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RE: The Cloud

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:28:00 GMT

Got you beat!We have a real man's dog: http://www.dkranch.net/images/dogs/200701_dogs.jpgBox.net is good for transfers. That's what I use it for. Upload something, pull it down from elsewhere and then delete it from the cloud. Figure it saves box.net the trouble of deleting it when their SAN goes down

RE: The Cloud

Wayne West — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:58:00 GMT

Ah, but we have a 50lb standard poodle, we'd need the Optimus Prime model!

RE: The Cloud

Bob Hoffman-209065 — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:54:00 GMT

I don't need any more diesel products in my life. Already have two generators down (35kw and 100kw) for repairs.

And speaking of backups, one of my three SCSI tape drives is giving up the ghost today so I need to fix that.

I won't be using a cloud service to replace it either. I'm thinking of adding a drive someplace else and redirecting the backup there until I can schedule some down time for the server.

And Wayne, get the roomba maximum model.

Small poodles will fit inside nicely

RE: The Cloud

Wayne West — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:46:00 GMT

I'll have to take a look at box.net, but I have a personal paranoia about people offering 'free' storage. I've used it for small stuff in the past, but they usually don't offer enough storage to be useful to me.I had to send an Access MDB to a vendor a couple of months ago and couldn't get either Outlook/Exchange or Yahoo to cooperate! (both the extension and file size, even after compression, were working against me) Finally ended up FTPing it to my personal web site into a passworded area to get it to the guy. I've been re-reading our computer policy document and it looks like I should have PGP'd it first, so I should download the program. Funny thing was that the vendor's FTP server had just died the previous day.

RE: The Cloud

Wayne West — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:37:00 GMT

We considered one, but we're not sure if the poodle would be too happy with one.

RE: The Cloud

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:37:00 GMT

Spring thaw? Won't the battery be dead by then? Send them a note for a diesel version!I had a server, but it was slightly flaky, so it's down now. Right now I have a MyBook WD external hooked to my PC with a scheduled backup job. Not grabbing generations, but it's getting everything every night just in case. It's also shared for my wife to use.We tend to copy stuff to the iMac as needed (pix, etc.), so it's a backup as is.I'm tempted to use a cloud service as a backup just to see how it works. Or maybe a backup's backup. I do use Box.net to move files around the Internet. It's my new FTP!

RE: The Cloud

Bob Hoffman-209065 — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:24:00 GMT

Roomba's make GREAT frisbees!

They always come back.

Eventually...

RE: The Cloud

Wayne West — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:20:00 GMT

I've been thinking along the same lines. I'm considering setting up a second PC to act as a file repository and central music source, get two or three external drives and maintain two backup generations with the current and oldest in my desk at work and the other current at home just in case. Hardwired to the router with MAC filtering so that it's not readily visible to anyone sniffing me.Media server-type stuff doesn't interest me currently as right now I don't have a tv and don't really have the time to enjoy it. Maybe in a few years. I'm a serious movie junkie, heck, I have both DVD and LaserDisc, but for the most part we just watch the occasional DVD on my 15" laptop. Convenient excuse for snuggling, not that we need one. :-)

RE: The Cloud

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:08:00 GMT

Bob,You're welcome to borrow the circular saw and enlarge that mail slot on the front door Maybe iRobot will make you a Roomba robot for shoveling snow up there?

RE: The Cloud

Bob Hoffman-209065 — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:55:00 GMT

I vote no to cloud services. Period.

The net is getting too congested as it is now and is unreliable just in connectivity let alone relying on somebody else's server. Yep, uploading larger JPEG's when the pipes are already full would be a lot of fun -not.

I would much prefer a home based Terminal Server setup. Maybe as an extension of M$ new Home Server product, maybe not.

Wireless thinclients are just starting to emerge on the market. Make it a tablet version and then issue one to everyone in the house.

Not for the serious gamers but I bet for almost everybody else, it would work just fine.

Pared with a version of a media server, then you've got it all. Office app's, photo editing, movies, music and maybe TV if you can find something worth watching.

Well, mostly all.

You could order your pizza but it won't answer the door for you.

RE: The Cloud

rudy - Doctor "X" — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:54:00 GMT

The 'Cloud' ???

No Way Jose !!!

MS already has their fingers into too much already, including our collective wallets. Do you want them to pilfer a 'few dollars more' for more (ususally less) of a service ?

Granted I want to know where my backups are. This is how it is and in all probability how it will always be for me. Granted there is a need for 'cloud' type storage and I do use it. It is called Google Documents and it's free ! Snce I have been using it it has been down only once and that was the gmail login for about 30 minutes. Not too bad for me using gmail for well over a couple of years. I remember the days of HotMail and MSN, all of the spam, and junk, the servers being down at least once a month (hell sometimes once or twice a week !). If MS could not make freebies HotMail and MSN fly like Google has with G-Mail and Google Documents, they do not belong in a pay-for-service industry <period>

RE: The Cloud

Wayne West — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:22:00 GMT

I don't like the concept of 'over the wire' computing for my personal use. I want to know where my backups are, I want to be able to lay my hands on them. And I don't want to be denied programs or data if I am not connected to the internet. I just went through a period where my wireless was down and had to use a public network with all its problems and I know I'd be majorly PO'd if I had been denied the utility of the laptop and software that I've paid for.Clouds just don't work for me. Some people love the concept, I doubt that I'll ever be one of those.

RE: The Cloud

Matt Miller (#4) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:18:00 GMT

Still - it is strangely reminiscent of all of those "dirt cheap" ISP services that popped up a few years ago. Lots of folks jumped at them, not reading the fine print. The fine print only got read once the ISP had its first problem and the "critical" application running on this configuration was gone/scrambled/corrupted, and NO backup in sight (the ISP never promised one after all).

I'd imagine there will be a LONG shake-out, both in terms of tiering service levels and in the pricing models.

RE: The Cloud

Tatsu — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:56:00 GMT

I think that the off-site storage would be a great extension of the Windows Home Server appliances. The Home Server would back up the home network and then keep an off-site copy. Three hardware failures at once is even less likely than two.

The Cloud

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:39:00 GMT

I was interested to hear about Microsoft providing some services and storage in the "Cloud." I remember hearing about Amazon making disk space and computing services available to users.

So is this the next big thing for us? Microsoft's push of cloud services including software, storage, and more?

I'm not sure if it is, and I'm not completely sure what to make of it. Amazon's storage service might make some sense as a backup of your photos since it's not likely that you'd lose your hard drive and Amazon would lose theirs at the same time, but it could happen.

The worrisome thing is that while Amazon or Microsoft might tout their service as reliable, fault tolerant, etc., but the reality is that your 2GB or 4GB of stuff isn't valuable to them. They're not going to go through too many hoops to get that data back.

And if it's gone, it's gone.

Things always fail. Just think about the recent WGA problems, a service that you'd think that Microsoft would make sure is always working.

I think that the cloud computing makes some sense for a Windows Live type of service. If I could have the latest version of Word or Excel in the cloud, with local (automatic, hint, hint) backups made to my local device, that's pretty cool. Installing new versions of Office are a pain, especially when I almost never use Access, Powerpoint, or anything really beyond Word or Excel.

It would probably install some crazy ActiveX type DLLs and make my system just as flaky as it is now. But since I reboot about once a month when I get patches (or lose power ), maybe that isn't so bad.

Steve Jones