a fundamental guide to computing
by Justin Geigley
“The Cloud”?
you get the point. The cloud isn’t really
that new of an idea and it’s not really
By now, I’m sure most of that scary to think about. People have
been operating in the cloud for years
you have seen a commercial
and not even thought about it.
or heard someone talk about
What has made it a big deal
“the cloud.” What is the cloud?
lately is that computer technology has
That really depends on the context
progressed far enough and has gotten
but at its most simple, the cloud refers
cheap enough that there are now ways
to doing anything on the internet
to offer services on the internet that
that used to be only done on the local
used to be reserved only for the comcomputer.
puter. For example, there is a website
A little confusing perhaps but let’s that allows you to do fairly advanced
make it practical. A lot of you are prob- drawing in a way that just a few years
ably using the cloud to do things and
ago would have had to be done by innot even realizing it. Do you have an e- stalling a program instead of typing in
mail address that ends in “gmail.com”
a link. Check it out, it really is a blast!
or “hotmail.com”? What about upload- muro.deviantart.com/
ing pictures to Facebook? That e-mail
Another example of a cloud service
service and those photos on Facebook
is file storage. There are numerous free
are all in the cloud. Of course, these
services that allow you to store imporreally are just very simple examples but tant files online and then access them
anywhere you have internet access.
Pretty handy when
you need to take
a quick look at a
previous year’s tax
U pcoming c oncerts
return or download
a powerpoint preEnds Dec 3 The Confession
sentation. Try out
Nov 11-12 Chuck Wagon Gang
dropbox.com.
One of the bigNov 12
Christmas Light Parade
and Lighting Ceremony
gest splashes in the
tech world lately
December 2 & 3
Christmas Piano Extravaganza
has been iCloud
Whitmire,
Chuck Wagon Gang Wtih: Kim Collingsworth, StanSisters!
by Apple. Released
Tim Parton and the Hayes
Christmas Lighting Ceremony
in October, this
& Light Parade on 12th
Dec 7-17 Glory & Majesty/
is Apple’s answer
Christmas
to the increasing
November 11 & 12
Dec 31
New Year’s
fragmentation of
Extravaganza
Piano Extravaganza
cloud services such
Jan 6-7
Booth Brothers
as e-mail, calenDecember 2 & 3
dars, contacts and
Feb 11
Flying W Wrangers/
Valentine’s Celebration
even some business
The Confession Feb 24 - Crist Family
documents. All the
services are simple
Ends Dec. 3rd!
View our website for the complete schedule
to set up and are
Schedule subject to change without notice.
kept in sync be105 E. Middlebury St. • Shipshewana, IN
tween your iPhone,
• 260-768-4725 •
iPad, iPod Touch,
w w w. B l u e GateT h eater. co m
and Mac ... which
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10/18/2011 4:52:30 PM
means it is less useful if you don’t have
at least one of those!
All of these services are slowly
taking the focus away from what your
computer is capable of doing and putting it on what the service is capable
of. That’s the direction that the cloud is
taking us in. Who cares if your computer can calculate faster than any other
on the block? Facebook will still look
the same and your e-mail won’t be sent
any faster. Granted, we aren’t there yet,
but it’s coming and it’s coming fast.
Questions? E-mail me at justin@
geigley.com or call 574-215-4110.
LaGrange Bookfest
BookFest 2011 was sponsored
by Early Childhood Alliance and was
held at the LaGrange Public Library on
Thursday, September 29. The event was
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