This thread, My new laptop! , got me to thinking.

M/S has truly screwed up with their latest user interface. No desktop, specifically. My place of work is still trying to work its software base where it will work with Windows 7, and it is not done yet. The transistion from XP to the new OS's was far from flawless, not that M/S cares (do they ever?). M/S view is you are supposed to buy a whole new software suite, and if you have your own custom taylored to your requirements that is your problem.

My interpretation of the latest OS is M/S is thinking of mobile systems, which is a different kettle of fish. Yet they are going for one size fits all, unless they can squeeze more money out of their customer base by removing features from crippled versions.

I was not happy with Vista due to it leaving all older hardware behind. Planned obsolescence is not very green or cool, especially when a lot of the older hardware will do the basics. Internet and word processing are not complex, nor is basic audio/video when you come down to it.

The thread through all of this is security. We are always facing new viruses and threats. Now the pundits are telling us of this marvelous new idea, where all our valuable data is stored out in the open. They never state it that way, but how many times have we seen supposedly secure sites that have been hacked?

Instead of storing the information we value locally we are expected to trust companies, many of whom we could not identify one employee, with information that could be very damaging if it were hacked en mass.

This strikes me as a form of idiocy, but I see a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. I say thanks, but no thanks, and expect to see the mass releases of personal data through various incompanence. Then the inevitable choris of users should not have made it so easy will start. I have yet to meat one IT professional that thought this was a good idea.

 

I don't like the cloud idea for a couple of reasons:

1. My country doesn't have 100% reliable internet and that means my data may not be accessible 24/7 and the internet relay is a bottleneck to such a system.

2. I will not have privacy against the legal holders of my information.

3. Illegal attacks against my data now will know where to look for them.

4. My system won't be paid out front, but many weird and "innovational" payment methods might emerge.

However, since the internet is already integrated in our lives, we can't really claim that our data is 100% safe in our home machine.

 

After 37 years fixing other people's broken computer programs, I have the following tidbits to offer. (Your mileage may vary.)
(1) If you absolutely cannot afford to lose the information, don't put it on a computer at all, unless you have more than one backup copy.
(2) If the information is proprietary to your business, isolate (as in no connection at all) your computer from all connections outside your control.
(3) The only secure (no qualifications, please note) outside connection is no connection.
(4) The dummies will get you (perhaps) sooner than the deliberate wrongdoers.

 

I too am a tight-a** about my computer information.
I have nothing on anyone eles's server.
I unplug the router when I update my password files, print a copy, excrypt the copy that is on the computer, and clear the memory of my word processor before I go back online.
I don't "fix" viruses, I wipe the hard drive and install a backup copy of the OS.
The backup copy has never been online.
etc.
FTCloud

 

I too am a tight-a** about my computer information.
I have nothing on anyone eles's server.
I unplug the router when I update my password files, print a copy, excrypt the copy that is on the computer, and clear the memory of my word processor before I go back online.
I don't "fix" viruses, I wipe the hard drive and install a backup copy of the OS.
The backup copy has never been online.
etc.
FTCloud

Remind me to keep you away from my machines.

 

Thanks for the LOL but I don't understand your reservations.
I also don't understand the popular notion that one should find and fix a virus.
Doesn't everybody keep their personal information on a different partition, or a DVD, or a removable hard drive?

I have no reluctance to wipe my C: drive because I move "keepers" to a different partition almost every day. I have DVD backups for every computer I have and every computer I have repaired for other people. (Norton Ghost or Acronis)

On a side note, I have only had 2 viruses, (I started before Win 3) and both of them were on hard drives when I purchased them! I must be pretty good about my browsing procedures, ya' think?

 

DVD backups aren't really a choice when you have 3TB of data. It's not significant data, fortunately, but I 'd rather have them than not.

Hard drives are still pretty expensive too.

 

After 37 years fixing other people's broken computer programs, I have the following tidbits to offer. (Your mileage may vary.)
(1) If you absolutely cannot afford to lose the information, don't put it on a computer at all, unless you have more than one backup copy.
(2) If the information is proprietary to your business, isolate (as in no connection at all) your computer from all connections outside your control.
(3) The only secure (no qualifications, please note) outside connection is no connection.
(4) The dummies will get you (perhaps) sooner than the deliberate wrongdoers.

Agreed 100%.

What every business and anyone concerned with security need are two computers, one to connect to the internet and another with ZERO connection (and watch those memory sticks and any type of file transfers).

 

The brainiacs where I work have a Jones for the cloud and other MS products, including Outlook and Sharepoint. We already have a huge investment in Lotus Notes (of which I am a programmer). It is estimated to cost in the tens of millions of dollars to convert our existing applications and email over to Lotus Notes.

And all for what? We have had almost no issues with Notes. No major ones at all. It gets the job done. It even was a web client solution for mail but it is not MS.

I just can't believe they are considering storing our sensitive data in a "public" place, offsite. My fear is it is a disaster waiting to happen for lots of companies. Hack into the cloud and you have everything.

 

This is the first I've heard. I've heard of the net referred to as 'the cloud' before and people talk aboust storing data there, but are you saying that the next iteration of windows machines won't have a HDD, everything stored on the cloud?

If that's indeed the case, I think the evolution of windows with come to a halt @ win7 in my house.

 

Not quite, but they are pushing strongly in that direction. I suspect the trust is not there to support it, though there are a lot of people with no common sense who have bought into the idea.

 

strantor..how can you not have a hard drive when the OS takes 9 gigs?
Of course you'll have a hard drive. Can you imagine starting with Firefox and booting your OS off the cloud? I might be wrong, but I don't think that will work.

What Micro$oft wants is that everybody store their data where they can charge by the month for it and google and the chinese hackers can get at it. People that use their real name on Facebook will be first in line!

 

I"ve seen more and more software going to "the cloud".

It's almost like computers will be "gone" as the move to IPAD and Android devices become the standard. Those who own such devices will want the applications that they have on their home computer on those devices instead.

I'll be a hold out on "storing" information on the cloud.

 

Well, that's an idea I can understand. You don't need 9 gigs of OS for an IPAD. Thanks for the education, Joe.

 

Is the cloud self programing,all the code don't go on hard drives anymore.

The results seem to be the same, do you think something like A.T.& T is storing all

the data. What do think,Joe Jester

 

When this world becomes part of the United Federation of Planets, I'll support the cloud storing my data. Till then, I'll keep that responsibility.

 

May be built in memory sticks to back up what the cloud don't take, that

can be down loaded when some one get your device,like a search warrant.

They say cyber attacks are going on every day by the gov. They are

calling them weapons on c- span.

 

I think the"cloud" is good in limited theory but not for everything
For example, I like owning server space on which I can store data and retrieve it elsewhere. I like having the OPTION of uploading things from my phone to the cloud so I don't have to worry about it and can retrieve it wherever, whenever. I DON'T like the idea of all of my data being on the inerwebs. I like my harddrive right where it is, inside my computer, where I can pull it out and drop it down the garbage disposal, or put it in a faraday cage, if I so choose. If they're going to tell me not to pirate, then I am going to OWN my software, and do with it as I choose. I will never own a macbook or iphone

 

Thing is, some of my data is intensly personal. I do not want this anywhere but under my total control. What is hard to understand by the dweebs pushing this?

 

I'm with you 100% Bill, I find it disturbing to the max that everyone's individual work would be stored somewhere nebulus under the control of someone (or something) else.

They had this concept in ages past, where the lord of the manor would hold all his peasants money in his posession "for safekeeping".

Just as disturbing is the new idea of microcontroller platforms where the compiler is ONLY available online, and any work people do is stored online for others to see and use.

It's a wonderful concept to do work and give it away for the benefit of others, not so wonderful to be forced to give your work away...

The only thing really going for "cloud" storage is that it is free and unlimited, but with data storage dropping so much in price every year that is a bit silly. Data and work you store in your own PC and backups is yours, and you have some power to use it and keep it. If your data and work is stored somewhere else, the only power you have is "Please sir, may I have some more?" (apologies to Dickens).