Mid-Life Cruising!!!: Internet

Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

How to Transfer Between Cloud Files ... Quick, Easy and Free!

A while back I discovered SkyDrive (now called OneDrive), a place to store files "in the cloud" for free (up to 15GB). I thought this would be a great place to back up this site and store our music files. I can't imagine losing everything on this blog, or all of our music! Ken and I have grown up listening to songs from the 60's and 70's, as well as the "oldies" from the 50's. As we grow older, music continues to be an important part of our lives and we enjoy most of today's music too. We don't like rap, country or some of the teeny-bopper bands, but we like the good stuff!

After downloading over 800 songs a little at a time, I've continued to upload new music files as I got them. I've had no complaints with SkyDrive, but was getting a little nervous about the limit of 15GB of free storage (although much better than the initial 7GB). Our music files are at about 8GB right now and I plan on storing movie files in the future, which could quickly eat up the rest of the available storage. So when Google's cloud, Drive, gave me an extra 50GB of free storage (for a total of 65GB) after activating my very first smart phone this month (woo hoo!), I wondered if it was possible to quickly copy my music files from one cloud to another.

After a bit of research, I came across Cloudsfer, a free online service (first 10GB then a fee) that doesn't require any downloads and quickly moves and/or copies your files from one cloud to another. I figured I'd give this a try, and it worked! It was very easy, and I was able to copy all of my music files in just over an hour. An hour was a lot less time than I'd spent downloading all the files to SkyDrive! Now I can keep all of my music and future movie files in my Drive cloud, while keeping my SkyDrive storage for documents and backing up this site. I may even store my photos there, but so far I've been happy with Photobucket for that.

So, if you want to move your cloud files around or copy them to another cloud (even a friend's cloud with their account/password information), Cloudsfer is a great solution! With all the free cloud storage sites and the ability to move or copy files, I don't see the point of paying for cloud storage.

BTW, wanna know how to record online music for a one-time payment of $20?! It's how we've gotten most of our music (we do support our favorite musicians when we can), and I've written a post here. We've been using this for a couple of years and love it.

Wanna listen to your own music on your smart phone without taking up precious storage space? Look for a post real soon about an app I found that allows us to stream all of our music files directly from the "cloud" to our new smart phones!

Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Frugal Fridays - Free Books!

I love to read, but my future plans of living on a sailboat won't allow space for many books. Also, my budget can't afford $20 every month for a good read. However, I came across a great site that provides tons of free ebooks that can be read online, downloaded, or sent to your eBook reader or mobile phone!

The site is called Project Gutenberg, and was founded in 1971 ... I didn't realize this was even a thought back then! There is no registration required, and there are all sorts of topics available. I looked up "Sailing", and didn't find anything, but then I looked up "Travel" and found several books about sailing.

The site also includes information about the founder, Michael Hart. Mr. Hart invented electronic books, and therefore left a major mark on the world. He seemed to be an amazing person who was also frugal, often using home remedies instead of going to the doctor and fixing his own car and home instead of hiring someone. He prided himself on being unreasonable, and he had some great words of wisdom. It's unfortunate that whether we want to or not ... most of us have heard of Snooky (not a fan!) and Lindsay Lohan, but not Michael Hart and so many other silent heroes that have been such a productive part of society. That's all I'll say about that!

Happy reading!

Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!

*For those that missed the other posts of this series, check them out below:

Friday, May 11, 2012

Frugal Fridays - Free Cloud/File Storage!

Today's technology is amazing! Nowadays, one can download a ton of photo, music and video files to a computer. Before I started this blog, I really didn't mess with computers much. I never took advantage of digital cameras or the ability to download music. However, this blog inspired me to start taking pictures and learning how to download and record music. I now have a ton of photos and music stored on our computer, and I often worry about losing it all.

I've heard about "cloud" storage, but the few I've come across charged more than I wanted to pay. Remember, I'm really frugal so $60 a year isn't something I consider "cheap". I wanted something that was either free or really inexpensive. Just yesterday, I came across something that may just be the solution! It's called SkyDrive, and it stores up to 7GB of files on your PC, laptop and smartphone (we don't have one of these yet) for free! The files can be accessed from any of your devices and there's no syncing or cables required. It works on Windows and Mac, and if you need more storage you can purchase an additional 20GB, 50GB, or 100GB for $10, $25 or $50 per year.

I have been thinking of file storage, backing up files, and preventing the loss of this site for a while now. Whenever I do ... my head starts spinning! I've thought about purchasing an external hard drive to store all of our photos and music, as I've often imagined our ipod falling into the water or our computer crashing! I've learned how to back up my site and save it to a file, so I'm thinking that SkyDrive may be an easy way to insure that I don't lose this site, our music and our photos.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm self-taught and really only know the basics about all this stuff. I'm going to download SkyDrive today and start using it. I hope this may also be a solution for some of you too! If you're familiar with this service, I'd love to hear your thoughts, opinions or suggestions on this topic.

Speaking of saving pictures, I've been going through all of our pictures from our recent vacation. We had such a great time, and I'll have more posts and pics of our vacation next week.

Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!

*For those that missed the other posts of this series, check them out below:

Friday, October 21, 2011

NKOTB - Memories n Melodies!

NKOTB (New Kids On The Boat) ... A Weekly Series Sharing Our Thoughts and Questions as Beginner Sailors and Future Cruisers. NKOTB or Experienced Cruiser ... Tell Us Your Thoughts!

I'm writing this post today, about 5 hours after I usually already publish it. Why? Well, my computer's been giving me problems all week, and after researching the internet it may be due to downloading the latest iTunes on my Windows Vista computer. Ugh! So, I'm using another computer and writing this post real quick, so bear with me.

Since all of my computer problems seemed to start when trying to update my iTunes for my iPod, I thought it would be appropriate for today's topic to be about memories and melodies ... or pictures and songs while cruising.

These problems that I'm encountering have got my wondering ... what do cruisers do to store and protect their songs and photos while exploring paradise? Currently, I am using Photobucket and my Facebook page to store my photos. I also have copies on my computer, but if my computer loses everything, will Facebook and Photoshop be sufficient?

Music is very important to us, and we couldn't imagine cruising without a large music library. I've been downloading music to iTunes and then syncing iTunes with our iPod. Our music library is pretty large now, so I just copied all of our music files to a flash drive. Now that our music is safe on our iPod and flash drive, I'm thinking that I really need to delete all of the music files from our computer, as they are taking up a ton of space. Is this my only option to make more space on my computer?

I hope to purchase an inexpensive video camera soon, as well as start downloading movies for those days when we're stuck in our salon. So, I have the same questions regarding movies and storing them.

I've taught myself everything I know about computers, therefore spending a crazy amount of time learning the ins and outs of creating a blog, a Facebook account, etc. I'd really like to save some time and would love to know what you all are doing to keep your memories and melodies safe, without crashing your computer!

Also, since I believe iTunes is the problem ... I'm wondering how I can sync my iPod to Windows Media Player instead of iTunes. I've been able to sync our flash drive to Windows Media Player, but my iPod already has a "relationship" with iTunes, which I can't get to ... help!

With the latest technology, I believe capturing memories and sharing them with friends and family is such a nice option. Your advice about WiFi, music, videos, photos, etc. are greatly appreciated!
Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!

Note: Here are the previous posts from this series. Check them out and feel free to give us your advice. We've really enjoyed reading your comments!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Spotify - Best Online Radio!

While watching "Clark Howard" the other morning to get the latest money saving tips, Clark mentioned an online radio station that he was really excited about, called "Spotify". He said that this online radio has been around for some time in other countries, and is finally here in the USA! What makes this online radio so great is that you control exactly what you listen to. It's like having a huge music library at your fingertips! You just type in an artist, album, or genre and hit play! You can even create a playlist and share the link with your friends.

Of course, I wasted no time checking this out and I have to say that Spotify is awesome! I knew Clark wouldn't dissappoint! No longer do you need an invitation ... anybody can join!

Another great product I recently found is Replay Music, which allows you to record music from any online radio or video! To make it even better, you can set Replay to transfer all of your recordings to i-Tunes and/or to your i-pod. I love this!

With the two of these products, I'm already working on quite a music library for our sailboat! In fact, here's a link to a Hawaiian playlist I created that will put you in the tropics. Of course, you need to join Spotify first to listen to this. I hope you enjoy it, and check our Facebook page in the future for more playlists.

Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Computers and the Internet

Because part of our experience with Mid-Life Cruising is the creation of a web site, I thought I'd write about the computer and internet itself.

For the past day I've been dealing with a virus on my computer. Right now I'm using another computer until I get mine running again. It seems that viruses are getting more difficult to avoid, as I don't open junk e-mail, I have Spybot, AdAware, and AVG installed on my computer, and I am very conscientious about my actions on the computer. However, I still became infected.

On another note, before I started this web site about 4 weeks ago, I really knew little about computers and the internet. Being a real estate agent, I knew how to check my e-mails, surf the net, and utilize the real estate software required by my business. However, that was all I knew! I don't use Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace and had no idea what to do with a digital camera other than take the picture. My husband, Ken, always handled saving the pictures onto the computer. MP3, zip files, downloading, uploading....all new to me.

In the past month I've learned a little about downloading and uploading and MP3s. However, I still have trouble e-mailing pictures sometimes, with errors such as too large a file or the person receiving the picture gets a huge picture, tiny picture, or right-sized blurry picture. I'm sure there's an easy solution. I just don't understand bytes and wouldn't know by the number of bytes if it's big or small. Also, how does a favorite CD turn into an MP3? An Ipod? I know what it is, but have never used one. Our sailboat, Nirvana, has a CD player and MP3 player. I assume that means an Ipod can be plugged into it? I'm sure all I need to do is ask my 18 year old daughter about this one. I guess we're getting old and need to catch up on the amazing changes in technology. We're working on it! If anybody has any input, we're always ready to learn.

I feel like I've come a long way in the past month. I know I still have so much more to learn. I have been really pleased with the ease of creating a web site, and the term SEO is now in my vocabulary. Not that it doesn't require a lot of time, because it definitely does! I'd really like to inspire those that have never even thought of cruising before, so I guess soon I'll be learning all about Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Already Ken and I are able to converse with other cruisers, and actually feel like we are no longer just on-lookers. Everybody has been so kind and helpful. It has been so great to find more and more people either with the same dream or already living it. Hopefully, our cruising contacts will continue to increase and we'll get to meet up with some of them somewhere in the Caribbean!

The best part of creating this web site is that we will now have a place to store all of our experiences and memories. I'm ashamed to admit that I have a huge box of photos in no particular order that are shoved in a closet somewhere. I hope to go through those photos one day and do something with them. At least from this point on our photos will be organized and easily accessible to not only Ken and I, but to our families and friends as well.

This web site is another aspect of changing the course in our life. We believe change is always good, and it keeps your mind young. At least we hope so! Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-life Cruising!

Mid-Life Cruising!!!

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

How to Transfer Between Cloud Files ... Quick, Easy and Free!