Now You're Cooking! Tip - January-April 2014

January-April 2014

Keeping Your NYC User Folder in the Cloud

When you keep data in the "cloud", you are keeping your data (or a copy of it) on a server somewhere.

For cloud operation with NYC, we have explored moving the NYC User Folder to the free Google Drive, and we found that it works great. Here are the steps:

Make sure you have a Google account and you know your userid and password for it.
Create a Google Drive folder at drive.google.com by downloading and installing Google Drive on your computer (you'll need your Google userid and password).
Run NYC and use Tools... Options... User Folder... to move your User Folder to the Google Drive folder on your PC:

                Suggestion: On the User Folder tab window, rename the folder in the bottom textbox like this:
                                        "c:\Users\USERNAME\Google Drive\Nyc5XXuser" where XX is the version, e.g., 591 for version 5.91, etc.

                Example:     If your Windows user name is "Gary" and you are using NYC 5.91, then call your new User Folder:
                                   "c:\Users\Gary\Google Drive\Nyc591user"

Now just use NYC as you would normally. Google Drive automatically keeps all files synchronized for you. This means that when you make changes to NYC user files (now under the Google Drive folder on your PC), they are made in the cloud as well when the next synchronization occurs. You can access your NYC user files from any PC that has internet access and Google Drive installed. You can keep up to 15GB of data on your free Google Drive. Above that, you pay about $5 for the next 100GB of drive space. I believe the cloud approach would relieve you of the burden of making backups, because Google Drive is probably backed up regularly by Google.

While keeping data on a server is very useful, you are not as secure as if you were keeping your files on your local hard drive. I can imagine a hacker getting your Google id and pw then uploading a malware to your cloud folder, which Google Drive will then sync to your PC. See Google Drive security tips for how to make sure your computer is secure. Here is an important excerpt:

Here are some tips you can use to ensure the files you store in Google Drive safe and secure:

· Make sure that your Google account is secure.

· If you share a computer and don't want others to have access to your Google Account, sign out of your Google Account when you're finished using the computer.

· If you’re on a public or shared computer, you shouldn't install Google Drive for your Mac/PC, as anyone with access to the computer would be able to open and view your files.

· Choose an appropriate sharing setting — Private, Anyone with the link, or Public — for your files, folders and Google documents.

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