The Cloud Experiment: Thursday

Well, the penultimate day, and cloud free at both home and at work.

The Cloud Experiment: Wednesday

Well, there is definitely a pattern emerging here... no cloud usage at all throughout the working day, but loads of cloud usage with Social Media apps at home in the evening, plus a new service... Evernote

The Cloud Experiment: Tuesday

So, we're half way through the experiment and I've had another quiet day on the cloud front whilst at work but once home, I've checked my Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, listened to Podcasts and watched some old shows via my Tivo.

The Cloud Experiment: Monday

So, it's a little late in the day to be adding something to the experiment, but the truth is I've had no Cloud interaction all day until I got home.     I can tell that you are incredulous about this information and hear you asking, "So you're telling me that you work in IT and you haven't used a Cloud based service all day??? Well, yes that is exactly what I'm saying... until I was exercising a bit when I got home and started listening to my Podcasts through the Pure Connect app, I have had no cloud interaction all day. Blimey.

The Cloud Experiment: Sunday

So, Sunday morning arrives, I start the day reviewing all of the Twitter feeds I've missed over the last week and amazingly for me, look at Google+ which I hardly ever use... I'm actual quite amazed about how many people post to Google+, we're always told the nobody uses it, but I've seen loads of colleagues and friends posting stuff on there recently.

After breakfast, I go into the kitchen and wash up, but while doing that I fire up the Roku box and catch up on some news streams. I've got a few questions that have arisen from the news I've just seen, so it's onto the tablet and see what Wikipedia says about the topics and my questions are now fully answered.

In to the afternoon and it's my Podcast listening time.  Usually on a Sunday afternoon when I'm doing some exercise or having a bath, I go through and listen to my Podcasts through Pure Connect and sent to my Jongo S3 and this an entirely cloud service which I have to say is very, very good.

The Cloud Experiment: Saturday

Day 1 starts with my Internet Radio waking me up at 6:15.  Is this the first cloud device?  Well, it is true that it can connect to the cloud (it's one of these if you're interested) but in this case it was receiving a DAB broadcast so, I can't really count that.

After a quick wash and brush up, it's down stairs and a quick check of my Gmail (that's the first cloud service) and a quick read of my Kindle (that's the second) over breakfast... all this and it's still before 9am.

Now it's after 1pm and we've had no more cloud usage, just a bout of physical shopping, which is very much a non-cloud operation!

So, we're into the evening on the first day and I've used my phone and the Kindle app to read some ebooks and check Facebook, which means I've used another unique cloud service but we're after 6pm and on Saturday evening I normally don't do much other watch some old fashioned television or something from the PVR.

To end the day, I used the Flipboard and News360 apps which although are aggregator services, will have loads of cloud content behind the scenes, so I'll add these as unique services four and five, and then read a bit more on my Kindle before bed.

P.S.Writing this on Sunday morning, I suddenly remembered that there was another Cloud based service I used while watching TV yesterday evening.  A advert for a Peugeot came on and my wife asked what was Shazam, so we downloaded it and used that for awhile... actually that is a prime example of how we use cloud products and don't even realise!

It's Getting Very Cloudy

Currently there is a huge furore in the British press around some celebrities who have had dubious images of themselves published online.  Nothing out of the ordinary there you may think, except that these photos were originally stored on a Cloud service that appears to have been hacked.  Although this issue is specifically regarding the iCloud service, it hasn't stopped the Red Tops pronouncing the Cloud as the new global evil.  It did also start me thinking about how quickly Cloud based services have crept into the daily lives of people that don't necessarily have an IT background.

Then at breakfast one morning, my wife mentioned in a conversation about how silly these people were in storing their 'adult' images on such services and I explained that they might not necessarily realise that this synchronisation is happening at all, Even when I take a snap on my phone or tablet it gets whizzed off to Dropbox or Google+, all without any interaction from me.  That is when I decided to perform a little experiment... How many different Cloud services do I use over the course of a week and will I surprise myself at the end of it?   Now as I work in IT I have a little idea of how I think it will turn out, but lets not pre-empt the results eh?