cloud computing - the good the bad and the pointless

Now that apple is all up in the cloud - what are you experiences with the different services (Amazon, etc) and what do you think of the idea in general.

http://www.animalwelfaresociety.org/images/spay_clinic_kitty.jpg

I love cloud computing. I never want to run a datacentre/room ever again. That said a lot of so-called cloud service providers don't really get it.

The Good

Expensify
Tripit

Good with the bad

Google Apps, getting better,
I hate the Gmail interface with a passion which is OK because I never have to see it,
I would like Calendar to be supported better by client apps and for google to allow syncing of todos etc.
It doesn't have a shared address book which is rubbish.
Docs, getting better all the time, yay pivot tables last week. Still can't replace Office ,
I wish the Office connector for Apps pro was available for OS X but I'm assuming Google waants to shaft Apple as often as possible
Sites works just fine but I wish you could do sharepoint style workflows

Bad

Quickbooks Enterprise (does not handle sessions properly, network goes down, goodbye work)
One of our enterprise system providers which I'm not abut to badmouth in public

What I want

All enterprise software to be available as Amazon Webservices images or similar, I want power by the hour
Some kind of open cloud API, akin to what Apple is doing but more so and all encompassing, that allows seamless integration of all these disparate things

What I'm interested in

Plex (and more generally Lean MRP, MES and a whole bunch of other TLAs)
Cloud Sharepoint and office later this year
Cloud project management software that doesn't suck (actually there may well be a cloud Agile tool that I haven't found yet)

For something to be good it has to make my life materially better.

The pointless

Anything with a Java client to do anything.

from 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0

I use microsoft skydrive for backing up photos, mp3s - its a bit clunky but 26gb free - so I just get a new hotmail account when I need mroe space - and nice to upload folders at once

http://www.webrealestatetools.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/cloud-computing.jpg

I spoke with them the other week about their "cloud hosting" options. All I can say is it better come with a lot of very expensive hookers.

xpost

the music service clouds have got to better then what you are expected to deal with now. as soon as I get a "you are not authorized to play this song on this device" it's lol ok mediafire/torrent time.

I don't really get cloud sharepoint? Put your intranet on the cloud so you can use it like a shared internal internet that we will call "intranet".

exactly, you save yourself from needing a room full of servers and a room full of nerds to support them.

Rhapsody stinks - so buggy- but a cool idea

for free youtube contains every song ever these days- for when you want to hear one song anyway - but there are also mixes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBHdj8XkVFg

she so kawaii

It doesn't have a shared address book which is rubbish.

afuckinmen

right click- upload to cloud drive

I started using googlre music beta - 20,000 song limit! not bad for free but will they charge in the futre

Anyone used Google's thing? It's dirt cheap, but the interface is so bad I can't even figure out how to access the free version.

Amazon is offering 5 GB of space, free, and calling it a cloud. Presumably it is designed to become a selling point for the regular Kindle and then the Kindle Fire. I'm not sure how useful it will prove to be.

I was just thinking the other day about how I think "cloud" might have been a bad branding/marketing term to choose for this whole phenomenon, because it sounds really weightless and insecure. Like, I don't want to put my private files in some goddamned cloud!

I use Dropbox quite a bit for sharing work files.

I use the free Dropbox and do love it. Also using SugarSync, which is just as good if not better than Dropbox. I personally don't see a reason to upgrade Dropbox or Sugarsync to premium, though. They're both great for smaller-sized files like pictures, spreadsheets, or an album here or there with the free space they give you. I am considering Google's thing as a mass storage solution. A way to get my files (mostly music collection) off of my shitty Western Digital external drive and into safe storage for half as much as Dropbox. Shitty interface and upload/download system, though, from what I can see.

Anybody tried Google Drive yet? How does it compare w Dropbox, Amazon etc? Wondering about encryptation options, if any.