As a busy student, when our laptop crashes or gets stolen, it probably feels like your world has ended. All your photos, class notes, important files… all gone in a blink of an eye. No opportunity to go into the past to prevent what happened. It probably happens a few times in our lifetime. Sucks, but thats the reality of relying on technology.

Especially when you are studying for midterms or finals, you really do not want to lose everything on your computer. If you are like me, I don’t use pen and paper anymore and rely on my word document to take lecture notes.

With the emerging cloud-based programs that are coming out, there are so many ways to protect your data. My 2 favorite programs – Dropbox and Evernote utilize cloud-computing, where all your data is stored in a secured server on the internet. Instead of having the files stored on your computer, it is accessible through any devices with data capabilities such as a laptop, tablet and smartphone.

Dropbox

 Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, documents, and videos anywhere and share them easily with friends. Its a great program to use if you are accessing your data from several devices. I use it mostly to back up certain files just in case one day my trusty computer dies.A lot of companies use this program to transfer files to each other, so it is a trusted application to use.

It is easy to use and you get 1gb of free storage space. If you want more space, you can easily upgrade to 50gb for $10 a month.

Website: www.dropbox.com

Evernote

Evernote is a program designed for note taking and archiving. You can store information like a word document, webpage, photos, voice memos, hand written notes, and PDFs.

I love this program because I can always look up class notes on my iphone and just study on the bus without having papers or a laptop in my hands. The program is easy and straightforward to use. You never have to misplace anything again…unless you don’t label your documents correctly.

Website: www.evernote.com

With all these great programs, they do try to keep your information safe. Do still remember to have discretion of what data you put into the ‘cloud’. Do not upload files that have personal passwords, Social Insurance Numbers or anything of high value like banking information.

Have you used either of these programs before?