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My grandmother didn’t know diddly about computers but she used to wax lyrical about all the changes that she had seen in her life and wonder out loud – to anyone who would listen including her cats – whether or not life had been better without those transformations. She hadn’t seen a car or a plane until she was ten but it wasn’t long after that she heard news about related fatalities. So much for them being safe! It was a great mistake, too, to start her on the subject of nuclear weapons – we just didn’t go there unless we had an afternoon to spare. It was a really good job that she died before she woke up, like Keanu Reeves’ character Neo in The Matrix, in an enclosed pod encased in vile pink stuff with a USB port stuck in the back of her head. That would have been way too much for her to take – let alone the rest of the family. Having said that, the thought of her doing slow-motion kung-fu puts a wry smile on my face.

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Digression aside, I used to wonder whether or not I would be able to measure my life against such changes – ones which had so many global repercussions. Surely the internet’s next big phase will be something I can look back at but will I understand it then let alone now? When I reach her age will I be able, in the supermarket, to turn with childish glee and announce “I’m ninety three you know!” (one of her many habits in that sometimes inevitable journey of the mind back towards infancy) and then pinpoint in an obviously well-rehearsed fashion the great changes I have seen? Or even better, will I be able to word process it in to a poem (of sorts), upload it and share on a zillion social networking sites instantly, while drawing attention to my great feat of old age by zapping the store with my PDA to let everyone know it?

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Possibly, I can do some of that now and to list the changes I have witnessed in my lifetime would be noises off, as it were. One revolution (it means change, after all!) I believe I will be able to comment upon was when the Internet became The Cloud. The internet has been open to codgers for years, (and the Rise of The Silver Surfer isn’t just about the sheer number of greys using the net – ahem!). But new stuff just keeps happening! What exactly is The Cloud? Find out here without receiving a withering look from a teen!

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I am preaching to the converted here, at least in terms of internet usage. You are here already. You expect it to be remote occasionally (perhaps not quite as remote as indicated in the picture above!), but some of the new terms have passed you by. However, simply by reading this now, you must have already come a certain amount of the way to being in The Cloud. You read on-line (perhaps the last time you felt the touch of a paperback was a while ago!) and you may even shop or bank online too. As for social networking, let me guess! Facebook? Bebo? MySpace? Friends Reunited? You may use wiki spaces professionally as well as socially. You may even write online – like myself – and be part of a growing an interactive community of people who think collectively and share resources on the internet.

So far, so Web 2.0. What comes next, what is pretty much here already is, so we are told, The (mysterious to many) Cloud. This is the envisioned era when all of your personal data storage needs – and any computer-based activities are carried out online. In fact, hold it right there – takes those words ‘computer based’ out of the sentence and you are even closer to what The Cloud may mean. OK, breathing, sleeping, eating and going to see a man about a dog many never be online activities (until we become Ghosts in the Machine for real?) but what else are we talking about? Pretty much everything, to be sure!

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If you are younger than twenty you may well have stopped reading this now, because you already know what is coming. That’s because you are already doing most of it. As you get older and have your own children they will take what you have learned and add upon it. However, this article isn’t really for you members of Generation C – you are living it already. If, though, you want it defined or need something easy to digest, then maybe read on!

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Perhaps you should make a little tick list to begin with. How many of the following do you already do online? Do you work, spend and invest on line? Do you gamble, meet new friends and listen to music online? Do you watch the TV, movies and read newspapers and books online? Do you take pictures, upload them and view them online? Well, perhaps you already have your head in The Cloud as these are exactly the sort of experiences that it will encompass. You may already be living in the clouds!

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Oh – and do not expect to be alone. Everyone will be on this particular bandwagon, headed up by some of the world’s biggest (and scariest) organizations. The hard-drive is dead and SSDs (not some awful sexually transmitted disease but Solid State Drives!) are on the march. However, you may find that these become significantly smaller as companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple come up with more and more new stuff!

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Apple had one of the first hiccups. Their Macbook Air made its debut in January 2008 and was laughed at by many. What? A broadband enabled computer with only 2GB of memory designed so that storage was separated from the device itself? For too many it was too early for this particular (if metaphorical) umbilical cord to be severed. Not too many tears before bedtime for Apple, however. The iPhone cut the cord and ate the placenta with a smile on its face.

In October 2008, Microsoft launched Azure, their first response to Cloud Computing, a ‘hit the ground running’ (as ever!) platform which is in direct competition with Google. This is an operating system (like the one you booted up a little while ago and which enabled you to access your Service Provider and read this) which will be only available online. In other words, it will operate without a hard drive. From it you will be able to access the latest versions of applications such as Word, Access, Excel and PowerPoint. It has, however, a lot to do to catch up with its rivals, despite the resonance its software products have with end-users (rather than practitioners) the world over.

Google beat Microsoft by a month. In September 2008 they launched Chrome. It is a first for Google in more ways than one as it represents the company’s first attempt at a Web Browser rather than a search engine. Although those of you who blog know that Google has ‘leased’ sites for years, you might now possibly say that it owns the walls as well as the furniture. If Google were to be absolutely honest, they would probably admit that they want to render extinct that lumbersome, cumbersome old creature we know as Internet Explorer (and which many sane individuals, and some not so, have already deserted for the likes of the slick and sexy Firefox).

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Google is trying, with Chrome, to gently lead people away from the safe and solid ground of the desktop and in to The Cloud. They have done this by making Chrome – essentially a browser – look as much like your bog standard desktop as possible. The hope is that people who fear change (and this is change!) will be a little relieved that their operating environment looks somehow familiar and friendly. “Oh, it looks kinda like my PC’s desktop,” is their desired response from new users.

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It is off to a great start, particularly among the young. Countless people have already got themselves a Gmail account (almost in unconscious anticipation of what moves may lay ahead for them). At the College where I teach (hey Lewisham!) the number of students with active Google Apps accounts has sky-rocketed this year. Google Apps, incidentally, is the name of the online suite of (Microsoft-like) applications that Gmail users can access free of charge (so far), with enough storage space to upload the Encyclopedia Britannica. Their argument is why should they risk putting all their data on to a flash drive and risk losing it (or it becoming corrupted by a virus or a cup of hot chocolate) when all they need is an internet access and a PC to get to their work. They have a point. Before you ask, the answer is no! They seem blissfully unaware – or rather blithely disregarding – of the implications for the privacy of their data.

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One way or another, Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up to lure away users – or to simply stop the “critical mass” element from ensuring Google’s dominance of this market. Another runner in this particular race is Amazon, who have offered it own Cloud based service ‘Amazon S3′ since 2006.

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Let’s go back to the kids for a second. The advantages, they say, are manifold. Not only does it replace the need to look after yet another college item – their flash drive – but they can access their work, their email – their life – through any computer device that is handy. PC may just mean Politically Correct in twenty years! The other advantage is that quite often they run software at home that is different to that which is used at College. This can, obviously, cause problems, and Cloud Computing waves it good-bye in an instant.

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Companies are beginning to get wise and latch on to the advantages that Cloud Computing presents too. They are discovering that it can cost significantly less to subscribe to data storage and software online than do what they do currently – wait a little while until Microsoft irons out the bugs (hopefully!) and then invest in upgrades every few years. It could also mean that the traditional IT team goes the way of the dinosaurs. What will lurk in the basements of our offices if the servers aren’t there anymore?

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What about the problems in this Brave New World of ours, up in The Cloud? Well, they are already happening. As any Gmail user will tell you, there have been some problems recently. If you organize your life up in The Cloud and then the day turns out sunny, what happens if there isn’t a ‘Cloud’ in sight? Systems go down, we all know that. Plus, data gets lost, leaked or stolen. Google have not suffered any data leaks yet – but there wasn’t a car crash for a little while after the invention of the motor vehicle (though with metaphorical hindsight we could argue that its very invention was a car crash in slow motion).

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There are arguments, of course, that online storage of our data is in fact safer than keeping it in our own possession (on our hard and flash drives) and what we are fearing is not so much how it is stored but its physical immediacy to us – as if that makes it any safer from things such as theft. I for one will not be discarding my drives just yet! As for many, a hybrid solution (in other words, a little of each!) is the best solution for me, myself and I just now.