What do you think of "Cloud Computing"?

I like to be in control of my data. See this and this.

I completely agree with you on this one. It will make your personal data ever more vulnerable to hackers and being completely lost.

Although it is extremely convenient, so it may be beneficial to certain aspects of the internet and your data.

Cloud computing will be very big in the business world. I should know, as I work in one of the biggest technology companies. It will have many positive impacts, including making data more secure and archived, increasing interaction and collaboration with that information, manipulating it and viewing it in a new and interesting way. It will open doors that were previously closed, for example a person in a company who wants to try out a new software will be able to buy a subscription to it instead of taking 6 months and $40,000 worth of resources to implement.

On the personal side though, I do think a portion of cloud is overhyped. I always want to be secure in my possession of my data, I never ever 100% trust it to the cloud. I always have a local secured copy. That said, the ability to share my data on the cloud is very valuable and I gain many different interactions than if I had not shared. The most easiest example of this is of course photo sharing sites like Flickr, while you might not think they’re cloud they actually are, they enable the sharing and interaction of data on a scale never obtainable on a local computer.

Yes, there will be people trying to make a buck, like Microsoft trying to hold on to its flagship Office programs from Google, Open Office and Lotus Symphony open source or web based free programs. But no one is making you use this, no one will make you abandon your regular hard drive.

And I fully understand the implications of such sharing. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, after all. It’s the same thing when you get a reward from your credit card company, most times that’s in exchange for your spending history which they analyze and sell the analysis of. Same goes with online apps, they cost money to maintain and develop, so if you use some, then you will expect to pay. But no one is making you use it. Heck you can still use LaTeX or Notepad for all of your communications nowadays.

So Cloud is what you make of it. It can be good if you’re not dumb and foolishly believe it will hold onto your precious thoughts and items with the utmost of care. But it’s good to know that most times, web companies offer you a service in return for something, because that’s the way the web works. Whether it’s viewing an ad, paying for a Pro account, entering the codes on Rapidshare and waiting your turn, etc.

I’m with @dynamicduo here, it definitely has it’s positives but I think they are more to be found in the business world than personal computing. I’m a relatively private person on certain matters and how and what I use my computer for would certainly fall into those camps.

I just wouldn’t feel comfortable not having physical possession of my applications and data. I recall reading about a new web based OS that Google are developing and I straight away thought ‘fuck that, that’s way too restrictive for the user (needs an internet connection) and way too Big Brother like for the vendor’

Not every computer needs the internet, I know musicians and DJ’s that have “a certain laptop” that they never connect to the rest of the world on. It’s just their workhorse and safer that way.

Hope that all made sense, I’ve had a few drinks.

It marks the second coming of Jesus Christ.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I think you mean third…you’re forgetting about Bono.

“BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him , even those who pierced Him ; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him” – Revelation 1:7

”...they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds.” Mark 13:26

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18

“But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Matthew 26:64

Welcome to the Petabyte age of the Information Cloud.

Very soon, it will be impossible to lie to one another. Any statement will be verifiable immediately. Deception will be conquered, marking the reign of Truth.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the father except through me”

Accept the Way of Truth and Live.

I had MobileMe for awhile, and honestly I never used the iDisk feature which is what your talking about. I think it will become more popular in the future. But for me at the moment it is not useful.

I much prefer having external hard drives sitting on my disk. Like 4tb’s would do nicely.

I’d like to not have to be responsible for backing up my data. I have security concerns, but I figure good encryption software could help with that a lot. Also, you could probably store different parts of your data with different storage entities, and make it hard for people to track it all down, if they wanted it. Are there still anonymous redirecting servers out there?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies If the lord had wanted us to cloud compute he would have born us with computers sticking out of our butts and clouds on our toe nails.

I work for a “cloud” company so I think it is great :)

I thinks it’s like any other computer trend: useful, but over-hyped. Some things it is great for, but you’ve got to consider the trade-offs and alternatives.

@Melonking

Although most of us have central computers within our skulls, I suppose that some do have them sticking out of their butts. Beyond that there is also a full processing system within each cell in our bodies. A genuine information cloud is reached at the petabyte level. A petabyte is considered 600 terabytes or more. Each DNA molecule holds 600mb of information. Multiply this by the billions of cells in the human body and cloud computing is reached with no problem.

http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/
“The source code is here. This not a joke. We can wonder about the license though.”

“Some experts are worried that a few maverick companies are already gaining monopoly control over the core “operating system” for artificial life and are poised to become the Microsofts of synthetic biology.”

“We’re heading into an era where people will be writing DNA programs like the early days of computer programming, but who will own these programs?” asked Drew Endy, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121601900.html

“Instead of running errands, RNA appears to be running the whole show,” said Isidore Rigoutsos, a lead scientist at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

The majority of the human genome [is operated] by a hidden RNA regulatory system that directs differentiation and development.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/09/24/dna_unraveled/

You can think of DNA as nature’s operating system.
http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=532

Before any one of those cells could grow, before any living tissue could be manufactured, before any polypeptide chains could be assembled, before anything could happen in ANY cell, DNA information had to be processed. Information processing is the very first act of Life.
http://lifeos.wordpress.com/category/manuscript/an-introduction/

We are walking computers, cloud covered.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Since I wrote the original question here, I can assure you that your replies may be a stream of consciousness opportunity for you, but they are not related to answering the question.

Cloud computing wins big on the convenience factor. Back when I worked in an office, I had to get myself a webhost so that I could work on documents at home and at work, constantly updating them manually. If I was still working in an office, Zoho Office, Google Docs and tons of other web apps would have had me covered.

Documents are only the beginning. If I have a vast MP3 collection on my computer, should I be able to listen to it anywhere? Cloud computing could make streaming your music very easy. Same for video or any other file. I’ve noticed that, in a sense, my life has become more portable. I’m not always at my desktop, so it’s very useful to have all my files available to me at all times.

I can’t count the number of times when I was at a school computer or an internet cafe and having my files on a webhost saved me from major disasters. On some rare occasions, though, I had not updated the file, or didn’t move a file I thought wasn’t needed, etc. Sometimes the computer I was on didn’t have Word or whatever program I needed to view my files. Cloud computing makes this all easier.

Another way in which cloud computing can be a positive thing is making money for companies. If you’re a small software developer, you can lose money to piracy. I’ve pirated my share of software in the past. But if you’re a small software developer that creates a web app with a reasonable subscription rate, piracy is no longer an issue. No one can pirate a web app. You must pay to use. I think that eventually, Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and other software packages will move to the cloud to curb piracy and increase profits. And this is okay with me, as long as prices are reasonable.

Privacy is an issue with cloud computing and I’m somewhere in the middle of the road on that. For most of my files, I don’t care if some algorithm is analyzing my trends. I do have a small handful of files that are completely private, and I’d like to be able to continue to access them only locally. But for this small exception, privacy isn’t that great a concern.

The move to the cloud is so convenient that for the most part, it outweighs many other concerns. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to buy the most powerful machine with the most memory because you’re not storing stuff locally? To access your files from anywhere? I think the shift to cloud computing is inevitable.

@PerryDolia

Perhaps not the answers you were looking for, but I have answered nonetheless.

“What do you think of cloud computing”?

It marks the second coming of Jesus Christ.

If you want me to fit into a particular box, then just say so. If you want honest answers from diverse opinions, then let my answer stand. My statements have been lightly challenged. I support them with scriptural and secular quotations. Stream of consciousness is not so often supported with such reason. Opportunity to share diversity was presented at the moment you posted this question. I will refrain out of respect for you and allow others to have the last word.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Thank you. Please continue to do that.

Must say. Past few days I’ve used Google reader and Google documents and i really like the ability to check and edit them at any computer. I’m a fan now.

Could computing is today’s vaporware