As I have mentioned before, I like cloud computing. But I am still wary of putting all the eggs in a basket in the clouds.
This is the way we are going now and there are obvious advantages. First and foremost the devices that access the cloud don’t need enormous amounts of storage capabilities. Even though I am happy with the reduction in price of solid state drives.
Apps can be developed by different companies to utilize their online storage making it possible for different devices to use the same data.
Of course in Apple’s case it is only IOS devices. After listening to Steve Jobs keynote regarding iOS 5 & OSX Lion and of course iCloud. I am very pleased with the way they have used the cloud capabilities!
Rather than just online storage, it’s a pure and simple back up for your iOS device. Enabling it to break the syncing to the computer strangle hold I never liked.
Of course some say Apple has too much of a say in the applications allowed onto iPhone & iPad. My take on that is the motorola zoom is returned mostly because the app market for Android apps is too open. Leading to spam & shoddy applications which crash the system and drain battery life. Apple keeping strict control has also kept the os fairly bug free!
Amazon now has a controlled Android app store to eliminate the spam!
Recently I have noticed many applications that run on iPhone can be replaced with a web version through Safari. Twitter & Facebook work quite decently through safari, only need to bookmark and you wouldn’t know the difference. This also puts Apple out of the application process and eliminates the cut they take. I think I shall see many more web based applications on the future.
I have always and continue to be amazed how many people never back up their data! I learned this the hard way in the late 90’s and have always backed up since.
The next evolution of the web and our reliance of it depends on it functioning autonomously, but if this is the case we will have to trust the cloud maintaining our online self. This is where the privacy bit comes in! If a person uses my card and I have reported a fraudulent charge. These days the bank covers it and freezes the account until I get a new card.
How much of my life online can be frozen if my data is compromised?
computing
Internet Privacy
There are things I don’t post on the internet, reason is they are personal and I don’t want everyone reading or seeing it; in other words it’s private!
I live in the digital, mobile, instant gratification age. I have access to the internet practically all the time. I can access banking and flights from my phone, (if it’s even worth calling it a phone any more)! My information is accessible to the institutions I deal with. I must quote my social security number to verify myself to fly, talk about my phone bill, Cable TV. Practically anything today requires me to verify who I am. And this revolves around one number that is on how many computer screens around the planet. I recently had to verify the last four of my social to a call center in India. I am not a privacy freak, but when information flies to other countries I am concerned. This is no reflection on India and call centers. It’s a concern that I have actually no idea where my information is and who has access to it. There are some bits of info I care about deeply, this is stuff that other institutions use to rate me in society, credit, driving record etc.
The recent hack of the Sony servers and down time of the PS3 network was a wake up call to Sony. It was also a wake up to consumers, who trust that institutions have a grasp on how to properly manage the information entrusted to them. Technology working properly is a wonderful playground where we get to play with information. We feel more in tune with society because we can venture through it with the web as our guide. Food trucks posting their local on Twitter give the faithful a feeling of club membership. I can check in my location on Facebook or Foursquare, letting my friends know where I am.
To interact I must give information about myself, I must provide enough of me to become a person online. Not a digital copy like in the Matrix; but a 2D version that people will recognize me from.
In this version what am I giving away in regards to privacy? In my zeal to be a part of the group am I too exposed? I don’t remember the exact wording, but Professor James Burke once said that information about people is power; but who controls it?
I have been quite free and easy when it came to information, I do have some caution and try to be safe. I see people, sometimes younger, and having grown up with the freedom of the web don’t question information; and in fact place things out there they really shouldn’t! It may haunt them in the future or not, but remember the web isn’t free, and it is controlled. It can also be manipulated, rules can be changed.
I am an optimist, I feel that we are in transition and that the people who control my info have a vested interest in keeping me happy. So that I will continue to give them my business. There is a element of risk in this, as I get older more of my information becomes part of the data held on servers around the globe. The only way to be private today is never to have had a bank account, credit card, telephone; pay your utilities without giving your social security number; you can do that but it’s a process. The only hope you have these days is to just manage your information, your privacy no longer exists.
I have no choice but to allow them to obtain my info and use it as they wish. And yet with all the risk involved I still love technology and give myself freely.
Go Figure!
In the Clouds.
There has been recently a large push to keep our data in the Cloud, to have greater access to all our data and not just what we can carry on our devices. This for the most part is a good thing and is the way to go in the future. It changes the way we look and interact with mobile devices. I have been using cloud computing for a number of years, and I like having a back up of important data.
Having said that I not only back up in the cloud, I have a physical back up at home. I keep this because I although I have a fair amount of confidence in the online systems we have today. My guilt if there was a problem and I didnt’ have a back up would give me great consternation. NASA has back ups in triplicate and so should I.
Recently with the Playstation network outage due to hackers gaining access to data. It became to all who have a PS3 how much we were complacent in regards to the network. How much we assume that Sony would have the up to date safe-guards when it came to personal data. I was not a premium member (although I have considered it), so I only have a username & password to be hacked.
Also I have begun to question the paid services like mobile me. I have had problems with syncing data between computers. The phone works fine and if I log into the web version it’s also ok. I believe this is the direction companies have been moving toward. But the paid services need to be on the ball to warrant payment. There are too many free options to get exactly the same cloud experience.
I like cloud computing and the chance of better options on a mobile device. As with any transition there will be stumbles. It’s not a hardware issue like it was in the 90’s, today it’s software. Lessons have been learned, I hope the application will be painless.
Microsoft, the e-mail Dinosaur! Hacked accounts and living in the Cloud!
I live in the Clouds, the fact you are reading this is it’s on a server somewhere! And for the usual things I am quite ok with that. My e-mail syncs over the different devices I use. In other words I am a bit of a geek and I like that! I use Mac but I am Windows friendly, I just want it to work; and work well!
Like many people I have had many e-mail accounts in my time, some connected with work and some connected to the provider I was using to access the web. A few weeks ago I was made aware that my brother had received a couple of very weird e-mails from an old windows account. My fault for not thinking about it but it took quite a few attempts to access the account. And although the e-mail account for reset was itself old, my phone number was the same and I was eventually able to access the account and make it my own again.
I did try the first time to contact hotmail/Microsoft and see what help I could get. Turns out that all you can get is resetting the account over the internet. If anything worse was too happen you would be left high and dry. You see all the tech response persons I talked to were in India, and they really didn’t know anything other than fixing my windows machine. It’s like I have gone back ten years and my registry is messed up, or I am missing drivers. I haven’t had to deal with this in years. I am on a mac now so I really don’t have software issues, (hey it’s a fact)! And the other reason is even on my clunky underpowered windows netbook, I haven’t had those issues; XP is quite a stable OS!
So it was with exasperation I started to think of cloud computing, and how it will be if I trust my all to the cloud. What kind of a response can I expect from the company I trust my all to? Microsoft is clearly still in the 90’s, and is still fixing registry errors.
Apple will be venturing even more with the new data forest that’s being brought online soon. I have been with Mobile Me for a number of years, originally it wasn’t that great, and the upgrades were painful. But it works well now, and I hear there will be a big change this year. Another reference to the data forest being built.
Google seems to be better equipped with a form you can fill out and give more pertinent information. Then a person can get back to you and fix your issue. Within 24 hours I have been told, and sometimes faster. This may not be perfect if my all is in the cloud and the rain has come; but it is on the right path.
I say to any and all, only put up things on the web that you would like to share, because with all the privacy settings in the world things can go wrong. And when you agreed to the terms of service to use the site I am sure the lawyers were protecting the company, not the user.
I have not checked other sites to see how they handle hacked account issues, it is up to the user to find out if the company you give your data to is looking after your info securely. And if the unthinkable does happen, I hope the company has a system in place to get you back quickly. I mean it is your digital life we are talking about isn’t it!
Safari Youtube not talking?
Had a issue over the last few days with Safari and Youtube. I would be able to play flash video on other sites but on Youtube nothing. Not even the hint of a player loading. Except when I went to a Channel page!
It turns out the problem is when the browser gets to the Youtube page there is some communication so youtube knows the type of browser and sends the video. Well for some reason it stopped on my macbook, they decided to have a time out and not talk. On my other computers it worked ok. But in looking up the problem in the forums it wasn’t just me. The fix is simple and on my mac I went the the info tab for Safari from the applications folder. Then just clicked the 32bit check mark, youtube works again; I presume it will be fixed on next update!!
