so what is the cloud anyway?

Big brain geeks and IT professionals all over the world keep on debating exactly what cloud computing and ‘the cloud’ actually are. To me it seems what you think the cloud is depends on what you’re trying to do. Here’s just a few, you can Google for others:

• The academic description.
• A much simpler description – only the first bullet applies
• A euphemism for the internet

If you want to geek out try Nati Shalom’s post.

So which is it?
It’s all of the above. But as far as we’re concerned here the cloud is online software that replaces programs installed on your hard drive, available for free to consumers or for a low pay as you go price. The idea is to replace bloated programs like Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, Outlook, Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, GIMP, Money, or Quicken that require huge hard drives and ever growing processors. It’s services that let you replace local hard drive storage and data backup with online storage and file management services. It’s completing tasks like shopping – for books, movies, music, appliances (large and small) electronics, travel, even cars and groceries. It’s scheduling appointments, tracking your kids, educating yourself or your family, keeping in touch, earning some income, finding a job, or finding your high school sweetheart.

The cloud is the internet, used to entertain yourself, organize your shedule, communicate with anyone, save yourself time, improve your quality of life, and save yourself money. My definition cuts across all the geekspeak you can find earlier in this post. I don’t want to debate the cloud, I want to use it. I’ll use my worktime to argue the technical points. I’m at home and I want to relax, with my head in the cloud.

netbooks and the cloud – some rules

For me, working in the cloud is something of a social experiment. I already run software that does everything I intend to move to the cloud and then some. But the idea here is to minimize the time and money spent on computing while maximizing the flexibility. So I have to set some rules for myself and this blog. Followup posts will dive a little deeper into the how and why of individual rules.
1. No device (computer, phone, multimedia device) I use for any computing can cost more than $300. A seeming arbitrary number, but more on that later.

2. The computers I use for all cloud computing will be a Dell Mini 9 Netbook. More to come here as well.

3. Any device used must be mobile, or not owned by me but guest accessible at no cost.

4. All applications used must be free. They may offer premium, fee based services, but there must be a cost free entry point.

4. All software used must be “open” i.e. not requiring any provider specific supporting components that are not considered open standards by the geeks who run the web. There is ONE exception, I’ll talk about that too.

6. I can’t use anything provided by my employer, that would be cheating.

That’s probably all the rules we need. Remember, one of my main goals is to save us money and time. Because of that there will be tradeoffs in almost everything we try to do. Most of the time it’s trading advanced features and performance for cost. Then again, who really needs all those bells and whistles anyway? Well, professionals and serious hobbyists probably do, but even they don’t need them for everything they do so I think we’ll find there’s something for everybody here. At least I hope so.