Simon is a hands-on software architect who works within 
[Twitter] simonbrown: @kpseal that might explain why my full 99GB backup took just a few hours!
[Coding the Architecture] I did some technical consulting/due diligence on a large software development project recently where I'd been called in to look at how the project team was dealing with some of the non-functional requirements. I'm not sure exactly how large ...
It's my data
And I don't want it on the cloud
The recent release of Photoshop Express has got me thinking about the growing trend of web sites allowing users to upload their own content. Just think about any site like flickr, Facebook, etc that allow you to upload your own photos. I was initially intrigued by the release of Photoshop Express but, now that I've looked at the test drive, it doesn't really offer anything for me. There's no denying that it's an amazing piece of engineering and the UI looks fantastic, but I don't get the overall concept. It's software as a service (SaaS), but you need to upload your photos to the Adobe servers. And this is the part that I have an issue with.
Regardless of the bandwidth requirements (i.e. my upload speed is much slower than my download speed, although this will undoubtedly change in the future), I don't necessarily want to upload my private data to the cloud. And I don't see why I should; it's mine and I don't want anybody else to have access to it, particularly with the dodgy EULAs that some of these services and subjecting users to. Give me an AIR version of Express that I can use locally and I'll take a look, but only provided that I don't have to upload my data.
The thing I'm left wondering is how something like web-based e-mail is different. That's also my data and it sits on "the cloud". Perhaps the fundamental difference is that e-mail is "connected" and my photos aren't?
Re: It's my data
I guess that different people have different thresholds, too. I have run my own email servers for years, and am only now, relatively reluctantly, starting to use gmail as a hosted email solution for some of my email.
I still worry about giving them so much information about me, my life, my interests and so on.
Re: It's my data
I could only see myself using the service if I'm travelling or on vacation and only have internet cafe web access to hand and wanted to manipulate the photos before I upload them to share. Which is quite a niche to be honest.
I'd much rather Flickr just implemented similar features to be honest.
Re: It's my data
I'm not entirely clear of the value of my data being on the cloud. When I want it I'm usually there, so why aren't I uploading my data to myself?!
Similarly I could upload it to the cloud in such a way as to only be usable in my presence. This would require a much stronger notion of identity (and delegated authority) than we use at present, though.
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