Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 24

Good morning networking friends.
So after the celebrity hacking scandal everyone is  probably feeling a little bit more insecure about what the keep on the cloud.  I for one use the cloud in several ways and have actually used Dropbox
for 3 years now.  But what maybe don't think about is all the other services, app, etc that store our data on the cloud for us.

Every time I take a picture with my phone it is automatically uploaded to my G+ account, a service I love but alas does increase the risk of my photos being hacked.

Since I just purchased a new HP they offer a free cloud storage, Bullgaurd protects my computer and provides me cloud storage for my backup, you can store your photos for free on Flickr, Shoebox, Snapfish, Shutterfly.... I could go on forever with all of the apps and sites that offer storage on the cloud.

Often people I network with tell me that they avoid anything that will store their information, this is hard for me to believe since so many of us use some type of social media to promote ourselves.  If we don't we would have to be relying on word of mouth and good ole fashioned flyers or something.  Not many of us do that anymore.

Picture from http://www.sunpack.com/blog/tag/iphone/

Moral of the story no matter how we feel about the cloud it is here to stay and getting stronger.  I believe personally that we can use the cloud but keep in mind the risks and protect ourselves appropriately.

Picture from https://familysearch.org/blog/en/share-backup-dropbox/

Alternatives? Flash-drives, external hard-drives and discs.  Discs fill up very quickly even with zipping content.  They also run the risk of getting physically damaged the same goes with flash-drives and external hard-drives.  I have tried a number of these, some very expensive in the hundreds and right now most of them are in my closet waiting for the day I can afford to have someone remove the data from their dead carcasses.

Picture from http://lifehacker.com/5951822/how-can-i-recover-data-from-a-dead-or-erased-hard-drive

My conclusion is that the better choice for me is to store my work on the cloud, but with that being said I have to be careful.  Number one make sure it is a common reputable site to work with (often I use word of mouth and then researched it on the web.)  Two make sure to only load things that I wouldn't care if others see or associate me with. Three Backup my backup at least make sure that I have copies on my computer or in another cloud (things can go wrong I know first hand.)  And Four protect it with a good secure password.

I work for hospitals and usually their security rule is 8 characters, 1 number, 1 non-letter Character (like a !) and 1 capital letter.  Most often I through in a lot more than that but at minimum I suggest following the hospitals' rule.

I hope you find this helpful most of it is based off of my own experience and I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments.  This topic is important so I am sure all of us would appreciate the advise and your experience.

Now lets have some fun:

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