Cloud computing services are a new way for IT companies to utilize the as-a-service models instead of building their own infrastructure. The as-a-service models include Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Each model offers a set of cloud services to businesses, and the business relies on computing services provided by the cloud vendors and builds their own applications and virtual resources like servers, databases, and node balancers.

For the last several decades, we have been using local hard disks or Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives to store our data. The photos we accumulated over the years, videos we created on special events (or YouTube), and documents we use on a daily basis are critical data we cannot lose. The advantages of using local drive over cloud storage are that it is fast (10X faster), cheaper (per megabyte), large capacity (1TB+), and available locally (portable and private). The disadvantages of using local hard drives are reliability (corruption and crash) and local (physical damage, fire, thunder). The average lifespan of physical hard drives is anywhere from 3 to 5 years, and they will need to be replaced for reliable backup. To circumvent reliability issues, one may choose to use NAS drive with RAID 1 mirroring instead. Video content creators such as YouTubers may want to use NAS drive along with cloud storage to utilize the best of both worlds.

No one is thrilled with making backups but some of us who lost data in the past know how critical it is to backup our data regularly. I used to make a backup of my PC on an external HDD, and replicate the contents back to forth when I get a new PC or new HDD. As size of HDD gets larger, I've upgraded my HDD a few times and finally moved to a NAS drive with RAID 1 mirroring. Having an external hard drive was great until cloud drives debutted in 2008.

To understand what anti-virus software is, we must first have an understanding of what a computer virus is and how they threaten our privacy. The main goal of antivirus software is to counter virus programs. At the core, a virus is nothing more than a program which continuously duplicates itself on a person's system. These programs typically either allow an unwanted user to gain access to the affected system or performs some unwanted action on the affected system. As such, viruses are almost always used for nefarious reasons by malicious programs, and as I've mentioned before; antivirus software came about to counter such programs.

In its simplest form, a computer virus is basically some form of software with nefarious intentions which continuously duplicate itself much like a regular virus would do within a human. This program typically alters the behavior of some device as it continuously duplicates itself so as to make it harder to purge from the system. This is accomplished through exploits and vulnerabilities found within the software to aid the virus' creator; to gain unwanted access to the system or to perform unwanted actions on the system.

The Cloud is a general term referred to as the Internet in a broad way. It generally refers to accessing computer, storage and applications over the Internet. It should be noted that these services involve the use of some extremely powerful machines, mega scale storage devices in remote locations that the user would not be able to access physically.

You've chosen to purchase a new PC for your everyday computing needs. What would you choose for your operating system: MacOS, Windows or Linux? It may seem a simple choice for the most, but you do have a choice.