Feet On The Ground, Head In The Cloud

My home PC went on strike the other night, where the blue WordPerfect 5.1 screen of death got me down and missing DLL files made me frown.

I did the requisite rain dance but things were still wonky.  Panic attack led me to believe it was time for some extreme action - either reboot and reinstall Windows or...perhaps look into switching OS. 

I also took the opportunity to tap into what the world is buzzing about - cloud computing. 

I think so far, the best part of cloud computing has been that wonderful use of the word "cloud". 

Telling users their data is in the cloud is like telling a kid his dog has gone to -  doggie heaven. You and I know there is no doggie heaven as such and likewise, your data isn't floating in a cloud so to speak.  It is in fact, residing in a datacentre somewhere in a rural part of the world.
 

Honestly, none of that cloudy concept is new.  Think Hotmail, your Blog, your Facebook.  All of them aren't stored in your local hard drive, but are accessed by an umbilical cord linked to the internet.  How new is that?  But somehow it became ever so cool when Apple does it with the introduction of iCloud.

With iCloud, I can keep all devices on the same page with all my stuff. Take a photo on my iPhone and the photo got shot up to doggie heaven cloud and then rain falls back down into my iPad and whatever else I have as long as it's - made by Apple.

The trend is basically saying, as more and more of our data evaporates off our hard drive and ascend into doggie heaven, Steve Jobs up there will get more control over us.

I suppose a lot us will like to have it both ways i.e. feet on the ground, head in the cloud.  Down the line though, we may be forced to decide: If I can totally trust doggie heaven / Steve Jobs in heaven, does it mean I can demote my home PC entirely?