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Slow Eddie wrote: After the first free year, it would cost me about $22.00, as I will only use it for storage.
How much do they sensor your private files nowadays?
Years before Azure, MS offered a web backup service. One Norwegian guy was informed by MS that unless he within 48 hours removed that photo of him changing the diapers of his 4 hours (!) old daughter, his account would be closed down. MS considered a picture of a 4 hours year old baby on a changing table to be 'child porn'. The photo was stored in a folder requiring a password for access.
This case is one (of several) that has led me to the conclusion: Never ever use a web service for backup! Maybe you agree with the conclusion from MS, that a photo of diaper changing is child porn. I consider it an even bigger problem that MS discovered the photo, and note: without being told the password.
So: If you let MS (or any other web based file service) store your files - photos or otherwise: Encrypt the files before leaving it to the storage service. Encrypt them yourself. If MS, or anyone else, says 'We will encrypt the files for you', then you give the service provider full access to all your private data. I am not willing to do that.
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Would be better not to use online storage at all.
Get a NAS or a file server or removable disk just not online.
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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Amen.
The problem is getting it off-site. If you have a workplace in a different risk zone (with respect to e.g. landslides, earthquakes and fires), you may bring daily incremental backups to that site, as long as your employer does not object to you having a private backup disk located at your workplace.
Some work places are in the same risk zone, not much different from having a home office. Some workplaces won't allow you to use workplace resources for private purposes, not even if you use your own, external backup disk.
But the major obstacle is that very few backup systems are suited for you every morning bringing your incremental updates to work on a memory stick for backup saving on the backup disk at your workplace.
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I hope you're not under the impression Azure is just file storage.
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Certainly not. But if they even can't leave my private, password protected files alone, can I then trust them to leave alone any other information I put into Azure?
I will trust them (and all the others) just as much with my private photos as with my business information. That is: Not at all.
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I'd call you paranoid, but only as a joke. Even if it is all work related, Microsoft does not have a good track record for security (/sarcasm). I'm mindful of the article where Microsoft had to admit that 4 major users of Azure had their databases wide open.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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charlieg wrote: I'm mindful of the article where Microsoft had to admit that 4 major users of Azure had their databases wide open.
As with any other cloud service provider, MS isn't responsible for how end users, even if it's a large organization, configures their security. While I know nothing about this particular story, it's doubtful this was an out-of-the-box setting. I'm betting some admin got frustrated at the default ridiculous-barriers-every-step-of-the-way default and just opened everything up to make his job easier.
Fortunately Azure also provides tools to analyze said configuration.
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No. I am not. However, that is all I thought I needed it for.
ed
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So...Azure may be complete overkill. Sound like you just need OneDrive - but OTOH the various Azure storage options give you a lot more control over what MS can or cannot read. OneDrive is a mere consumer service (with a free tier) - are you surprised they poke around to see what data they're made to host (and thus are liable for)?
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Years ago, somehow my personal Hotmail account got linked with my work email, and I've been able to log into the Azure portal with my personal account and get, I believe, a $200 credit that renews every month. I've created some VMs and a tiny web site, and still to this day have never gone over the free credits.
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Slow Eddie wrote: I am thinking of opening a Microsoft Azure Account.
An excellent idea, IMHO. Azure is a great (and very wide) ecosystem and it's well worth learning specific parts of it.
Slow Eddie wrote: I just got a BeeLink microcomputer,
I wish you'd asked for advice on CP before buying it. I've been using NUCs since 2011 (before the term was invented by Intel). In 2011 I bought a Gigabyte Brix NUC (4-core, 8 thread, i7, 16GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) that I put together myself. That box runs Win7 (yes, Win7). Because I need a Win10 machine at home (I already use one at work), I'm buying an Intel NUC (Gen 11 i7, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, Win 10 - clean with no 3rd party apps) in order to run VS 2022, integrate more with Azure and have a better environment for building mobile apps and doing audio post-production.
/ravi
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Bought Beelink for the low price. Don't know where to find one or how much it costs. is NUC an acronym?
ed
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Slow Eddie wrote: is NUC an acronym?
Next Unit of Computing.
IOW, marketing BS.
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I love my NUCs. I started off with a Gen5 (I think?) with 16GB of RAM and it's still the only machine I have on my desk. It's driving 3 monitors (including a 40" 4K TV) and I use it daily to RDP into VMs where I do actual work on. Best dumb terminal I've ever had, even though it's got quite a bit of horsepower on its own.
I bought my second one (with 32GB of RAM) to help host VMs when my primary host (with 64GB) was constantly running out of memory. I only wished the NUCs supported 64GB back then (I'm sure they do now, if not more). Although I was not impressed by the later offerings, which seemed a lot larger - defeating the whole small form-factor point, IMO.
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I use Azure every day... It has it benefits, but mostly very poor documentation...
You will have to learn everything on your own, and can't really trust the default settings of the services...
Also every bit you add may, or may not, add extra cost (so you have keep an eye for the actual cost)... If you can't pass the cost over to your customers it is actually very expensive, so I would not recommend it as pet-project platform...
“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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We just launched out first cloud-based app a couple of months ago, using Azure. The solution works great, and is extremely fast considering the number of records we already have loaded to it. Our app is designed in Visual Studio, making use of its ability to create HTML, and tying it all to an Azure database. Azure is highly customizable, offering you the ability to manage/select your storage capacity, bandwidth, security (firewall, or not, for instance). The monthly cost is way cheaper than a dedicated web server hosting service would have cost us and can be scaled to meet your needs.
By far the most difficult part was using our own domain with the service. Do NOT try to purchase a domain name through Azure. You will be lucky if the purchase ever goes through. The configuration of a custom domain name to be used with them is very complicated and convoluted, and requires several customized DNS entries and then interlinking your Azure services to SSL Certs, the domain, etc. I managed to wade through it all after much trial and error, and have been very happy with it since.
One of the biggest pros IMO is that everything is scalable as I said above. I can increase storage, or bandwidth as needed, or can beef up my security profile up to whatever I am willing to pay for.
Having said all of this, I still don't trust Azure or any other service for anything highly confidential. It will likely be a long time before I comfortable enough to move any of our critical data or apps to the cloud.
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Storage is super cheap to buy, super easy to use.. so why rent it at a premium price-point?
If you want to use the cloud for file access from multiple personal devices, use OneDrive instead.
If you want to serve multiple users the same files, buy storage and host it behind a Zero-Trust gateway instead.
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Today, after going online, I'm getting very specific targeted ads for a particular item; an item I've never looked into.
It so happens my partner had been searching this item on "her machine" a day or 2 previously; so this goes beyond cookies; and they're tracking IP addresses via the browser and sites like MSN with Ajax, etc.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Similar experience/observations here. So much for privacy 
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Yep,
I recently bought all my groceries online and had them delivered. Half my grocery list is showing up on MSN and when I read the morning news. The ads show up on every device in the house, including my TV browser and development workstation.
Super distracting to see ads containing my groceries.
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Yeah, I know what you mean...
My wife had started to look for diapers and baby clothes... before telling me she was pregnant. And that some years ago 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I'm betting she logs into her own profile on "her machine", and the browser on yours happens to also use the same profile. So a user's settings follow them around from system to system.
Don't confuse site login with browser login. Personally, I avoid giving a browser any credentials.
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yes, it has become quite useless to target only the cookies when there are several devices under the same connection and they took this further...
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