BleepingComputer.com: Cloud Computing

Can anyone explain about cloud computing?

To make it simple. Not to long ago you would put things on your hard drive. Then access them when needed. You control every thing including the security of your system. When using a cloud, (a computer you access over the internet) it is kind of like your hard drive being under the control of others; in a cloud. The biggest problem I find is you no longer control your security. IMO cloud security is not keeping up with all the things in clouds. Read this it will help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

If you have a laptop (or a netbook, like mine) and you have a power failure, your computer will probably still work on battery power, but there's a good chance you'll lose your connection to the internet -- and your cloud applications and data -- until you get power back.

On the other hand, it can be a good way to share work with a large group. I would also be concerned about security and only use it for applications and data that don't have strong security concerns.

Hmmm. I'd been wondering about it too. I'm even a member of The Cloud Appreciation Society.
But my computing is basically all recreational apart from a few Ebay sales. So what are we saying. Can I do photo and sound editing via cloud based software, and not loose what I was just doing if I have a powercut?? Could I use Adobe Photoshop online and pay for the minutes/hours of use via my service provider? All that would be pretty cool I must admit. Most of my stuff ends up on Photobucket or freesound.org, and it's just me messing around, nothing with any real value.
My secure feeling comes from the fact that I've been using Linux Ubuntu exclusively for 6 years.

Pete

I think Cloud Storage (or Computing) is a great idea. I now store thousands of photographs on the cloud and, as long as you have a simple folder system, it is very easy to retrieve them whenever you need. I can also give permission (or not) to other, named people to access all or some of the stored material.

My daughter had a couple of thousand photos on her computer, too idle to transfer them to disc or memory stick, so I opened a free Skydrive account for her and transferred them all over, and wiped them from the PC which now runs much faster.

I use Skydrive for photos as there is 25GB of free storage and the Amazon Cloud for videos (5GB of free storage). These are just my personal preferences.

I DO NOT store anything which I consider to be very private or valuable on the Cloud.

I personally do not care for cloud computing-adide from the security risks, theres always the possibility of not having access to my data when I want it, because my internet is down or the cloud servers are down. I have more then enough local storage, and if I need more hard drives are cheap.

Cloud computing is not new. Facebook is in a cloud. Your personal information and subjects are kept there. Hackers get into Facebook all the time. You have no control that works at this time for security. Email is also in a cloud and see how many peoples emails are hacked. That's why I think Cloud Security is keeping up with needed security.

which is why I use false names on my email, and until recently my facebook, and dont keep anything pertinent that I would care about hackers getting in either. On top of that, if my internet is down or facebook is down, so what-I can still load up any of my documents that I need access to. Im not necessarily opposed to cloud computing-each to their own, just for me I prefer having everything stored locally.

this "cloud" thing is a joke, I love dropbox though but the point of the cloud is bogus, its just a new name for something that its been available for years.

You can consider yahoo mail a "cloud" mail app, because you don't have to store your emails and attached files, yahoo mail servers do that and will continue to do that, we didnt call this "cloud computing" back in 2003, same for file hosting websites or free FTP servers.

When i access my dropbox files using firefox or my android phone is not different than logging in to photobucket , flickr or a ftp server, (you can even do that with windows explorer!!)

basically, IMO, the cloud is a nice way to explain new generation kids/teenagers what the internet is, assuming they're all high 24/7 .