 Club members Sylvia S had a question about Google at this week's iPad & iPhone user group session.
She had recently received an email to say that her Google account was nearly full and that, if she doesn’t clean it out, she will soon be unable to send/receive emails for her Gmail account. Her question was: “How do I work out what is filling up my Google account and then clear out storage”. While it may just be a lot of mail that is filling up the Google account, it can sometimes be other content that is the culprit – for example, photos. So, where do you go to look at the content of your Google account?
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One of the regular topics of discussion at our iTandCoffee User Group is 'the cloud' - and the various Cloud services that are available. What are they, why would you use them, and resolving issues with them.
During the special User Group held during filming of the Channel 9 News story, we looked at these topics. The video of this discussion and demonstration has been uploaded to the iTandCoffee Club members area, and is available for any members to view - just use the button below.  When you download the Google Photos app to your mobile device, you may inadvertently turn on a feature that causes your device's photos to automatically sync to your Google cloud.
If you already use iCloud Photos on iOS, or some other sync service like Dropbox or OneDrive, there may be no real need to do this (unless you intend to use Google Photos to share with family and friends, etc.). If you no longer wish to backup your device's photos to the Google cloud, you need to adjust a setting in the Google Photos app - and turn off the Backup & sync setting that is causing this upload to Google. 6/3/2020 0 Comments How do I delete all of the photos or files that I have accidentally uploaded to Google If you have installed the Google Photos app on your mobile device, or the Google Backup & Sync service on your computer, you may find that you have inadvertently been uploading and storing your photos and/or files in your Google Cloud.
This is what happened to two clients this week, who were both getting messages that their Google account was full.  I have been asked recently about an email doing the rounds, relating to changes to Dropbox - specifically, whether the email is legitimate and whether the recipient should do anything about it.
The email received contains something like the information shown in the image above. The change that has been made by Dropbox in March is to limit the number of devices that can use a free Dropbox account to three. Their aim is to get you to upgrade to a paid Dropbox plan to unlock features like unlimited devices and more (which will cost users AU$152.90 per year for 1TB of Dropbox cloud storage). 5/5/2016 1 Comment Kids who lose their school or uni work due to computer glitch - and the parents who suffer the consequences! I have lost track of the number of times that I have been contacted by parents who are dealing with distraught secondary or tertiary aged students in their household - kids who have had a 'major technical glitch' and have lost key files from their computer.
In some cases, it has been a hard drive crash that has caused the loss of ALL of the content of their computer. If you are a parent of a child who uses an iPad, other tablet, or computer for their school or uni work, it might be time to check in with them to see if they have a backup strategy in place for their important and precious files. If they have a computer, do they back up regularly to an external hard drive? Or do they use a cloud storage solution like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or iCloud Drive? Do they use iCloud and have iCloud Backup enabled on their iPad and iPhone.? It is so easy to put in place a backup strategy and keep important information safe. If they or you don't know how to do this, iTandCoffee can help. We are seeking expressions of interest for a new session on the topic 'How to keep your valuable data safe - options for backing up and cloud storage'. If you are interested in attending such a session - or sending along your student child - please email classes@itandcoffee.com.au to let us know. We will then be in touch if there is enough interest to run this class. (Note. Private appointments can be arranged at any time, either at iTandCoffee or in your own home.) Just in case you are interested in some further reading matter, here are some previous articles published by iTandCoffee on this very topic. 28/3/2015 0 Comments Dropbox saves the day - again! What do you do when that document that you have been working on for days - perhaps weeks -suddenly loses all its content. Something you did resulted in the loss of every single word that you had written, and left you with an empty file. Or perhaps you deleted the wrong file.
We all know that feeling. The sick feeling in the pit of your stomach as you contemplate having to start all over again. This very situation arose for an iTandCoffee client just this week. On opening the file containing her 'work in progress' autobiography, she found an empty file - everything, apparently, gone! Fortunately for this client, we had only the week earlier moved all of her important files to her Dropbox. (She had previously set up Dropbox on her computer, but had never actually used it.) Why was this significant? One the most fantastic things about Dropbox (apart from the fact that it shares your folders and files with all your devices) is that it keeps previously saved versions of your files - even those you have deleted. This meant that we could retrieve the last version of the file that she saved before she 'wiped' her content. While she did lose her unsaved edits, this was so much better than having to go back to an older separate file that she had saved one month earlier! The ability to easily retrieve lost files - or access your files if something happens to the device that you normally use - is something that I would never be without. Other services offer similar cloud storage and version management, but Dropbox is my favourite at the moment. So, tell your student children about this - they need to be sure that they have a 'backup plan' for the school work and Dropbox is an easy option to set up and use. And think about setting up Dropbox for yourself (if you haven't already). If you are interested in coming along to an information session about Dropbox in June 2015, click here to check out the available dates and to book.
After trying initially to work out the source, she determined pretty quickly that she needed to call the fire brigade, who were there within 4 minutes! It turned out that the source of the smoke was a fire that had started in her computer tower, down under her desk!
While she was so incredibly lucky to have been awake and have detected the smoke so early, her poor computer was not so lucky! And while she had a back up of her important files, what she did not have on that backup was her list of contacts - all the email addresses for family, friends, work colleagues etc. So her lesson learned, she called iTea&Coffee to find out the best way of ensuring now that her contacts (especially) are 'cloud-based' so that she can access them even if something were to happen to her computer. She was very keen for me to get the message out to other iTea&Coffee clients and subscribers about the lesson she has learned - don't think this sort of thing can't happen to you! If you need help with better understanding or putting in place any cloud storage solutions for your contacts and other important data, just contact iTea&Coffee on 1300 885 420 - or email enquiry@itandcoffee.com.au.
Well, there are some great alternatives to iCloud backups for your photos - and they are definitely cheaper than Apple's additional iCloud storage options. Here are some of the alternatives and their comparative pricing ...
So if your iCloud backup is bursting at the seams, why not set your photos to back up to one of these 'clouds', and turn off your iCloud backup of your Camera Roll. iTea&Coffee can help with all this if it all sounds too complicated or if you're just not sure how to get it all workings - call 1300 885 420 or email enquiry@itandcoffee.com.au. Check out this recent article from The Age, which looks at the pros and cons of some of these services for backing up your photos. 2/4/2014 0 Comments Are you using Dropbox yet?Are you 'in the cloud yet?' I had a client last week who had deleted a whole folder of assignment work, just before the assignment was due. We all know that feeling - it just makes your knees go weak!
Luckily she was using Dropbox, so it was so easy to get back the work she had deleted. If you or any of your children are studying, or if you are in business, Dropbox is a fantastic tool for keeping your hard work safe and accessible on all your devices! iTea&Coffee is here to help you get set up and sync'd - so that your files are available on ANY device. We'll be running a session soon on this, so stay tuned ... Here is a link to Dropbox - it's easy to download and install it on your computer (both Mac and Windows) and mobile devices. Once you have it installed it on your computer, you can then install Dropbox App on your iPad and iPhone - it's available from the App Store. And why not check out this article about 'backing up to the cloud' - published in The Age recently. |
What's on at iTandCoffee ?Below is our list of videos, classes and other events that are coming up soon.
Videos shown are offered for eligible members of the iTandCoffee Club. If you have questions, why not join fun and informative 'user group' meetings, held once a month. All iTandCoffee classes are run as online classes (using Zoom), which means you can attend from anywhere. |
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