How will Cloud Computing Affect Us?

[Gman496]

I know it's early days yet due to the fact that Cloud Computing is still in its infancy but it does raise some questions as to how it might or might not affect us long term.

Wen I say "us" I mean the general run of the mill end user as opposed to the business sector.

There are some questions that come to mind that I will throw out to you all and would welcome any users input, thoughts and opinions as to how they see it panning out :)


How do you feel about the possibility of losing control of your system? I mean you won't have much to do with anything really aside from having access to stuff?

Will we lose the fun of using all the little fixes and tweaks we've picked up over the years?

Will it be cost effective to basically rent access to software that we would have previously purchased and installed ourselves?

Speaking of that? What about all the software we didn't buy lol but just happened to stumble upon somewhere out on the Interweb LOL Will it be the end of that particular aspect of piracy? Will Key generators and cracks be a thing of the past?

How will\might it affect the sale of certain types of hardware? Will HDD space and RAM become much less needed?

What about all the repair and service shops? Will they be joining the benefit queues? or will the cloud have a need for them? lol


What are your thoughts regarding the arrival of cloud computing and the affects it will have?

Don't worry if you think it's all something you know little or nothing about. Have a think about it and post whatever ideas you might come up with, and don't stop if you think they might be silly, no one would have believed you ten years ago if you suggested that we'd all be using dumb machines connected to a cloud lol would they?

 

[Gman496]

Another thing that could be positive about Cloud Computing is that if all your data resides in the clouds?

Will you ever need to worry about the following again?

1. Backup?

2. What would happen to all those external HDD's sitting up on the shelf? Oh ya! they'd still be full of movies and music lol

3. Computer theft? (At least as far as your data goes)

4. Downtime due to hardware failure?

Remember that the cloud is available from anywhere with Internet access so if you were to find yourself without your machine for whatever reason? you'd simply get to another machine and login to your cloud, all your data would be exactly the same as if you were at your own machine :)

If you bought a new machine there would be no OS or software installs, no restoring images or data from backups, no putting all those little Apps you like back on your system? No need to to declutter using Ccleaner or crippling your system with over bloated security\antivirus packages?

 

[axxxo]

Personally, i'd like to keep tabs on my own system and files, installations etc...
What happens if the sun comes out and makes the cloud disappear :)
At least i can see my external sitting next to me, have my own backups incase anything goes wrong PLUS there's the issue of privacy and hackers ability to hack into almost anything these days.
Not all aspects of cloud storage will be free i would imagine and since you could have a cloud for the likes of itunes for example, another cloud for something else and then another and so on you would have yourself a small storm eventually i think.
Ill pass til I know more!

 

[Gman496]

I've been using it for a while now but I wouldn't be leaving my trusted standalone behind anytime soon either :)

That said, it is going to eventually be in our face so to speak so there's no harm in being aware of it or even trying it out?

It's not all that new either when you consider that the Jolicloud OS is lurking for Approx 3 years now.

What I do know is that many users use the likes of social networks like Bookface and other sites like Youtube, IMDB, Gmail, Skype etc and really do nothing at all requiring them to be anywhere else other than on the Net? so it might suit them? It always amazes me as to why people (Other than gamers) insist on having 16GB of RAM and a G Card costing 500 books when all they do is spend time on the Net? I guess it's the Jones syndrome :dunno:


While everything one requires isn't there yet, It is a means of having access to an awful lot by means of very little resources on the end users part? You can (I did) get an old clapped out machine with the processing power of a candle which in today's world you would need to pay someone to take away lol and install Jolicould on it, Hey Presto you have a cloud computer that will happily let you do most of the net based stuff you normally do on a 1000 buck machine you bought from PCWorld or Wallmart? Now that's recycling lol

People are already taking advantage by offering cloud computers for sale on many of the selling sites and they are really only clapped out P4's which have been cleaned up a bit and had Jolicloud installed. Potential there for someone to make a killing me thinks? lol

 

[axxxo]

Quite possible its the way to go for general run of the mill web users on the likes of iPads and tablets but i think for a majority of others who like everything at hand (for those rainy days when UPC cant handle the weather and the connection is lost) storage at home and a PC with its own horsepower would still be the best way for us!

I still dont know or understand much about the whole thing but i do understand that it can be quite handy to have everything up in the air so to speak for travel purposes or say you left something at home and you can just retrieve a backup document from the cloud, or just email it to yourself :)

You'll just have to do a tutorial for us Gman to convince me more, I welcome change, but only when i understand it fully lol