What Isn't In The Cloud?

June 4, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Cloud computing has been around for as long as there have been computers. When I was in high school, I was involved in “cloud gaming.” Yeah, it wasn’t the same kind of thing back in 1976-1979. But I could connect the school’s remote terminal to the district’s mainframe. From this connection, I programmed (and played) Blackjack and poker. I also began to play games like Colossal Cave.
In the eighties, we saw the emergence of email and file transfer across unimaginable distances. We also began to see network games being offered by startups like CompuServe. No, I don’t remember my original CIS id number. Nor do I remember my first real accounts with an ISP (in the early nineties). But I do remember MUD’s.
Times sure have changed – and my how they haven’t changed.
Today, I use “the cloud” for the following services:

Email,
File/document transfer/sharing,
Reading,
Photo sharing,
Music streaming,
Video streaming,
Remote access (to corporate systems as well as to my own systems),
Remote banking,
Shopping (and shipping),
Ticket ordering (i.e., transportation, entertainment, etc),
Bureaucratic animal taming (i.e., tax forms, student loans, job apps, medical forms, insurance forms, pharmacy/prescriptions, daycare payment and forms, etc),
…and an endless list that would be too darned tedious to fully enumerate.

So what has changed since I was young?

Everything is available online,
Everything is available in real-time (except government services),
Everything looks good, appealing and/or enticing,
Almost everyone has access to these online services.

Are new things available each and every day? They are indeed. Just look at the image above. I can use my phone to control file transfers to/from my home PC. There are some really unique and exciting things that materialize every day.
But let’s really think about this for a minute. Is there really anything new under the sun? That’s a debatable proposition. The means of communication are varying – but the need to communicate remains. The means of commerce are changing – but the need for trading skills for money and money for goods remains. The means of government control are varying – but the innate desire for people (and governments) to control you still remains. Solomon was right when he wrote (in Ecclesiastes 1:9) that there was nothing new under the sun.
In my limited view, I see a compelling truth: if there really is nothing new, then the tried and true solutions (as found in the Scriptures) are still very applicable – even to a twenty-first century citizen. God is in control. And our Creator can still teach us about our own condition – and His solutions for our difficulties.
-Roo

What Isn’t In The Cloud?

June 4, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

In the eighties, we saw the emergence of email and file transfer across unimaginable distances. We also began to see network games being offered by startups like CompuServe. No, I don’t remember my original CIS id number. Nor do I remember my first real accounts with an ISP (in the early nineties). But I do remember MUD’s.

Times sure have changed – and my how they haven’t changed.

Today, I use “the cloud” for the following services:

Email,
File/document transfer/sharing,
Reading,
Photo sharing,
Music streaming,
Video streaming,
Remote access (to corporate systems as well as to my own systems),
Remote banking,
Shopping (and shipping),
Ticket ordering (i.e., transportation, entertainment, etc),
Bureaucratic animal taming (i.e., tax forms, student loans, job apps, medical forms, insurance forms, pharmacy/prescriptions, daycare payment and forms, etc),
…and an endless list that would be too darned tedious to fully enumerate.

So what has changed since I was young?

Everything is available online,
Everything is available in real-time (except government services),
Everything looks good, appealing and/or enticing,
Almost everyone has access to these online services.

But let’s really think about this for a minute. Is there really anything new under the sun? That’s a debatable proposition. The means of communication are varying – but the need to communicate remains. The means of commerce are changing – but the need for trading skills for money and money for goods remains. The means of government control are varying – but the innate desire for people (and governments) to control you still remains. Solomon was right when he wrote (in Ecclesiastes 1:9) that there was nothing new under the sun.

In my limited view, I see a compelling truth: if there really is nothing new, then the tried and true solutions (as found in the Scriptures) are still very applicable – even to a twenty-first century citizen. God is in control. And our Creator can still teach us about our own condition – and His solutions for our difficulties.

-Roo

A Welcome (And Unexpected) Resolution

June 4, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Last weekend, I tried to get my Android phone to scrobble the songs that I listened to via Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player. I tried the Last.fm Android client. I loaded the ScrobbleDroid client (which did work with the Android Music app). But I had no success. So I set the problem aside for a few days.
And then things started to work.
I decided to play something at the office. And I noticed that there was a message in the information bar of my phone. The message was simple: my music was being scrobbled to Last.fm (via the Last.fm client). This was great news. But as an analytical geek, I was disappointed because I had no idea which change resulted in the successful outcome I was experiencing.
Unsatisfied with success, I’m now trying to reconstruct my apparent success. The only thing that changed during the time between when it wasn’t working and the time that it began working was that a new version of the Last.fm client was deployed to my phone. [Note: I used passive voice in the last sentence because I didn’t deploy it by choice. I had selected automatic updates for this app. And it got updated. Using active voice, I would say that my phone (and the app market) updated the application.]
Since this is the only change I can identify thus far, I must lean towards this change as being the probable source of my success. But I am not wholly convinced – yet. There is an obvious interaction between Google Music, Last.fm and ScrobbleDroid. And since one of those components did change, then I could just close the book: problem solved. Unfortunately, I haven”t seen the code for any of these components, so I can’t really say which is the root cause for the change in status.
But at this moment, I am going to accept victory as a desirable outcome. I now have one cloud music application that does meet the majority of my listening needs. That system is the Google Music client. I also have one retail music channel that meets my needs. That music channel is Amazon.
On the whole, I have one question: what’s changed? That’s easy. I’ve finally broken the leash that iTunes has on my music library. Now that I am not wholly dependent upon Apple, I can objectively evaluate the iCloud offering whenever it becomes available.
For now, there is peace in the music valley at Chez Roo.
-Roo

Which One Will I Choose?

May 30, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Over the past several weeks, I’ve spent time and money on assessing a variety of streaming audio solutions. My assessment has considered many factors. But chief among those factors was the mobile experience. When I was at home, I used iTunes. It’s not that iTunes is necessarily the best. Indeed, I’ve used dozens of tools at home. As a general rule, I have always favored things that also provide for metadata management (e.g., MediaMonkey). But iTunes has always been the “gold standard” for both “look and feel” as well as for application compatibility. Everyone is “compatible” with iTunes because it IS the de facto market leader.
But that market may be shifting – at least for me. Over the past few weeks, I’ve assessed two different audio streaming tools: Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music. Both have their pros and cons. Google has much more storage available that is (currently) free of charge. Amazon has a pre-exisiting (and built-in) retail channel that allows for easy (and impulsive) music purchasing. Both have good web clients. And both have good Android clients.
But both suffer from one key problem: I can’t capture and record my listening data on Last.fm. Yes, I can scrobble data from the web client (if I use third-party scripts to do the job). But neither product has any native capability to scrobble from an Android device. There are music players that do scrobble from Android. If you use the Android Music player, you can use tools like ScrobbleDroid. And if you are a fan of Winamp, you can scrobble through the Last.fm Android app. But neither of these players can stream audio from my library. So I was stuck in a quandary. Should I store music on my phone and utilize a player that scrobbles? Or should I use a cloud-based music player and forego the ability to scrobble my music?
The only solution was to either code up my own solution – or use something that already does both. Since I still have another wedding in five weeks,I chose the latter approach. Based upon some searches in Google and Twitter, I decided that I would try out the Audiogalaxy product. Based upon its marketing, the product provides streaming audio (from your home and through their servers) and the product scrobbles via the Last.fm Android app. So I began yet another quest in search of a mythical chalice.
Audiogalaxy is relatively simple to install. The site provides the step-by-step instructions that will get you going. But the basic process is as follows:

Create a free account on the Audiogalaxy site.
Download and install the Audiogalaxy “helper” application.
Point the “helper” application at your music files.
Wait for the helper application to collect metadata and send it to the Audiogalaxy service.
Install the Android app on your phone.
Start listening to your music.

The process is relatively straightforward. And I had no technical issues with the setup. I can now listen to my music library from my phone. And as I listen, my listening habits are recorded at Last.fm.

Unfortunately, Audiogalaxy has the same privacy issues that are present in Amazon’s service and also present in Google’s service: all of your music is streamed through a third-party service. So the architecture of all of these products is an architecture of control, not anonymity.
As I’ve said before, this doesn’t pose a problem for me at this time. After all, my music is positively pedestrian. But what would happen if my musical tastes were more scandalous? Or what would happen if the government decided that rock music was not to be tolerated at all? Then where would I be? I would need to rethink my listening habits. Of course, if something that draconian ever happened, then I would rethink my need to scrobble at all! And for those kinds of over-the-top situations, I might need to assemble a BOB (bug out bag)! 😉
After this exercise, I now have a streaming solution that I can utilize. And I think I know what to look for when it comes to government snooping into my private life. And there is one more option that has to be noted: Apple has not put its offering on the table yet. Maybe that offering will be announced this week. If so, I suspect that my options will grow even broader.
Finally, I really ought to point you to a vey fine comparison of all of these options. David Ruddock (and the folks at AndroidPolice) put together a great comparison of music apps on the Android platform. Check it out for a comprehensive view of all of the Android options.
-Roo

ScrobbleDroid – Closer, But Not Quite There Yet

May 28, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

For many music fans, a key to their listening experience is scrobbling to Last.fm. For those not familiar with the term, it refers to recording the songs that you play. Last.fm has built its unique offering based on the ability to record when and how you listen to music. The process of recording is called scrobbling. For years, whenever you listened to things on iTunes, they could be recorded on Last.fm’s site. Even the Songbird team built scrobling into their basic product offering.
Why is this data important? That’s a great question. People care about this kind of data for a variety of reasons. Some people just want their friends and followers to know more about themselves. Some people like to be considered experts in something (e.g., a band, an album or a community of mutual interests). And some people like to meet and interact with other people that share their interests. Scrobbling collects data that makes all of these things possible. [Note: Scrobbling also lets record companies and bands target their music and their marketing to serious fans.]
Because a large and active community chooses to publicly record their music preferences via scrobbling, most music products have open interfaces and/or direct interfaces to the Last.fm service. Consequently, you can scrobble with almost any PC or Mac-based music player. But this is not the case with mobile phone-based music players.
Because most music players on Android do not provide native support for scrobbling, creative people have built their own scrobbling engines for use on the Android platform. ScrobbleDroid is one such engine. This product was originally a Google Code project. It is now a product that can be obtained from the Android Market. And it is an excellent (and free) tool for scrobbling your listening habits to Last.fm.
Unfortunately, it only works if you use the Android Music application. So it currently supports only music that is stored on your Android phone. But I have high hopes that someday, it will be extended to support both the Google Music platform as well as the Amazon Cloud Drive platform.
In the meantime, if any of you know of a different scrobbling tool that works with streaming music, drop me a note (via comment, email or Twitter).
-Roo

Google Music Is A Real Beta

May 28, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I have spent a great deal of time this week working with the new Google Music Beta. And I am finally at a point where I can speak with a degree of confidence. What do I think of the new Google service? I think it is a real beta. It has some very rough edges. But it is chock full of promise. It has some unique and innovative features. And there are some things that are simply undone or they are incomplete.
The Good
There are a lot of outstanding features in the Google offering.

The current Google offering provides for storage of up to 20,000 songs. This is outstanding. If this model is carried forward, Google Music will destroy the competition by starving the market. My song base alone is over 12GB. So if I stay with Amazon, I will need to pay for a 20GB allotment. That will mean ~$20 per year. That’s not much. But when it’s compared to a free product, I will always take free – unless free doesn’t meet my minimum feature requirements. [Note: Google may get themselves into some trouble with such a generous storage limit. The government might choose to bring a case against Google for anti-competitive practices. I don’t think that I’d agree with such a claim. But I can see where Amazon and Apple might support someone else bringing such a claim to the federal courts.]
The service itself is stable and the music streams reliably. While I have had some challenges with streaming to my phone, most of my experience has been outstanding.
The user interface on the phone is beautiful. It is a joy to work with the mobile tool. While the “look and feel” of the Amazon tool is eminently functional, it is positively clunky. Google has obviously spent some time making the mobile experience very appealing.

The Bad
Despite all the good features, there are some serious shortcomings in the initial offering.

The tool that loads music onto the service is positively anemic. As noted in my previous post, loading music is an all-or-nothing proposition. To load individual songs (or new sub-folders in a nested hierarchy), you have to reconfigure the music loading tool to point to specific folders. Then you have to find the option in Settings that allows you to manually load music. Then you have to push the Start Now button. Google really needs to spend some time working on this process. You can “stretch” the tool to do your bidding. But ease of use in music loading is a definite weakness.
The view options are really limited. Yes, you can navigate around in the web client. But it is not a beautiful and robust client: it is a functional client. That said, the Android client is beautiful. And it has some of the view options that I like. But it would be nice to have similar options between dissimilar clients. Whether for good or ill, the Amazon client has a common appearance across every platform – including the Apple platform.
There is no music store interface. When I went through the process of loading files, I noted that some of the songs (that I had on my hard drive) came from questionable sources. In my case, I had gotten a copy of “Riders on the Storm” (by the Doors) from the web. I had used the song for a video that I had made for my son a few years ago. But I had never gotten around to buying a copy of the song. So I used Amazon’s service to buy the “Best of…” album from The Doors. Having an integrated service (from any vendor) would be most welcome. I have found that since using the Amazon client, I’ve probably purchased a half dozen albums that I would have otherwise not purchased. This is especially true of impulse purchases. Having an electronic wallet and an “always on” connection has allowed me to experience impulse buying in a whole new light.
There are no tag searching or tag editing options at all. For some folks, ID3 tags are vitally important. And there is no attention to this subject at all.
There is no support for scrobbling music to Last.fm. Yes, there are ways of scrobbling when using the web client. Dan Slaughter has put together some excellent scripts that work with both Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive. You can find information about these tools here. But it must be noted that there is no support currently available for the mobile (i.e., Android) client.

The Ugly
Finally, there are some ugly issues that really need to be resolved before this product can become a traditional Google beta (i.e., a complete product).
It took me almost a week to get the product to work on my phone. The product would install successfully. And I could see all of the local music, but I couldn’t see anything that was on my cloud drive. At first, I thought that this was a problem with my custom ROM. I use Liberty 2.0. And some apps have trouble with some of the things that jrummy does with the ROM. But that was not the case.
I was about ready to give up on it when I had an unforeseen (and problematic) product upgrade for LauncherPro. My entire LauncherPro config was wiped out and needed to be rebuilt. Once I solved that problem, I went back to the Google Music service. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but my music collection (but no tiny reindeer). I have to assume that the cleanup of LauncherPro solved my issues – though I have no way of proving it. Either way, the Google Music product now works superbly – though I wish I really knew what caused the trouble in the first place.
But to me, the most troubling aspect of this service (as well as the Amazon service) is the issue of privacy. It is one thing to believe in the safety and security of your own home. But when you store your media on an external service that is not within your home, do you have any degree of privacy? Perhaps you do. Then again, perhaps you don’t.
Part of me is very troubled that I have my musical tastes (and my reading tastes) exposed to any corporation. But it would be even more troubling if that same corporation made my content tastes accessible to the government. Do I have anything to fear currently? No, I really don’t. I try to ensure that all of my content is licensed. And I am pretty darned pedestrian in my reading and musical tastes. In fact, most people call me a prude. But I don’t want the government to know what I think. It’s none of their business. Finally, I broadcast (via blog, tweet and scrobble) all of my media-related activities. So am I concerned that anyone will use this information against me? No, I’m not. At least, I’m not concerned currently.
But what happens if corporations (or the government) change and become more insidious? Or what happens when they try to use my data for their own selfish marketing needs? For me, this possibility is real. And it gives me reason to pause. I don’t want to see the firemen break down my front door and seize my copy of the Bible (or the sonnets of Shakespeare, or the music of The Doors).
Bottom Line
I am impressed with the Google service. I really like their Android client. I hope that they will create a common client interface across all platforms (including Apple’s iOS). And I really hope that they take time and care in developing their EULA. There are some real challenges that must be solved. Nevertheless, the “all you can drink” service is far more compelling than a “pay per gigabyte” service.
But for now, I’m leaning towards the Amazon platform. It is a little more polished and a lot more ubiquitous. Moreover, the Amazon case for privacy is a little more comforting (given Google’s historic willingness to work with the repressive Chinese government). Finally, Amazon’s integration with a working retail channel is far more compelling. But if Google can overcome some (or all) of these hurdles, they do have a chance to win my business.
-Roo

Quick Takes on Music Beta (by Google)

May 22, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After spending quite a bit of time (and devoting a little coin of the realm) to the Amazon Cloud Drive, I received an email informing me that Google has requested me to participate in the private beta of their new music service. I am more than a little surprised that I was included. But who am I to complain. It’s that much more tech to play with.
But don’t expect this post to be a complete review. This is just a few quick takes from what I’ve seen so far.
Here are my first thoughts (in order of relative importance to me):

Google is offering this service for free. And that means free. I can store up to 20,000 songs free of charge. Period. This simple truth is more than worth the price of admission. And it surely beats the pricing that Amazon is offering. [Note: I do wonder how Google will monetize this. I suspect that it will be context-driven ads. But without a retail engine, where will they drive the traffic to?]
The music selection and loading tools are blunt instruments, at best. You can select everything from iTunes or everything from Windows Media Player. You can also select everything in a directory. This is hardly a precise instrument. You can take a big swing at everything or take no swing at all. The crudity of this method is heart-wrenching. With the Amazon Cloud Drive, you have far more options to selecting and loading your music. But both tools really need to take advantage of metadata that you may already have in your music. I want to do complex Boolean searches on tags and have the selected files loaded.
I really want to control the loading of all files onto the service. I still have a bunch of files that came from unclear origins. Don’t get me wrong, I own all the music that I have on my hard drive. But sometimes I have downloaded songs rather than record them from LP. And after spending years of using tools like MusicBrainz and MP3tagger, I have files with some really oddball ID3 tags.
I would really like more social media tools. Thee is no Last.fm integration. There is no way to comment and tweet those comments to my followers. And there is absolutely no interaction with Facebook. I really want my cloud music service to be more social. After all, music is a community affair. Sharing occurs within fan groups. Even the folks at Myspace knew that. I really think that Google should link this offering to Buzz, Wave, Facebook and Twitter.
Finally, where is the integration with a music retailer. Apple (and iTunes) integrate with the Apple iTunes Music store. And Amazon integrates with their well-established MP3 sales channel. Without a retail engine or agreements with the labels, I am skeptical of the overall success of this offering. I am sure that these things will be added. But their absence in the initial product is rather troubling.

I will write a much more comprehensive review when all of my songs are loaded. Right now, I am +4,000 files of my +6,500 song iTunes library. Let’s see how this car drives when I have all of my clutter on board. But for now, the truck is a good one. It will haul my stuff. I just need to drive it around for a while to see how it handles.
-Roo

My Gingerbread Was Too Crumbly

May 18, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Yesterday was a very odd day. At work, we are doing final validation of the data center before we bring it online. At home, we are doing final preparations for the wedding. So it was obviously the right time to upgrade my phone to Gingerbread.
The first chore was picking a ROM. Since I have invested in Liberty, I figured that I would go down that route. After a little research, I had a clear and unambiguous strategy.

Use ROM Manager to backup the current system
Flash my phone with the GB leak for the D2
Update from the GB leak to Liberty GB 0.5

It’s a small list that is chock full of many other steps – and a boatload of assumptions. But this list was my starting point. So I started the process with a backup. That took about thirty minutes. Then I downloaded the leaked ROM. After reading about the process, I realized that ROM Manager wouldn’t do the job. I needed to use RSDLite to perform an SBF restore.
I started to have an odd feeling when I tried to reboot into basic recovery mode. [Note: You can’t use ROM Manager or Clockwork Recovery for this.] After rebooting and getting into recovery, I connected the phone via USB. And nothing happened. I couldn’t see the device in RSDLite. After restarting the phone and getting the right version of RSDLite, I was able to see the phone in the list of devices identified by RSDLIte (that was running on the PC). But when I tried to perform the recovery, I got a series of odd messages that seemed to indicate that the SBF file I had was not the right file for the phone that I have. Arghhh.
Since I didn’t know where to get the right SBF file, I decided that it was time to go back to where I came from. Unfortunately, I had wiped the phone in preparation for Gingerbread. Fortunately, I had taken a backup. So I booted into Clockwork Recovery and started my restore. Too bad that the recovery never finished.
After two hours of waiting for the recovery to finish, I punted. I used Clockwork Recovery to flash back to Liberty 1.5. That worked flawlessly. Then I upgraded to Liberty 2.01. That worked flawlessly as well. So now I just had to rebuild the apps. I figured that this would be easy. I’d just go into the Market, start a download, and watched the rest of the apps download by themselves. Too bad that this did not happen. Instead, I had to download the purchased apps one by one. And then I had to start downloading all of the free apps that I’ve installed.
But there is very good news to the story. I had been having trouble with the phone’s camera. That’s probably because I tried to load a bunch of add-ons last month. When I did, I broke the camera functionality. But now that I have rebuilt the system, all the weird errors are now a thing of the past. My phone is much more functional. And since I store all of my contacts and all of my music in the cloud, I am back to complete functionality. And it only took about six hours of my life.
I will definitely do this again. But next time, I will make sure about the SBF file that I use. And I will prepare a formal checklist. That will ensure that I don’t burn hours in pursuit of something only to find myself performing a costly system cleanup.
-Roo

New Skin for Old Wine?

May 8, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

If you haven’t noticed it yet, I’ll let you in on a secret: I’ve cleaned up the look of the blog. And I do believe that it is quite a bit nicer than it was before.
What did I do? Well, I decided that it was time to start using some professional themes to improve the visual appeal of the site. Yes, there are some excellent free themes for WordPress. But after taking a look at a few of the professional themes, I realized that I really needed to update the look and feel of the site. In particular, I needed to make the content far more accessible.
To do this, I had to take a few key first steps:

I needed to clean up my content taxonomy. When I started this blog, terms like “folksonomy” were all the rage. And my site had a very sparse category structure. That’s was fine then. It was not so good now. So I reduced the total number of high-level categories. And I created a loose hierarchy.
I then went back and re-categorized a few hundred posts so that they would match the new category structure. This was quite a chore. But I just finished my first pass on the old content. All posts are now categorized somehow.

With these steps done, I looked for a theme that would utilize the new category structure.
But I wanted to get more content within easy viewing. So the theme that I chose shows multiple columns of content on the home screen. In addition, I wanted to be able to use a thin header image to minimize the picture muddle (and download time) for mobile devices. So I chose a theme that has a clean and simple look. My hope is that it draws the reader to the article headers.
After reorganizing the content and using a fresh theme, I think I’ve got a look that meets many of the requests that I’ve heard from the readers.
But here is something more interesting – at least, for me. I had to look at all of the content that I’ve posted over the last five years. And it is very insightful to review your own thoughts after several years. Here are some quick content takeaways:

I really do love technology. Wile there are lots of posts on lots of subjects, I do write quite a bit about technology.
I have been very accurate on some predictions – and very inaccurate on others. I’m glad I’m not a prophet because you would have to stone me. But I can say that many of my predictions about the large waves within the technology industry are spot on. I tend to fall down when predicting things about the company (and/or the products) that I am working for/with when I post something. To remedy this, I’ll make sure I highlight a bias based upon company/product loyalty.
I have a peculiar obsession with security and privacy. I haven’t worked in IT security for almost twenty-seven years. But I still write about security. And I really do seem to spend a lot of time talking about privacy and anonymity. And since these technologies overlap political issues, I can get very animated about them.
I don’t write nearly enough about my faith. Yes, I do write about my faith in Jesus. But most of that content surfaces on Twitter or Facebook. I wonder if that means anything. I should probably spend more time writing thoughtful posts on this blog.
I really do have a fantastic family. I have a big grin on my face as I write this. When I started blogging on this site, Dana was still in high school and playing AAU ball. She has now graduated from college.Cindy has been through three different employers in the period that I have been blogging. And she is very close to earning her master’s degree.
But I really haven’t spent a lot of time talking about ALL of my children. I have some fantastic kids. And I haven’t blogged about all of them. That’s a shame. I will be writing more about Meredith and Bailey this summer. Both are getting married. And I really love being the proud father of the bride – twice!
As much as I am a bicycling kangaroo, I haven’t spent much time (lately) discussing my bicycling exploits. I’ll have to remedy that. And I really need to spend a little more time talking about local cycling. So I have joined the Johnson County Bike Club. And I’ll start putting up a few more posts about bicycle commuting and cycling in the KC area.

So after re-launching the site, I’ve made a few new resolutions about content. Keep me on track by letting me know when I’m missing the mark with your content interests. My goal with this blog is to write thoughtful posts that might even challenge you. I promise o be transparent – and a little more prolific. Please hold me to that promise!
-Roo

Clouds: Just Water and Particulates

May 8, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

What is cloud computing? There are so many definitions. I won’t trivialize the subject by recounting a litany of terms. But I’ve been in computing for over thirty years. And “the cloud” looks a lot like data center computing in the mainframe era or data center computing in the client-server era.
I find it curious that cloud computing emphasizes “the cloud” rather than the client. We used to draw diagrams with a cloud that represented the network and the services that weren’t under our control. We controlled the things at the edge. We were the client. And then we connected clients to “the cloud” that linked one set of users with other users (or servers). So the cloud was something that we didn’t dare describe. It was fluffy and “out there” for someone else to deal with. We trusted someone else to ensure its maintenance, availability and security.
Microsoft tells us to take our computing “to the cloud.” Their slick ads are fascinating – especially when you consider that they are just repackaging Windows Live. They want us to trust their services to fulfill our needs. That means Passport. That means storage. That means chat and mail. And that means trust. We should trust them to do what we need to have done.
Amazon has launched its “cloud” services in the form of the Amazon Cloud Drive. I’ve written about this one before. And I really like it. And Amazon has a killer retail purchasing and fulfillment infrastructure. To Amazon, a “cloud service” is anything that they control. Hmmm. That sounds a lot like Microsoft’s definition. Of course, we trust Amazon – because they aren’t someone “nefarious” (like Microsoft). And when we use Amazon’s cloud services, we buy things from Amazon. In my case, I’ve recently bought all sorts of music from Amazon. I don’t even want to tell my wife how many dollars that I’ve spent.
And Google has always had cloud-based services. They include web mail, web chat, web images, web apps, and even web printing. I like a lot of Google’s services – especially since I use a Google Android-based phone. And like Amazon, Google can claim some followers just because they aren’t Microsoft. The claim is simple: “we know you can’t trust Microsoft – so trust us instead.”
[Note: The silly claim that we should eschew Microsoft reminds me so much of the “anyone but IBM” crowd that emerged during the PC era. Or was that the “anyone but Sun” crowd that emerged during the early client-server era. Or is that the “anyone but Google” crowd that is starting to gain steam these days.]
With that background, let’s charge to the premise: there are good and bad aspects to “cloud computing.” Like real clouds, good things come from the sky. Rain comes from the sky. Rain is needed for life and health. But there are also bad things that come from the cloud. All you have to do is see a lightning storm or read the recent reports from the South: storms can kill.
Cloud computing shares this zen view of things. The cloud offers great advantages. You can “outsource” lots of mundane tasks to someone else. They can do the heavy lifting. Microsoft can do the legacy PC work. Amazon can do the retail purchasing and fulfillment work. Google can do the search and data mining services. And Rackspace can meet your hosting needs. [Note: You can also buy all sorts of services from service providers like WordPress. For example, I just bought a premium theme from them.]
But along with the needed “rain” that comes with the cloud, there are some fierce downsides with cloud computing. If you trust someone who makes mistakes (uh, like everyone does), then bad things can happen. For example, you could have your gaming data compromised when PSN is compromised. Thankfully, I don’t have a PS3. And I’m not on the PSN network. But I do use LastPass. So who is the bigger fool? Is it my future son-in-law who lost things via PSN or is it me?
My bottom-line is simple. If you trust someone else, you are risking the violation of that trust. That violation can be intentional or unintentional. Do not consider anything as safe. From my vantage point, everyone can fail. Indeed, the only way to ensure the safety of your valuables is to store them where moths and rust cannot attack them. The only secure investment of trust is an investment in our Savior. Here’s my tired, old motto: In God we trust. All others pay cash.
But between now and the hereafter, I have to make daily trust decisions. My current trust decisions are as follows:

I trust Bank of America with my cash flow.
I trust Fidelity with my investment portfolio.
I trust Amazon for purchasing and delivery.
I trust Google for authentication, search and generalized web-services (like mail, voice and remote services).
I trust the government for defense services (both locally and internationally).
I trust local governments for traffic services.
I trust my wife for almost all meta-services. I also trust her as my most intimate financial adviser/partner. And while I can cook, I really do trust her to give me a better standard of living. [Note: I trust Bailey for cookies.]

In summary, the cloud is nothing new. It is simply the investment of trust in an external provider. In the past, we trusted everything to a small number of providers. Today, that circle of trust is much wider. So we have to be more savvy as we manage an ever-widening trust ecosystem. Be prepared to switch providers quickly. Be prepared to do periodic reviews of anyone who provides you with trusted services. And please remember that the only person who you can truly trust is the one who created you and the one who died for you.
Finally, let’s talk analogies and symbolism. God created you and He died for you. Easter was the ultimate reminder of that simple fact. But the example you should remember today is your Mom. She carried you and she nurtured you. And she would surely die for you. On this Mother’s day, remember to thank your Mom for being the foundation of your trust ecosystem.
-Roo

The intersection of vision and action

Category: Technology

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