These are interesting times, because the pattern of computing changes. The cloud has appeard. Unlimited memory and computing ressources to rent, save administration, have it available everwhere at all times. These are the promises. One of the most important promises: Save cost. This is of interest to many. But in my view the most interesting promise are applications, that have not been possible before – at least not without investing in own data centers.

So – I said to myself – if the cloud is so promising – then why not use it for myself. Just to see, if the promises hold.

The cloud in itself is in use by many of us – obviously. If we are using an email service like GMAIL, GMX- then this is a service offered by the email provider. Therefore I can access the email by a mozilla windows client, by the browser and by my iPhone. I you are using IMAP, then you benefit from the fact, that for example if you delete an email on the iPhone, it is deleted on the server as well, and therefore is synchronized into the other clients as well – i.e. you don’t have to delete the email many times.

So the advantage of the cloud becomes obvious with this example already.

The second step for me was contacts. Earlier I had my contacts in MS Outlook. All the time that my computer crashed, was new installed, new computer, new harddrive – I had the stress to save my contact data, notr to forget anything. Furthermore I had to synchronize my iPhone all the time with my Outlook by USB. So if I forgot to sychronize, I did not have the current information available.

Now it is different. I chose Google contacts. Now my contacts are in the cloud. They are synchronized with my mozilla email client and they are synchronized with my iPhone whenever I pull up my contacts there – be it the data connection of T-mobile or be it the WLAN, that the iPhone is connected to. Deleting a contact on the iPhone leads to a deleted contact in the cloud as well. I am much more satisfied with this solution.

My next step was my calendar. Previously Outlook I hat the same problems as with the contacts. Now that I went to google calendar, Mozilla Sunbird integration and iPhone synchronization, I have the same advantages as with the contacs.

The next step were bookmarks, that I changed from having them locally to delicious. Same story.

Each interaction takes one or two seconds longer, than before, because the cloud is sychronized right away. But for me the advantages outweigh this fact by far.

Actually people talk about that the data in the cloud is not so secure and available. I must say the opposite is true for me. Since I have my data in the cloud, I feel much more tranquil than before. If there will be a problem, it will be solved right away, because thousands of other users will complain on behalf of me. I can just wait until the problem has been fixed. But with these services I did not have an availability problem as of yet. Backup is done by the service provider.

So for me the cloud is a synonym for an unworried life – if you want so.

These are simple services, that everbody needs and are of general purpose. In a followon post I will elaborate on applications, that I did with the salesforce.com platform and the Windows Azure platform.