My life in the cloud: a good thing?

I've had my head in the cloud for a few years now. I use Gmail for messaging (including chats), Plaxo for my contacts and to-do list, and a host of other Web 2.0 sites for just about all of my computing. In fact, when I switch to another computer, it's almost instantaneous - though, I still have to install Office 2007. More on that in a minute.

I also have a desktop bound accounting app I use, but that's likely going to change soon if QuickBooks Online starts maturing as a product or another competitor comes along that does true profit and loss statements, expenses and invoices, and all of the other features I need.

It was with a little surprise then, yesterday, that I noticed my Gmail account was down. I've been using most of these online tools for about two years now without any trouble. Plaxo even went through a couple of major overhauls and my data is still thriving.

I remember reading John Dvorak's column a few weeks back about how cloud computing could be a dangerous trend. Like the electric car, wind farms, light rail, the campaign to get the Firefly television show back on the air, and my own diet, some ideas are worth pursuing but really hard to implement. Most of us agree that the cloud is a smart idea, it makes sense, and it will change the computing infrastructure forever. I picture a local Google data center where I can connect over 100 Mbps to all of my apps and data. It will be perfectly secure, perfectly archived, and perfectly reliable. Of course, we're a long way from perfect.

How to get there? For starters, we need to start seriously talking about pay models. Oh, I like free software just as much as everyone else, and I'm a staunch open source advocate. What I mean by pay models is just that: some sort of model that works in the current Internet economy. Maybe the software is still free but you can pay extra to get a service level agreement that your e-mail will never, ever, go down. Maybe you live with fewer features and more reliability. Maybe there's a cache that guarantees that at least my vast 4GB archive of e-mail is just a click away, even if Google isn't. As with any hard to implement idea, it will require some creativity and perseverance to make this all work.

Until then, I'm not planning on switching back to Outlook. I remember those days. To forward an e-mail, I had to download it first and then re-send it. We're talking - back when my Internet feed ran at only 500 Kbps - a good 10-15 minutes of transfer time, a.k.a. a lifetime in Internet terms. I remember when I micro-managed my personal folders instead of just marking them with a label on the fly. I remember when "searching" for an e-mail meant browsing through an archive of messages by hand, almost one by one. And I remember desktop upgrades and the havoc that would cause on my work day.

So my head is still in the cloud and will stay there. And, by the way, if you're in the cloud as well, let me know if you see a message floating by about managed code something something. I had a discussion thread that apparently did not survive the downtime yesterday.

(Note: I still use Word 2007, but I think the writing is on the wall. I like Zoho Writer, and I use ThinkFree products occasionally. I have even tried a few stripped down writing portals like Buzzword, and Google Docs is getting there. But there still isn't a Word replacement that can do inline spell check, templates, brochures, and everything else that Word does.)