Cloud computing what on earth is that all about??

[johnfowles]

Cloud computing this has to be important right
Here is the headline from and intro to an article in the UK Daily Telegraph on Tuesday 9 March 2010 at:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...computing.html
Microsoft 'staking its future' on cloud computing
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, said he was 'betting the company' on the move to cloud-based services
Around 70 per cent of Microsoft employees are working on cloud-related projects, and that figure will reach 90 per cent within a year, Mr Ballmer told an audience at the University of Washington.
OK my first draft for this posting spent far too much time leading up to the main purpose of it and I figured that most readers would have lost interest before they reached the really important part.So I have now inserted the following with the background to follow in a later posting which you will be very welcome to read if you have the time and inclination
Possibly like me you had previously wondered what all the fuss about this so called cloud business was in aid of
I had got the general idea that in future we would not not be buying and installing our own personal copies of software but would use on demand programs stored "up there in the clouds" so to speak, plus things we were working on would also be "up there" somewhere in the clouds.Hence the advent of for example Google Apps where instead of using your own copy of Microsoft's Word Access or Powerpoint you could use the broad equivalent courtesy of MicroShaft's arch rival Google In addition of course it is getting far more feasible to store your ephemera on a remote storage facility again in cloud cuckoo land.In that regard I have certainly noted an impressive growth in the capacity and availability of on line data storage over the last few years as the price of all forms of computer memory and storage has fallen almost faster than the price of gas/petrol has risen.
But of what practical benefit would this be to me??
I have just had that consideration nicely demonstrated thanks to a splendid free cloud sytem provided by http://www.zumodrive.com
I now have a mythical drize Z:of 2 GB capacity on both my desktop and notebook computers, with all that drive's content accessible from both computers.

Actually mythical is not the right word and virtual sounds too
vague. All you need to know is that that drive and anything in it is now stored on a server somewhere owned by Zumodrive
and is acccessible by me from ANY computer by simply signing in at that website.

So what?? you might well ask
But first some essential personal background
I constantly think of new projects to start, whether Gord related or another tutorial does not matter, and for each one I invariably create a series of text files and screenshots.Also I frequently find snippets of information and images that I find interesting and want to save somewhere on my computer where it will be readly available as a reminder and easily accessible, with the result that the new item gets saved onto the desktop of whichever computer I happen to be using at that moment
I will now admit to one very bad habit as I rarely make the time to sort through this accumulating mass of clutter, except to periodically open folders optimistically named "to be sorted" or latterly "sundry text files from desktop.. date"
Compounding this problem is the fact that I operate fairly haphazardly using four computers on any one of which there might accumulate material on any number of projects making synchronising tasks a real problem.
Now instead of saving files that I am trying to actively work on, such as the draft for this corfid posting,on the desktop of whichever computer I am using I can save it in the Z: drive knowing that if I want to move to another computer for any reason then providing both the current and moving to computers are connected to the internet then miraculously and
automatically the file I was working on will have been updated.
Thinking beyond that extremely useful facility I thought of the alleged programs in the clouds aspect. realising that my allotted 2GB of free drive space whilst tiny by today's hard drive standards (I have just acquired an HP Mini netbook which boasts a 250GB HD) and recalling that not that many years ago 2GB would have been considered ample to run a full Windows 95 installation with room to spare for programs and data
(in 1997 I had moved up from an Intel 486 desktop with a 100 MB hard vdrive and DOS to my first Intel Pentium (50MHz) and Windoze 95 equipped desktop which had a ginormous 2.1GB hard drive)and it is quite common to read of people installing their favourite programs on small USB thumbdrives so that they can run a program in for example a library computer without having to install that program on that computer itself. Indeed there are websites that recommnd such portable programs for example see:-
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/45-free...-applications/
"45 Free Useful Thumb Drive Applications"
Therefore I reasoned that it should be possible to install programs on the Z drive for instant availability anywhere I was online
As a test I have copied (on my Ferrari notebook to Z: a fairly small (1.18MB) but to me extremely useful freeware utility called treesize from:-
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

I was most impressed to find that zumodrive thoughtfully notifies you on the other computer of the last file added to it
i
Then it duly appears on the other computer's Z drive listing

But does the program now run??
Treesize is a useful utility that will reveal the content and size of items in any drive, here an 8GB SD media card which shows up on the desktop as drive G its files total 4.5GB as the treesize analysis reveals:-

Bingo It works!! Treesize run on my desktop from the zumodrive copy
Dang I now have most of the material for another tutorial !
I'll be back with more background into why and how I found out about zumodrive
Thanks to all who made it to the bottom.
Was that interesting or what??
or was I wasting your and my time?
Your comments and criticisms please
My usual apologies to Char and Mr Meason 　

[jj]

hmmm, i think i followed some of that...i remotely run a variety of software programs that are stored on a server a few hours away...my data files stay local (with the really valued ones stored on usb sticks/jump drives that dangle from my neck, lol)

i think that's the concept but in a micro kind of way (and i believe the data files would also be stored 'out there'...kinda scary)....anyhow, there are likely security issues beyond my ability to comprehend...if this means creating even more passwords, ugh, i'm already spent

[Peter Bro10]

Well Sir John, I found this tutorial interesting. I'm not altogether too keen on the idea of a web/server based computing completely, but the idea has merit and potential for some aspects.
Thanks for posting...