I was recently lent a movie from a co-worker and had to pause when handed a physical DVD still in its glossy illustrated case. Would I save it as an image file somewhere and then stream it on a tablet to watch this? Rifle through basement storage boxes to locate AV cables and an actual DVD player? Didn’t optic drives in laptops go the way of cassette players in cars? The constant evolution of media storage is currently gestating in the “cloud”, the ubiquitous term for “someone else’s computer.” It makes sense. Why carry a very losable, possibly incompatible thumb drive/CD/DVD when you can simply log into the internet and view your files on any device. Devices that are now everywhere, including our smartphones.
Many of our patrons at the Sladen Library need to access their spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, etc. as they continue their education and research. In the past, HFHS IT offered a secured IronKey USB and a personal H: (Home) drive to provide personal storage space for these files. While these were certainly viable solutions, thumb drives now carry a security risk and the Home drive is only useful for when logging into a PC with personal credentials. In a clinical or public setting this could present a challenge
Which brings us back to the cloud. The latest and securest iteration of file storage for HFHS staff is Microsoft’s OneDrive for Business. If you are familiar with services like DropBox or GoogleDrive, then you know the advantage of having access to your documents practically anywhere. HFHS now provides a OneDrive business account for employees which will allow you to sync all of those Office files in one online space. At the Sladen library, patrons use a clean writable desktop on our PCs, and adding a OneDrive account gives them the ultimate access to accomplishing their research goals.
To get started, an ITR, or Information Technology Request, will have to be filled out.
Click on this link https://hfhs.service-now.com/hfhsess/order_itr.do (or call 248-853-4900) to start the process and choose “User IDS and Access” for service options. You should see under the Applications list a check box for “OneDrive Cloud Storage”. If you need to share documents with other employees your direct supervisor will need to submit the ITR on your behalf.
Click here for a handy FAQ on OneDrive: https://onehenry.hfhs.org/documentcenter/Business%20Units%20%20Departments/OneDriveForBusiness_FAQ.pdf
Once setup, you can simply login to https://portal.office.com with your HFHS credentials on any device with internet access to see your personal documents. With 1TB of storage (!) available, you should not have to remember that free store promotion USB drive when you are on the go.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find that DVD player….
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