Cloudy With a Chance of What? 5 Ways to Use The Cloud You Never Knew About
The cloud is not just a place to stash documents or files to view remotely for business men and executives. The personal cloud can be a creative playground to collaborate and present information in unique ways, as well as interact with others. The cloud offers the advantage of accessing information remotely and sharing that information with anyone who has access to a computer or smartphone, but it’s uses aren’t merely limited to business tasks. Read on to learn about the other uses for cloud technology that you might not know about.
Learning in the cloud: Interactive Testing
Teachers and students are finding new ways to tap into new forms of learning and self-test. There are many types of learners that test well in a variety of ways. Embedding video or content onto cloud storage such as Google Drive can allow for immediate feedback. Google Drive can embed several video types in real-time to make a truly custom quiz that can help enhance study sessions as well as create dynamic tests.
Dropbox for Genealogists: Creating a Family Tree
Create a family record of video and documentation to permanently protect precious memories for generations. Family members can collaborate and upload more content such as pictures of documents over time to create detailed map of family history. Think of it as a virtual version of the time capsule—except it is a capsule that everyone can easily contribute to and view anytime they want. Everything is digital these days, so help bring your extended family into the 21st century by making your family story available to everyone online. Plus, this is a great way to stay connected to family that you don’t live near.
Home Design Repository
Painting and planning a garden can seem like monumental tasks. The variety of colors and options are endless. Storage services such as DropBox or Google Drive allows users to create folders to store files in an organized way. Paint chip sample scans and garden seeds or plant information can have their own folder to compare against future notes. Cloud-based tools in software such as can also be synced to store snapshots of layouts and designs. Contractors are also now using the cloud to keep their workers and home owners up to date on blueprints with the help of drawing management software.
DIY Security System
Monitor the ongoing activity of a windows computer by allowing regular screenshots to be created remotely when away. Using an application such as Screen Grabber or SnagIt will allow users to create a script that will capture images regularly and store them on a cloud storage server such as DropBox.
A webcam can also be used in tandem with the screen monitoring application to act as a security camera in the home or workplace. Place a capture script alongside the webcam program to log pictures or video every so often. Extra security can be added by enabling a keystroke or HTTP logging system such as keylogger to upload text files onto a DropBox server as well. The webcam and screen cycling applications can be cycled by using what is known as an Autohotkey script.
If you thought that cloud technology was a fancy forum for businessmen and executives to use to talk over files and contracts, you can now see that there are plenty of uses for the cloud in your daily life.
Although this technology has been around for a while, it is constantly being updated, altered, and developed. The cloud can now be used in several different industries and for improving seemingly menial daily tasks. If you consider yourself a tech-savvy member of the 21st century, you’ll soon find ways to use the cloud for work as well as play.
About the Author: This article was written by Dixie Somers, a freelance writer who loves to write for business, finance, women’s interests, and technology. She lives in Arizona with her husband and three daughters. Dixie got her information for this article from the professionals of procore.com who specialize in cloud-based software that is used by contractors and engineers to manage updates and changes to plans during the construction process.
