Internetling

This guest post was written by Jezra. You can find out more about him and his projects at www.jezra.net

Everyone keeps talking about “cloud” computing these days, and there seems to be a lot of concern regarding security and privacy of data. For those that are new to the subject, cloud computing typically involves using web-based application instead of native clients and using an external server for storage of documents. A good example is Google Docs: an online service that lets one edit documents using a web-application and the edited documents are stored somewhere on Google’s server, where who-knows-who is doing who-knows-what with the documents. The same can be said for most online services that host sensitive data.

With the “cloud” it is now possible to use a web browser to edit documents, check email, read blogs and forums, send instant messages, and do a bunch of other crap, albeit on someone else’s server, and all the end user needs in order to access all of these services is a small portable wifi enabled device; like a netbook. But what if one doesn’t want their data on someone else’s server? The answer of course is for one to run their own server at home.

When most people think of a web application server, they think of a giant energy consuming work horse that cost thousands of dollars to purchase and costs hundreds of dollars to run. However, since web apps, with fancy interfaces and boat loads of javascript manipulating the DOM, rely upon the power of the web browser’s machine, one can use an energy sipping low power machine as their own personal cloud. With a properly configured router, one can access their home network cloud from anywhere in the world (as long as they have internet access).

As long as one controls their own data, there is no reason to fear the cloud.