My advice: talk to a helpful human before you transition to a new PC or cell phone. And make sure they’ll be there when you begin changing. This will spare you the anguish I went through as I was moving from MiTek devices to my own. I had presumed that I could do this on my own as I had in the past…but not without learning a lot more about the Cloud, which seems to be taking over the computer world.
What I saw right after I loaded Outlook on my new HP laptop overwhelmed me. A listing of four different Cloud storage locations appeared in Windows Explorer:
Dropbox: a third-party app which came over from my MiTek laptop
iCloud Drive: which Apple suggested I use with Windows 10
iCloud Photos: from the photos I take with my iPhone
OneDrive: a Microsoft app which came with Outlook
I thought I’d simplify storing files and retrieving them by selecting a single provider. But then I wasted countless hours hacking around the Internet and moving data around without advancing the cause.
Finally, I spoke to helpful people at both MiTek and Microsoft. They called attention to the status symbols in the Windows Explorer. The circled checkmark tells me that the files I’m not working on are stored both on my laptop and in the Cloud. The circled arrows tell me that the files I am currently accessing are also stored in both places but are constantly syncing (uploading to the Cloud) as I modify them. This insight gave me confidence that I could safely keep my pictures on Apple’s iCloud, and my documents on Microsoft’s OneDrive. And, so far, I haven’t lost track of any data.
Moving the contents of my business phone to my new personal one was much simpler, but only after receiving human help. I first studied the AT&T website to determine what kind of service to select. But on that site, too, I was overwhelmed by the vast array of my past usage data and multiple plan options. I could have completed the task right on that website. But, learning from my PC experience, I went into the phone store and asked an AT&T agent to guide me. A month later, I went back there to change my service plan, as my data usage had changed now that I’m retired.
We’ve become increasing self-reliant during the pandemic, thanks in part to the software in our phones and computers. We can gain a deeper understanding of this amazing technology by self-study. But we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking we can easily transition to new devices without human help. Talk to the experts. They’ve “been there and done that” and will make your experience much more pleasant.