For those who don't know or have not heard of Cloud Computing (I just recently learned about it), basically it's the ability to use software and store data on the Internet, specific websites with software to do things you need done that require minimum or no software to be installed on the PC and also stores your files and other data on the same servers.
Personally I think Cloud Computing is a pretty cool idea. Convenient so that you don't have to be stuck on one specific computer to access information and software. One example of Cloud Computing that I use (and was not aware till recently) is Call of Duty World at War. Unlike previous versions of this PC game series, World at War allows you to create an account that links to the serial number of your game. Basically, as I found out a couple of weeks ago, if you ever find yourself needing to reinstall the game, you don't necessarily need to back up the profiles because once you reinstall it, the game recognizes the serial number and automatically brings your account up in the game. This information is stored on the game servers. (Downloaded content such as mods and new maps are a different story though, that you need to back up and move back to the proper folders. Leave it to me to be completely unaware of this stuff but it seems a lot of things are backed up in Cloud sites that I didn't know myself.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The ability to access this information from just about any computer makes Cloud Computer very cool and convenient and this is Good. The Bad part is if you have no Internet, you are shit out of luck backing up or restoring. The Ugly? Well just read the title of this story that just happened this past week:
Microsoft loses Sidekick users' personal data
Contacts, calendar entries, photographs and other personal information of Sidekick users has almost certainly been lost for good following a service disruption at Sidekick provider Danger, the Microsoft subsidiary said on Saturday.
Now this definitely fulls under the category of tragedy. Many online techshows are calling this "one of the biggest disasters in the history of Cloud Computing", a definite blow to this concept. Talk about not taking your own advise, it would seem that during some kind of update, Microsoft may have forgotten (or thought was not necessary at the time) to make back ups of the Sidekick data they had stored and now the only data they have is what ever people with Sidekicks have on their phones. At this point they are asking people not to shutdown, restart or allow the power of the Sidekick phones to be drained to avoid using the information to be loss while they attempt to get as much of it back by syncing the phones back to the Cloud system. It's ironic that this horror story comes out in October, just a few weeks before Holloween. 21 Century horror movies would depict Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krugger and Mike Myers hacking peoples Facebook sites, bluetooth cellphones or spamming their emails.
So how reliable can Cloud Computing really be? In the end, while the concept is great, the technology is pretty solid and secure; there is still one fault in this concept. The human equation. Regardless of religion, we all agree that humans are not perfect and prone to making mistakes so, just as this story shows, even Microsoft can screw things up this bad.
Who will you trust more? Are you willing to spend some extra bucks to buy a lot of gigabytes of external storage? Will you pay the extra money to purchase that back up software one would think should come with cellphones? Will the data cables for your cellphone look to expensive anymore and will bluetooth adaptors sound like something worth spending extra money on now?
Time and again most tech shows and tech people will repeat the #1 rule of thumb when it comes to computers and electronic gadgets:
"Back Up Your Data"
And please, back ups are not files saved on a seperate drive. Back ups are when you have more than one copy. Some suggest to have at least 2 back ups apart from the original files themselves. I say Cloud Computing is still a good idea, but why not have a back up of your own as well. That way you have twice the protection and may cost you less in the long run. So back up people, back up your files, or you might end up like those with Sidekicks which are probably feeling like they got sideswiped or back-kicked right now.
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