Coffee Shop Goss Banora Point > Kirra Beach - January 2014 | Page 3

computer tips TECHNOLOGY Cloud Storage HAPPY NEW YEAR. 2014 is here and if you’re lucky enough to still be on your annual holidays or just come back to work from the break, you’ve probably taken loads of photos. Most of us use our smartphone to take photos because of immediate convenience of one device that does almost everything. Copying the photos off the phone and to our computer has been a tad challenging in the past. It usually involved connecting the phone up to a computer via a USB cable and transferring the photos and data. Thankfully it is now much easier to perform this simple task. All the big three, (Apple, Google, & Microsoft) have services and products available to help you transfer photos off smartphones & tablets to the cloud. What is the cloud? For this example; it is just a storage area where you can store your photos and files on someone else’s computer. The “someone else’s computer” are big corporates like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, Apple, and more. These cloud providers usually have both free and paid version. If you have a Gmail, Hotmail, Live, or an Outlook.com account, then you already have access to these services; you just need to start using them. you aske d for it!!! photos and videos taken from your Android or Apple IOS devices. This feature is called ‘Camera Upload’. How to automatically upload my photos from my smartphone to my computer (Camera Upload). Firstly on your computer go to dropbox.com and sign up for a *free account. You’ll then get the opportunity to download the Dropbox application on your computer which I suggest you do. During the installation of Dropbox, you get a great tutorial on what Dropbox is and how you can use it. Next, go to your smartphones App Store or Play Store and download the Dropbox app. Sign in using the same account you used when you created the Dropbox account on your computer. During installation you should be given the option to turn on ‘Camera Upload’ or you can go to the app’s settings and enable it. You can also choose whether to allow uploading when your device is connected to a cellular network. That’s it. Now every photo you take will automatically be uploaded to your computer; how simple is that? *Dropbox is free for up to 2GB of storage but you can up the storage size for a monthly fee. Got technical challenges and need help with your Computer, Tablet, or Smartphone? Call Ian Piggott from Computer Life on 0451526207. Apple has iCloud & Photo Stream – Google has Google Drive – and Microsoft has SkyDrive; we also shouldn’t forget Dropbox, another hugely popular cloud storage provider. Google Drive and SkyDrive work very well on both iPhone/iPad and Android devices. However there are some manual steps still required to upload your photos from your smartphone to the cloud. By far the easiest and automated way to get your photos from your phone and to your computer, is Dropbox. Dropbox can automatically upload Supporting Local Computer Users for 8 Years Technology Specialist Computer Repairs and Sales Home Office & Small Business IT Support Ian Piggott email: [email protected] JANUARY 2014 > COFFEE SHOP GOSS > BANORA POINT TO KIRRA > 3