The concept of cloud computing and cloud storage has been around for as long as the internet has been around. I guess you just didn’t know it.  Basically cloud  computing or cloud services are web based services that are hosted on a service online such as file storage, document creation and editing, photo sharing etc. One of the obvious cloud based services is email. Email has been around forever. It has almost become a part of our social fabric.  I wonder if we could ever live without email. In case you didn’t know, websites are stored in the cloud. The cloud is not some place in the sky, but rather computer servers accessible through the internet. Apple’s icloud is one of the latest entrants into the cloud computing craze. Apple is notorious for taking existing technologies, wrap them up in their magical branding and push them out as totally new technologies.Of late, the technology giants have been locking horns in the battle for domination of the cloud. Your yahoo, gmail, hotmail and live accounts basically reside in the cloud allowing you access from wherever you might be, as long as you have internet access.Your facebook and twitter accounts also reside in the cloud. All your photos, videos and posts are stored in the cloud. The PlayersThe battle for the cloud is really beginning to heat up. The usual suspects (Apple, Google, Microsoft) are joined by some new contenders (Amazon, Dropbox). It will be interesting to watch how this battle plays out but for now, let us examine the different offerings from the individual players.Microsoft  SkydriveMicrosoft offers a generous 25GB of freebspace on their Skydrive which you can use to store and share documents, videos, photos and any files of your choice. Skydrive is accessible through you Windows Live or Hotmail account as well as Windows phone and Mac/Windows computers. You can upload files of up to 50MB.  You can also drag-and-drop files through Internet Explorer.  Microsoft’s suite of web applications allow you to create and edit word, excel and powerpoint files. Apple icloudRecently launched, Apple’s icloud offers 5GB of free storage space for storing and synchronizing music, photos, apps, documents, emails, contacts and books. All content stored in icloud is automatically synchronized across all devices (ipad, iphone, Mac) allowing you access your content on any device. Apples’s itunes match allows you to upload up to 25,000 tracks that can be shared on all your devices. This service costs $25 per year.Amazon Cloud DriveAmazon cloud service offers 5GB of free space for storage of any type of files. This service is accessible through flash enabled web browsers. This means that i-devices such as ipads and iphones cannot access Amazon’s cloud service.  Additional space can be purchased at $1 per Gigabyte. Google Cloud ServicesGoogle has a suite of cloud based services, namely Gmail, Google Docs and Google Music. You get 1GB of storage in Google Docs, 1GB of photo storage through Picassa and 7GB of space for Gmail. Google Docs is a free web-based Office suite which allows users to create and edit documents online. Users can also collaborate on projects such as presentations, spreadsheets and documents. Google Music on the other hand allows you to upload up to 20,000 tracks for free. More space can be purchased at $5 for 20GB or $4000 for 16TB per year. All of Google’s services are accessible through the browser.DropboxDroppbox is an easy and fast cloud storage service which offers 2GB of free space. More space can be bought for $2 per GB. Dropbox works seamlessly across all platforms including Windows, Mac, Linux, Ubuntu, Iphone, Ipad and Android. All files stored in Dropbox are kept update on all devices.  The service is accessible through the browser or a desktop application. The desktop app shows up as a folder for drag-and-drop uploading of files. Dropbox folders can be shared with other Dropbox users. Other PlayersSome of the minor players include Yahoo’s Flickr for photo storage, Evernote a note-taking application with online storage and Youtube for video storage. Flickr offers 100MB of free space for photos and artwork. Unlimited storage is available at $25 per year.So there you have it, anything you wanted to know about Cloud Computing, the future of computing.  www.afrogeek.tk