OK, if you are going to define "Google Docs" as "Cloud" then maybe even
I have a use for it. The machines at work are moderately locked-down,
making it hard to get something I see there, or something I just happen
to think of (like a story idea) and want to get to my home computer,
across the boundary. But they have not locked out most of Google, Google
Docs is open, and I can use it as a set of files/folders common to both
machine. I never thought of it as "Cloud" but if it is, so be it.
Of course I don't use it for anything too sensitive. A "story idea,"
usually a few sentences, isn't worth stealing ... a complete but
unpublished story would be, and I generally wouldn't put it there.
Jim Hartley
Sean O'Connor wrote:
As with anything it all depends on context. In the context of
developers/IT people and platforms, your description is a reasonable one
for the term cloud computing. In the consumer context, the term has a
different meaning in it's most common use. In that context, the term is
used to refer to any service where the majority of the application's
execution and storage happens on centralized servers which completely
abstract any operational concerns from the user. Examples would include
gmail, dropbox, google docs, etherpad, github, and squarespace.
All of these services allow technically competent but not necessarily
sophisticated users to setup, configure, scale, and use systems which
previously they would have had to have hired an IT administrator to
setup and manage. They don't need to worry about dealing with outages,
running out of resources, or keeping track of backups. This is
enormously powerful and valuable for a very large section of users.
Finally as a bit of a bonus, there are a number of collaboration type
features which become much easier to implement when users are all
working on a common system.
If the privacy concerns are too great of a risk for you and you are
willing to spend the time and money to operate your own systems that's
absolutely your business and your right. Understand however that for
many other people, the ability to fill out a form and not have email
infrastructure be a problem for their company anymore is incredibly
valuable.
A side note on the privacy concern/trust issue: think about the
incentives for Google or any other large "cloud computing" company.
They basically make more money in the logn term by increasing the
number of people who use their services. Anything they do to
significantly violate a user's trust decreases the number of people who
will use their service over the long term. At the end of the day, they
may do stupid things (e.g. expose your address book via buzz) but they
have very strong incentives to correct those mistakes quickly and to
learn from them. When evaluating a service you need to look at more
than just what /could/ they do and think about what makes sense for them
to do. Look at the consequences for them if they do something "evil".
____________________________
Sean O'Connor
http://seanoc.com
On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:55 PM, Chris Knadle <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Monday 01 March 2010 21:54:51 Matthias Johnson wrote:
> On Mar 1, 2010, at 9:14 PM, Mark Wallace
>
> <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> > I see. the problem is that I just experienced over 60 hours
with no
> > internet access. Wouldn't that make it impossible to do much of
> > anything with my computer?
>
> Ok so this is probably the biggest back and forth on lug I have seen
> to date and it has morphed slightly off the original email but to me
> this is the most damning thing about cloud computing. If we were
in an
> always connected world it might work but we are not. Also the fact
> that open wifi is slowly becoming illegal these days the filtered
> options for public wifi will probably be less than desirable. Cloud
> computing is definately something not needed IMO. It also brings up
> the issues of fair use and such. Which laws apply? Where the server
> resides or the user?
>
> Matthias Johnson
I'll throw this in, as it might answer some of your questions concerning
"cloud computing" such as... "Whaaat is it?!?" [Cat from Red Dwarf...]
I recently went to an IEEE meeting about cloud computing (Nov 2009 I
think?).
As far as I could tell the term "cloud computing" mostly means "an
automated
method for a user to request and for a system to provision a virtual
machine,
with the specified resources". In other words, you visit a web page
to order
a virtual box, you choose what kind of setup you want from a list of
predefined configurations (one of which hopefully fits most of what
you need),
you click "go", and in a couple of minutes you've got a remote box
available
to you that you can ssh to, where you can modify the setup from there.
Sounded like from there you can automate spawning virtual machines with
duplicate configurations if you need to scale some network application.
As far as I could tell, it's mostly geared towards businesses that
can use
that kind of automation in order to handle a network load that
varies. It's
not an end-all be-all solution -- it's essentially a niche market.
For an individual, there isn't much need for this kind of system
unless that
person is running a business like Craig's List, Paypal, etc --
something that
needs to be able to scale. Whether "cloud computing" could host
services like
these more cheaply than doing it "in-house" isn't clear. If it
isn't, then
"cloud computing" is essentially a solution in search of a problem.
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration
Apr 7 - Nagios
May 5 - Android
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration
Apr 7 - Nagios
May 5 - Android
--
Teen Angel - a ghost story - http://teenangel.netfirms.com
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration
Apr 7 - Nagios
May 5 - Android
