Cloud Computing Conundrum

I am listening to the "Cranky Geeks" podcast #174 on 7/8/09 (here's the iTunes link to the MP3 audio only edition... they also have video podcasts as well), and they started to discuss the potential disaster of having your info in "the cloud", as well as the fact that you don't "own" your information in a sense, or at least that these services have access to your information (no matter what the privacy agreement states). One of their comments was that Google has more private/personal information than the NSA.

For the disaster part, they discussed the threat of someone targeting these "mega-hubs" where these datacenters and backbones are located, and the effect this would have on the country. I think there is some validity to this, but I feel like there is a decent amount of redundancy and fault-tolerance in this day and age. I see their point though. If you lose your internet connection, how do you retrieve your data?? If the company you have this data with folds, where does it go??

Because of my mobility and want for having my information everywhere AND always in sync (so one device doesn't have the latest copy when I'm not at that device but need that data), I have started to try and move ALL of my computing data into the cloud with services that allow me to get to that data on pretty much all the devices I want to use. So far I am using Google Apps (Standard Edition) heavily for email and calendaring, Toodledo for my Task Management Solution (which I'm loving more and more as I use it), Evernote for all my notes I want to track or recall at some point, SmugMug.com for my important photographs that I want safe and backed up (and it automatically creates beautiful web albums that I can use to share these photos with family and friends), and I also use JustHost.com (which has an AMAZINGLY low priced "unlimited" hosting plan, I personally chose 3yrs to lock the price in) and GoDaddy.com for my web hosting needs (other than Blogger for this and other blogs, which is another Google entity). I am even looking for MORE cloud based computing to move more data off a single device so it is available to me everywhere, on any device (not just ones that I own). Now that I think of it, I even have some books in the cloud via Amazon Kindle service, which I use on my iPhone to read them. It syncs the books and last page viewed, including bookmarks, to the Amazon cloud, and I can even get those files on another registered device and pick up where I left off (I tested this when I had to reinstall Kindle on my iPhone because I switched PCs for syncing... all my books were under "Archive" and selecting them downloaded them and all their details... VERY slick).

I think "cloud computing" is a huge buzzword right now, and I think it's coming into its own because the connectivity is finally here that allows this to work well (even when mobile). In each of these solutions, I try to have it cache the information locally in case I am in a situation where I am not connected (like on a plane, etc), but that is not always available for all of the solutions. I suppose I hadn't stopped to think about the what-if's enough, most likely because my drive for cloud computing was coming from wanting my data anywhere and NOT wanting to manage my own servers for this at my house (I've been there, done that, and it's a hassle... it's MUCH easier to have other companies with the infrastructure provide this for me... sometimes for no charge! Like Google).

I'm not sure if cloud computing is the right solution going forward, or for how long it will be the solution I want... but it sure feels right right now.

What about you? What are your thoughts on cloud computing? Any fears, faults, tragedy? I'd love to hear them!