Cloud Nine Computing

HP Mini -- good things come in small packages -- Picture by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
Today I’d like to talk about my favorite new thing, netbooks. What is a netbook? It’s a new class of small laptop computer that loosely fits this criteria:

• 7-11 inch screen
• 2-3 pounds
• cost below $400
• small (or missing) hard disk drive
• Windows XP or Ubuntu Linux OS
• Intel Atom processor

The term “netbook” has been around awhile – Psion tried (but failed) to use the term as a trademark 15 years ago for it’s clamshell PDA’s. Oracle’s Larry Ellison bandied the concept of a “network desktop” computer back in the mid-90’s but it didn’t fly then – just turns out he was 10 years too soon with the concept. Also in the mid-90s, Microsoft licensees launched a whole line of Windows CE devices (HP Jupiter, e.g.) but they were seen as inferior, hobbled Widows-Lite machines. Apple’s MacBook Air (introduced January 2008) is netbookish in concept (paper thin, no CD-DVR drive), but its $1800 asking price is a serious transgression of the netbook criteria. Also at 13”, the screen size puts it a little outside of the category.

The genuine netbook made its quiet debut with the ASUS Eee PC in 2007. There was marked interest in it and it was soon joined by Acer Aspire, HP Mini, Dell Inspiron and several others. With the economic meltdown of late, netbooks provide capable albeit low-end PCs for a very affordable price. They also fill a niche above the smart phone strata for those who want full screen, non-hobbled windows in a very portable package.

All of this is well and good but one might ask, “How do you get away with such a small drive?”. The answer lies in a new concept called cloud computing.

CLOUD COMPUTING

I won’t go into great detail about this, except to say that cloud computing is the concept of keeping all your data (and increasingly your apps) on remote web servers. Your netbook drive (in theory) just needs to be large enough to hold your OS plus a few basic configuration files. I have a new HP Mini with a 16GB solid state drive. That happens to cover my needs right now; I’ll tell you why I’m not enamored of cloud computing. Imagine if your gonads were detachable. Would you feel good about putting them in someone else’s lockbox? Here are two over-arching concerns about cloud computing…

1) Network data can always be hacked – Do you really feel OK about putting financial or health records on a public server? As a software developer, I’ve never seen a database or file that can’t be hacked by somebody with inside knowledge. Never.

2) Servers go down – Do you want do-or-die software under someone else’s custody? My AT&T email is frequently on the blink. I have nary a company web site that doesn’t come down for maintenance and other issues periodically. I’d like my bread-and-butter apps to be always at the ready, along with my data.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me with a really cool, lightweight HP Mini that does everything I need, without putting the gonads where they don’t belong. Please pardon that tasteless mixed metaphor, and the next time you go to Best Buy or Frye’s – check out the netbooks.

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