[yuezhi]

Amen. **** the cloud.

that's what i thought about twitter.

[Nuke]

I remember when the "cloud" was still scoffed at as a worthless buzzword. It wasn't even all that long ago really.

Cloud computing will continue to become more and more practical for end users, too. Not everyone has as awful of an ISP as Nuke.

its not that bad, you have to realize my problems are more of being a rural connection. considering i live on an island with a population of 3000 in the ass end of some state noone wants to live in, id say my internet is pretty good. also we had it upgraded to 4 megabit, with a cap raised to 25gb. i know people who have it much worse off.

my main issue with cloud computing is not the need to be constantly connected to the internet, but that you loose control of your own computing experience. your computer becomes nothing more than a terminal for accessing remote services and content. it is no longer a stand alone do everything machine, and it gives others the power to dictate what you can and cannot do with your own hardware. im rather disappointed with how dependent on the internet computers have become. with drm going to call home clients its created a situation where it is impossible to own a computer without also having to have an always on internet connection.

[Mongoose]

It is strange how the "cloud" line of development seems to be returning to the ancient mainframe/terminal model.

[Nuke]

see the problem with digital content and software (from the perspective of the rights holders) is that it can be duplicated indefinitely for free. they hate stand alone computers, because they let people do things outside of their control. so they insist that you do everything on their machines. they tell you that its the way of the future, that its better, that you cant live without it. all of the sudden they get control and you have an expensive terminal that cant think for itself and a monthly bill on top of it. all so they can continue selling information as if it was a physical product.

[Polpolion]

its not that bad, you have to realize my problems are more of being a rural connection. considering i live on an island with a population of 3000 in the ass end of some state noone wants to live in, id say my internet is pretty good. also we had it upgraded to 4 megabit, with a cap raised to 25gb. i know people who have it much worse off.

my main issue with cloud computing is not the need to be constantly connected to the internet, but that you loose control of your own computing experience. your computer becomes nothing more than a terminal for accessing remote services and content. it is no longer a stand alone do everything machine, and it gives others the power to dictate what you can and cannot do with your own hardware. im rather disappointed with how dependent on the internet computers have become. with drm going to call home clients its created a situation where it is impossible to own a computer without also having to have an always on internet connection.

Telling me that you have a 25gb/month bandwidth limit because you live in a rural area where "noone wants to live" and then in the same post griping that computers are too dependent on the Internet really doesn't help a general argument.

Personally, it's nice having a way to get to important files without toting them around on my flash drive, and it's great to always have access to computer systems that cost more than I make in a couple years. But I'm an engineering student living in a huge university town.

But the general Internet-faring population isn't too different. The most obvious differences are that they'll probably never care about distributed computing (if it's not available, I doubt I'll be in a position to whine about it anyway) as much as simply using the cloud. It is, however, incredibly useful to be able to make files portable or share them without handing someone a thumb drive or telling them to download it off of an FTP server you host in your basement.

To reiterate, if you need your own desktop computer chances are you have one. Give it a few years and I'm sure most people would be happy with whatever the Chromebook could turn into. I don't think cloud computing will ever replace the conventional computers we know and love, it's far too easy and feasible to write good software for them, but it's a convince I'm sure will catch on.

see the problem with digital content and software (from the perspective of the rights holders) is that it can be duplicated indefinitely for free. they hate stand alone computers, because they let people do things outside of their control. so they insist that you do everything on their machines. they tell you that its the way of the future, that its better, that you cant live without it. all of the sudden they get control and you have an expensive terminal that cant think for itself and a monthly bill on top of it. all so they can continue selling information as if it was a physical product.

It's as simple as not buying their product.

[Nuke]

Telling me that you have a 25gb/month bandwidth limit because you live in a rural area where "noone wants to live" and then in the same post griping that computers are too dependent on the Internet really doesn't help a general argument.

theres a reason i used two paragraphs instead of one. i addressed one point in the first paragraph and the other in the second. they have nothing to do with each other. i merely tried to clarify a perception about the kind of internet i have.

Personally, it's nice having a way to get to important files without toting them around on my flash drive, and it's great to always have access to computer systems that cost more than I make in a couple years. But I'm an engineering student living in a huge university town.

But the general Internet-faring population isn't too different. The most obvious differences are that they'll probably never care about distributed computing (if it's not available, I doubt I'll be in a position to whine about it anyway) as much as simply using the cloud. It is, however, incredibly useful to be able to make files portable or share them without handing someone a thumb drive or telling them to download it off of an FTP server you host in your basement.

To reiterate, if you need your own desktop computer chances are you have one. Give it a few years and I'm sure most people would be happy with whatever the Chromebook could turn into. I don't think cloud computing will ever replace the conventional computers we know and love, it's far too easy and feasible to write good software for them, but it's a convince I'm sure will catch on.

my major issue is when you put data on the cloud, you create a dependency upon that cloud. sure it gives you some convenience points, but what you loose far outweighs them. say you had data on megaupload that you need right the **** now, is that convenient at all for you? no. you put the control and availability of your information in the hands of others and they are failing. no level of convenience is worth the loss of control of what is yours. granted its a convenience i have no use for. i do not like to advertise my technical prowess in public.

It's as simple as not buying their product.

and that is exactly what i do. this is also a major reason i refuse to use cellphone technology. though i have been know to use parts of the radio spectrum that the fcc would rather have me not use.

[Polpolion]

theres a reason i used two paragraphs instead of one. i addressed one point in the first paragraph and the other in the second. they have nothing to do with each other. i merely tried to clarify a perception about the kind of internet i have.

You mean it's just a coincidence that the person here that is arguing against Internet file hosting has a 25gb bandwidth cap and the person without capped Internet is arguing for it? No, it's probably not the reason you argue that but I can't help but think it's likely you might have a slightly different opinion if you lived in a less out-of-the-way part of the world.

my major issue is when you put data on the cloud, you create a dependency upon that cloud. sure it gives you some convenience points, but what you loose far outweighs them. say you had data on megaupload that you need right the **** now, is that convenient at all for you? no. you put the control and availability of your information in the hands of others and they are failing. no level of convenience is worth the loss of control of what is yours. granted its a convenience i have no use for. i do not like to advertise my technical prowess in public.

I don't think I know anyone that keeps their only copy of all of their files in the cloud, and I doubt you do. I'd go as far to say that it's such a bad idea that even the general public doesn't do it, though I don't have any statistics to back it up.

With regards to megaupload you'd have to be double stupid to lose important files because you would have had to have the file to upload it, and then delete your local save to lose it.

[Nuke]

let me put it another way:

**** THE CLOUD!!!

if i wanted to terminal into a mainframe id have lived in the '70s.

[Polpolion]

all right I kind of assumed you knew what cloud computing was when you actually don't.


edit: my post was equally as unclear as yours; the problem I have with your post is that it implies an antiquity that simply isn't there. In the 70's not everyone had a computer. In the 10's not everyone has their own cluster, especially not to the extent of university or commercial ones. This is true, but you can still do everything and more that a mainframe could do with whatever computer you'll be using the access your desired cloud service. furthermore, the limitations of access to a mainframe in the 70's are much greater than that of access to a cloud service in the 10's. Citing the need to access the cloud serves as a reason to not use a cloud service is like citing the long walk to a terminal to not use a mainframe.

[deathfun]

i never noticed (adblock 4tw).

When I'm downloading my pornz, I like the ads. They get me started

[rev_posix]

all right I kind of assumed you knew what cloud computing was when you actually don't.


edit: my post was equally as unclear as yours; the problem I have with your post is that it implies an antiquity that simply isn't there. In the 70's not everyone had a computer. In the 10's not everyone has their own cluster, especially not to the extent of university or commercial ones.

And in the 12's, not everyone has access to broadband or a computer for that matter.  I know of more than a few areas that only has 'net access via dial-up or expensive satellite connections.

The 'problems', as I see it, with the whole push to "cloud computing" (ick, I feel dirty using that term in the manner it's being used now) as others have mentioned, are the lack of control and privacy that comes with using an online service, as well as the potential of suddenly having a fee tacked onto something you have become somewhat dependent on.  It also assumes a level of connectivity (read, speed and availability) that just is not there.

This is true, but you can still do everything and more that a mainframe could do with whatever computer you'll be using the access your desired cloud service. furthermore, the limitations of access to a mainframe in the 70's are much greater than that of access to a cloud service in the 10's. Citing the need to access the cloud serves as a reason to not use a cloud service is like citing the long walk to a terminal to not use a mainframe.

I don't think the intent was to compare the functionality of a mainframe to the functionality of a desktop machine (I've had pocket calculators that had more computing power than some mainframes), but a comparison to the style of system usage a mainframe was.  If everything was 'put into the cloud', it would be a lot like a mainframe, where the end user accesses their data and computing resources via a dumb terminal and nothing is local to the user.  Think of an 'Internet Kiosk', that's the mainframe model right there.

But I may be misreading the intent of your post, and this is far enough off topic as is, so I'll stop typing now.

[Polpolion]

And in the 12's, not everyone has access to broadband or a computer for that matter.  I know of more than a few areas that only has 'net access via dial-up or expensive satellite connections.

First of all, if someone doesn't have access to a computer then this entire discussion in completely moot. You need a computer for normal computing! I want to say that a decent internet connection is much more common for people that could use cloud computing than terminal access for people that could use a mainframe, but I really don't know. Anyway, household consumers by no means need a top-tier Internet connection for cloud computing to fill whatever needs the have. It's probably more important for commercial users, but chances are a company that relies on cloud computing isn't based in an area with a bad internet connection.

The 'problems', as I see it, with the whole push to "cloud computing" (ick, I feel dirty using that term in the manner it's being used now) as others have mentioned, are the lack of control and privacy that comes with using an online service, as well as the potential of suddenly having a fee tacked onto something you have become somewhat dependent on.  It also assumes a level of connectivity (read, speed and availability) that just is not there.

AFAIK most cloud services already cost money, and most of the time the people that could actually use them effectively are in a position to afford it. Speed and availability could be an issue, but honestly I'd sooner think problems would be on the consumer end than the cloud end. Honestly, control and privacy are probably just as much of a concern as they would be for any other task that requires an internet connection; the stakes are just upped. For the household consumer, again, this probably isn't an issue. And I doubt any company would have used something like Megaupload over Amazon if they could avoid it. (though I wouldn't exactly call Megaupload a cloud service provider...)

I don't think the intent was to compare the functionality of a mainframe to the functionality of a desktop machine (I've had pocket calculators that had more computing power than some mainframes), but a comparison to the style of system usage a mainframe was.  If everything was 'put into the cloud', it would be a lot like a mainframe, where the end user accesses their data and computing resources via a dumb terminal and nothing is local to the user.  Think of an 'Internet Kiosk', that's the mainframe model right there.

Again, I don't think anything is this heavily invested in the cloud. Even google's chromebook can do things offline. I don't think there will be anything like this until our internet technology approaches gets much better. I wouldn't want to do any computing on a piece of hardware that was nothing more than a screen with a few MB of ram and a wifi card on it; even really expensive Internet would be too slow to do much with painlessly. Plus, like I've mentioned earlier in the thread, 90% of all things people do on the computer wouldn't benefit from cloud computing. Data hosting happens to be one of the most practical things for a household user you can get with cloud computing, and that's more of a side-effect of doing things in the cloud rather than any "real" use of the cloud. Lots of that benefit is gone, however, if you only have a local network (eg your home network)  that you would access the data from. With that not only can you only access the data from a physically small area, but there's usually only a small number of people accessing the data at any given time. In situations like these, you wouldn't stand to benefit from hosting your backup copies on Amazon rather than something like Megaupload.

[BloodEagle]

I feel it important to note (what with cloud computing being discussed) that most ISPs will likely not support / offer "unlimited" data plans in the foreseeable future.

[Nuke]

id like to point out that computers are far more accessible than internet access. you can have a computer shipped to you in most major towns and cities. there are probably some more remote places where you need to make rather complicated arrangements to get a computer shipped to you. of course in those areas your probably not going to have reliable internet access. you might be able to get access over an expensive satellite service. for most of us its probibly not an issue but if you needed a computer in a 3rd world country it would probably be impossible to get internet.

my issue now is that almost every piece of commercial software out there these days needs to phone home to validate its license. i know people who have turned away from buying newer pc games because they did not have internet access and it was impossible to activate them. they insist on an artificial dependency on the internet to use their products. go down to the local software store and look at requirements on various software titles. id bet that %75 of them list an internet connection as one of the minimum requirements. it kinda puts the industry in a position to charge you a fee for you to use hardware that you own. you already see this kinda thing with smartphones (i do not now nor will i ever buy a smartphone). its likely they wont stop with computers.

that probibly doesnt have anything to do with cloud computing, but its a trend id like to see die.

[Polpolion]

yeah your issues have less to do with cloud computing than with an industry that likes to tell people that they use cloud computing as a marketing gimmick

[Sushi]

i never trust my data to be stored or backed up on any hardware that i do not own. want something done right, do it yerself.

I trust all my data to S4 Storage. It is provably 100% secure, and I don't have to worry about anything getting deleted.

[JGZinv]

how exactly do you get your data, or link to it, or much of anything (in case of crash or otherwise) if it can't be read from S4?

[Nuke]

i keep all my data on 4 hard drives. 1 in each of my good computers, 1 in an external enclosure and a 4th one i keep at my sister's house. nothing short of a tsunami or a nuclear war could make me loose data. super critical stuff i keep a copy of on my hacked 4g ipod.

an online backup service would not suit me well, as i have a lot of data, and a capped internet connection.

[Mongoose]

how exactly do you get your data, or link to it, or much of anything (in case of crash or otherwise) if it can't be read from S4?

[Mikes]

let me put it another way:

**** THE CLOUD!!!

I agree on principle but disagree in a very specific case: I love my own personal cloud server that lets me access all my files not just on my PC, but anywhere on my laptop, tablet or even cellphone as well.

And it's MY cloud... with MY harddiscs, i.e. MYYYYY Mainframe (mwahahaha? lol). But yeah, I totally agree: **** the centralised clouds run by megacorporations only out to make us dependent on it before they start nickle and diming us to death for everything that is free and natural right now.