Your tech career depends on preparing for the cloud

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  1. Posts : 4,049
    W7 Ultimate SP1, LM19.2 MATE, W10 Home 1703, W10 Pro 1703 VM, #All 64 bit
       #30

    The entire purpose ...


    The entire purpose of the "Cloud", is to take power away from ordinary people and return it to those who are most qualified to wield it (i.e. Corporations and the Government).

    There is nothing that the Corporations and Government hate more, than "Democracy" and "Freedom of Choice".

    I have to laugh though.
    If the US Government had proposed this idea, millions of Americans would be rioting in the streets.
    Since it was proposed by the Corporations, those same Americans are cheerleading the idea.

    Software companies (especially game developers) must be "c****** in their pants", in anticipation of the day that they can restrict access to their products, to "approved" customers only.

    The cost savings are illusory.
    The first one-day outage will cost a business more, than they would've spent on an internal IT department's budget, for an entire year.

    There may be sectors that could benefit from the "Cloud" (e.g. mobile workers) but for everyone else it is just a money siphoning scam.
    To paraphrase Homer Simpson, "Oh I see. First get us addicted and then jack up the price."

    I can even see the first "apology" letters, "We are very sorry, but we have to increase the cost of your "Cloud" subscription, due to unprecedented demand."

    Everyone who is interested in "Personal Computing", should resist the "Cloud".
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  2. Posts : 383
    Black Label 7 x64
       #31

    smarteyeball said:

    Cloud is accessible to the masses - even if they they have no idea what it means.

    It fosters an easier acceptance through 'pleasant' connotations.
    Perhaps. But this is also a cloud:

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  3. Posts : 1,403
    Win 7 Ultimate 32bit
       #32

    It fosters an easier acceptance through 'pleasant' connotations.
    Isn't that similar to what the Nazi's did? Just asking.
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  4. Posts : 872
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
       #33

    Colonel Travis said:
    smarteyeball said:

    Cloud is accessible to the masses - even if they they have no idea what it means.

    It fosters an easier acceptance through 'pleasant' connotations.
    Perhaps. But this is also a cloud:

    Indeed.

    Tepid said:
    It fosters an easier acceptance through 'pleasant' connotations.
    Isn't that similar to what the Nazi's did? Just asking.
    My personal opinion: If you have to use "pleasant connotations" to get people to accept something, you're being deceitful. And the people that "accept" it based on those connotations aren't really accepting what it really is; rather, they are accepting what they think it is.

    Bring a new device, new software, or any new technology to market and call it what it is. If people like it and want it, you've got a keeper. If they don't, do not resort to "pleasant connotations" in order to trick them into supporting you/it. It's dishonest.
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  5. Posts : 342
    Windows 7
       #34

    unfortunately though - kind connotations are extremely successful and if they take hold, they keep their footing with fangs

    Look at Happy Meals, Google, and Hug-A-Gun.

    I truly believe the "Cloud" concept will be indoctrinated as advancing social media (as seen in the first MS commercials using the "Cloud" term)- tied in with the growing "need" for mobile computing, wi-fi devices, and data on the go, it will get people buying into it....literally.

    How will it affect users Open Source preferences?
    Would it be legal for "Cloud" Providers to discriminate against certain types of products, arguing compatibility/security issues?
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  6. Posts : 4,049
    W7 Ultimate SP1, LM19.2 MATE, W10 Home 1703, W10 Pro 1703 VM, #All 64 bit
       #35

    You'd better believe it


    mr pc said:
    Would it be legal for "Cloud" Providers to discriminate against certain types of products, arguing compatibility/security issues?
    You'd better believe it.

    That's another advantage that the "Cloud" provides software companies.
    Currently I can install Windows and any Office-type program of my choosing.
    If my OS is in the "Cloud", they have 100% control over what programs I am allowed to use.

    If for some strange reason it is currently illegal (in the US) the politicians will change the law.
    A Right-wing Administration would probably cite "National Security" as the reason, so Right-wing voters won't kick up a stink.
    I'm not sure what excuse a Left-wing Administration would use.
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  7. Posts : 383
    Black Label 7 x64
       #36

    What the heck is/was Hug-A-Gun?!?!?!

    Couple thoughts:
    1.) I don't doubt a bunch of people will be suckered into this nonsense. But if it is absolute, sincere nonsense, I trust the marketplace to ultimately squash it. The name itself - CLOUD - is as amorphous as whatever the hell it stands for.

    Cloud People: Hey, buy this.
    Normal People: Hey, screw you.

    Overcoming that kind of market hurdle is not easy. However, it leads to Thought 2.

    2.) The Your tech career depends on preparing for the cloud story directly contradicts a story it links to about how the U.S. government is taking a cloud-first approach to IT. Technically, it contradicts the story upon which it is based: a Washington Post story, called Agencies to look for a 'cloud option', which focuses on Jeffrey Zients, the United States' first chief performance officer. Note that the federal government, in order to improve performance, creates a new bureaucracy to take care of this streamlining. That should set off every BS detector ever made, even broken ones and the ones that got buried with every dead person who once roamed the earth. Yes, that's one of the reasons on the list but it ain't the first one. Trust me, I used to work for the federal government for a couple years, which was 1.99999999 years too many. Blind benevolence does not exist with that crowd. The very last paragraph of that story contains this sentence:

    Zients outlined the changes at a Northern Virginia Technology Council meeting Friday, and they seemed well received by some in the IT community.
    The reporter seemed to think IT people received this cloud notion well. Gee, really? No quotes back that up. No quotes demonstrate dissent or even the tiniest drop of skepticism. Much of my career I was not a bureaucrat but a journalist, and yeah, I've even written for the WP. In J-School if you were caught 250,000 light years near the word "seemed", every prof. would have ripped you a new one. How the hell do you know what someone seemed to think unless you ask them or let everyone know you actually asked? If a great number of IT people in general seem to like the cloud, whatever that is, why did InfoWorld waste its time with its story?

    Zients also said: "The government's been trying to do this for a long time . . . but obstacles have always gotten in the way." Obstacles don't just get in the way suddenly or gradually. They're placed there on purpose or by accident, doesn't matter which because the federal government is the biggest obstacle to everything it touches. But the greater issues: what were those obstacles? Are there any potential obstacles once the federal government magically streamlines? What about when everyone else streamlines? What about obstacles that exist now? The WP doesn't know and/or care. Maybe Zients's pen name is Marjorie Censer. She's the reporter who wrote this garbage.

    The federal government did not invent the cloud, and it is not yet propelling it. But it would not mind controlling/regulating some portion. That, combined with net neutrality and whatever other tents it sticks its snot-dripping nose into, will make it a major player in how all this shakes out in the U.S. Again, I think the marketplace will ultimately settle this thing. How long that will take or how much nonsense everyone will be forced to endure is a crap shoot.
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  8. Posts : 872
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
       #37

    lehnerus2000 said:
    mr pc said:
    Would it be legal for "Cloud" Providers to discriminate against certain types of products, arguing compatibility/security issues?
    You'd better believe it.

    That's another advantage that the "Cloud" provides software companies.
    Currently I can install Windows and any Office-type program of my choosing.
    If my OS is in the "Cloud", they have 100% control over what programs I am allowed to use.

    If for some strange reason it is currently illegal (in the US) the politicians will change the law.
    A Right-wing Administration would probably cite "National Security" as the reason, so Right-wing voters won't kick up a stink.
    I'm not sure what excuse a Left-wing Administration would use.
    No, actually a truly right-wing administration wouldn't change that law to begin with. A left-wing administration's excuse would be something along the lines of Apple's "to ensure an experience of equal quality for all users" (slightly paraphrased).

    And incidentally, this behavior is currently illegal in the United States, because it falls under antitrust laws. Intentionally limiting compatibility of your products so that they will only work with your (or your "preferred partners'") other products is considered anti-competitive behavior. Companies like Apple tend to get away with it because of lines like the one I quoted that claim that neither Apple nor anyone with whom it has financial ties are benefiting from the policy. Microsoft, however, got in big trouble in the U.S. for doing stuff much less overt than this in the 1990s.

    For that reason, I'm pretty sure that under current U.S. law, companies would not be allowed to enforce software restrictions on all major platforms without getting into legal trouble. A right-wing administration would not change those laws simply because they have no need to (in case you haven't noticed, increased government control is not currently on right-wing politicians' wish lists). A left-wing administration would probably like the idea, but they would never want "Big Business" to have that kind of power, they'd want it for themselves.

    But now we're getting a little off-topic. Regardless of any political situations, laws, regulations, courts, or anything else, entirely cloud-based computing is a bad idea. Local storage is cheaper and faster than cloud storage, and it's also much more secure. If my data is stored locally, then I know I have pretty much 100% control over both the data itself and what parties are allowed to access it. The exception would be if an uber-hacker decided to spend days cracking and hacking through my router and firewalls for the purpose of releasing my saved game files and CPU temperature logs on the web for all to see [/sarcasm]; and since I'm a person of relatively no importance, even locally, that scenario is pretty unlikely.

    On the other hand, on the cloud, with my data stored on servers right along with the data of everyone else and their mothers, any of whom could have anyone else and their mothers out to get them, with security software and protocols controlled by the cloud company (probably via various "financial agreements" with Norton, McAfee, or whoever) rather than hand-picked and hand-configured by me, not to mention the ever-present and cloud-champion-to-be advertising company Google (and others) determined to present me with "tailored advertisements" by using my data to learn "what I want to see" ... well, would you be eager to put every scrap of data you possess, no matter how sensitive, into that environment?!
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  9. Posts : 394
    Desk Top with Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit and Lap Top with Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit
       #38

    The more I hear about Cloud Computing, the more I dislike it. I prefer to have my stuff stored on my computer that's in my house. But I don't know too much about it so I'll just wait and see.
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  10. Posts : 1,403
    Win 7 Ultimate 32bit
       #39

    Frank1 said:
    The more I hear about Cloud Computing, the more I dislike it. I prefer to have my stuff stored on my computer that's in my house. But I don't know too much about it so I'll just wait and see.
    You already know enough.

    The alternative is the exact opposite to your statement.
    There is no more to know about it.
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