As all great Pisces, I'm a big flip flopper. (Actually, I don't think that the greats were flip floppers - just me.) I switch from the cloud and back to my system and then back to the cloud again in a heartbeat. Now, I still find that my data stored in the cloud is not the safest thing. At the same time, I love having access to my data when I'm not at my computer system. Some things I keep entirely in the cloud; my documents for school or these blog posts. But pdf files of my bank statements are not in the cloud. Other things I limit how much information is in the cloud. My address book in the cloud, but is limited to those that have an email address. No email, your not in my Address book in the cloud.
Google has just released, via labs, offline support for Gmail. This will make my use of Apple Mail almost nonexistent since I like Gmail's way of doing things. The only time I am not using Gmail is on my iPhone. But even then I still use it, albeit for very specific reasons.
I've even switched from Safari, with Google Gears, to Firefox, with Google Gears. Why? Even though that through Safari I have access to my computer system's Spelling and Grammar Check and with Firefox I just have spelling? Because I like how Firefox tab support works - unlike Safari, which I have it set to open new tabs for new web pages, but if the web page spawns a new window it follows that command first then what I want it to do. Fix that Apple and I'll come back with open arms because I miss those two features (well, I really miss Grammar Check). It does not seem like a big deal but it really is for me. Plus I like the extensions that you can build into Firefox; with Safari I think Apple missed the boat.
The biggest reason for being back into the cloud is space. Recently, Bear and I both needed the Mac Book Pro to do some work. I've moved my stuff to his because he has more space and because my monitor was blurry and failing. Well, we bought a new 19" widescreen LCD monitor and life on the old PPC desktop has been great. I moved back into it but soon realized I didn't have enough disk space for my music library and my documents, the amount of space was quickly disappearing. I moved my library to my old 20 gig iPod, which is set up in disk mode only, and I connected it via Firewire. It's pretty quick but even that is losing space. Fortunately, I'm not making any music purchases for a while since my library is 15 gigs and I still have stuff to load on it first. Buying a new hard drive, though desirable, again limited amount of funds. What can I do?
Then the light bulb went off. Off load a lot of my data to the cloud and use the cloud as my desktop. This does not take away my fears of the cloud, i.e. data not being secure, possibly losing ownership of my data, not being able to access my data offline, and Cloud companies going out of business. These are all very real possibilities. No one has come up with who is responsible. The companies offering support in the cloud disavow any responsibility in their Terms of Service. The government hasn't even addressed the issue - they are still too busy worrying about children accessing pornography on the Internet, and predators on the Internet. (Why are our politicians always so fearful of technology? Why don't they study it without a partisan view? Why do they always see the bad before the good?) The government hasn't even addressed the idea of privacy because it could disrupt big business.
So, because of my need I've gone back to the cloud. And I'm learning to like to it. Not love it. Just like it. I really need to start researching this in more detail and write about it. I guess I'm finding my niche. Maybe I should change the title of this blog to something like: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cloud". I'll keep you posted.
