either share your images or keep them private. Free users cannot upload an image bigger than 10MB. For paid users the limit is 20GB. (www.flickr.com)<br />Photo Bucket offers just 500 MB of storage space for free. But it offers photo editing tools, which, in fact, is the highlight of this service. It has a good privacy mechanism, which allows you to protect your photos with passwords and share them selectively. <br /><br />Photo Bucket also has robust communities. You can share you photos with like minded people and also take part in competitions. (www.photobucket.com)<br />Using Picasa, you can store and share 1GB of images, and need not pay a <br />single penny for that. You can make your images private or share them with others. It comes with a desktop client, which makes it very easy to upload photos. More over, while uploading pictures, it places no restriction on the size of the pictures. It could be as small or as big as you want. (www.google.picasa.com)<br /><br />SOS online backup <br />This is an advanced cloud storage service, which helps you take planned and unplanned backups. Its SOS Wizard checks your computer and backs up the data automatically. <br />You can even use its service to take backups every hour or so, just to ensure that you do not lose anything. This service is very useful but not free.<br />(www.sosonlinebackup.com)<br /><br /><em>The writer blogs at PCsPlace.com and ReviewUnit.com</em></p>
