Every now and then in the technological newspapers we talk about the cloud as the next frontier of information technology. Computers will, in the future, only terminals without memory and all data will be online, stored on huge servers that can always be reached on the internet .
Keeping data in storage "in the cloud" may be a future evolution but today suffers from limitations and fears related to data security.
With an application like DropBox you can upload files to the internet and also keep a copy on your computer.
However, if you are afraid that the most important data such as personal photos or work documents, being always online could be stolen and seen by strangers, you could find a different solution, transforming your computer into "cloud storage", reachable from all over the world, without limits, when this computer remains on.
In this way there is no need to synchronize files and upload them to the internet because you publish the hard disk, or part of it, directly online and whoever connects to it can download and download the files.
There are several ways to do this, some free programs that can be configured to turn your computer into a file server to share files online, accessible from anywhere in the world .
1) The Microsoft Onedrive program can be used as a file server in a natural way, only by activating an option in the settings and it is certainly the easiest and safest way.
2) The no limit and free solution to transform a computer into a fileserver is BitTorrent Sync which is capable of synchronizing folders so that they are identical on each computer and also on the smartphone or tablet, with direct transfer.
3) Tonido, the Cloud drive at home to have an online hard drive without limits
4) Weezo to create a server on the computer to share resources on the internet
5) PCloud is a free client server program that proposes itself as a "personal cloud for anyone", to create storage that is always available on the internet using your computer.
For now it is only available for Mac and IOS, but soon it will also be released for Windows and Android.
6) SyncCloud to create a personal Cloud Server on your PC, unlimited and free
7) Tappin (no longer exists) is a program that works on Linux, Mac and Windows and allows you to install an agent that makes the selected files and folders available, on the internet as if they were a website with files to download.
When installing the agent Tappin transforms the pc into a storage server and the files on the hard disk are visible and usable also via the internet.
The free version of Tappin has a somewhat annoying limit which means that you can access the cloud only 10 times a month and then a session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Homepipe therefore becomes useful only if it is expected that access to online storage will be only occasional and not usual.
On Tappin you can choose the folders to be shared on the internet for the computer where the agent is installed.
To access the files and connect to the shared computer remotely just go to the homepipe website and connect with the recorded data.
The nice thing then is that, in this way, there is no limit of 10GB, 20 GB or 100 GB; the limit is only your physical hard disk that is inside the computer so, if you have a Terabyte of space, you can also share it all and create a real storage server " in the cloud ".
Obviously, this computer must always remain on and with Homepipe it will be possible to connect only 10 times a month if you have a free account.
Remotely, via the internet, you can upload and download files to and from the online virtual disk with fast and easy transfers.
Tappin (HomePipe) also has an application for Android and iPhone mobile phones so that you can access your computer files from your mobile phone.
8) Pogoplug (no longer free) is another program that allows you to remotely access files and folders on your computer via the internet .
There is no need to upload each file individually to an online hard disk such as DropBox or SkyDrive, you can instead use Pogoplug, which allows you to move a whole computer "in the cloud", transforming it into a fileserver.
Pogoplug is a bit longer to install than the easy and quick Homepipe.
Once finished, however, you can configure Pogoplug by clicking on the icon in the system tray, drawn as a pink circle with a line inside.
After creating a new account with Email address and password you can choose which folders to share, for example documents, music, videos and images and photos.
You can upload open and download the files, to and from the computer that has pogoplug installed.
The files are not uploaded to the internet, it is the computer that becomes a server and projected online as if it were a website.
Obviously this PC must remain on with Pogoplug running.
The nice thing about Pogoplug is that it offers additional applications compared to just the fileserver.
For example, if you share the music collection on the internet, there is an online player to listen to streaming music, from the shared PC, without making file transfers.
The videos can be seen with the Cinema application while the photos with the Gallery.
