back to article Putting a mule on a cloud: one man's battle with Amazon S3

The phrase “cloud computing” has been subjected to unnatural forms of marketing abuse. The buzzword pros have taken two nouns that we all recognize, combined them and formed a nebulous, hideous beast that means many things to many people. Vague as the general cloud computing term is, there are places where you can encounter an …

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  1. Dave The Cardboard Box
    Happy

    "computing" is a "doing" word David

    which makes it a .......... ? Yes David, a verb not a noun. Now everyone lay their heads on their desks and we'll have sleepy time.

  2. Ashlee Vance (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: "computing" is a "doing" word David

    I knew this was coming and, as editor of the story, will address now to stop a flurry of comments.

    As I see it, computing is often used as a noun as well. High performance computing being on example. Business computing being another.

    Perhaps I have gone too far, but am sticking with it for the time being.

  3. David Harper

    Computing is a gerund, Dave

    Actually, "computing" is a gerund in the sense that the author uses it in the opening sentence of the article, so "cloud computing" is a noun and a gerund.

    -- David the Amusingly Pedantic

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Isn't Cloud Computing to Computation

    like Pissing into the Wind is to Urination?

  5. jim

    non technical

    Interesting that someone capable of using FTP and updating a web site is today called a "non-technical" person.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @jim

    Those are "skills" any 10-year-old can do today. If that's your profession, you might want to get in line behind the buggy whip makers.

  7. Matthew Barker
    Paris Hilton

    Gerund...

    Would Gerund Computing be any better? HPC code to take the load off of all of those marketing folks (who brought us the term "inputting") usually tasked with creating new technical terms.

  8. Richard
    Dead Vulture

    Formatting

    Good grief, that code sample looks awful! And that's even before you realise it's PHP...

    Can I suggest that "computing" is a pedund - a special class apt to cause pedantic grammarian arguments over what kind of word it is?

  9. Andraž Levstik

    Download tracking...

    Use the webservers log... or anything that doesn't make it damn near impossible to automate the downloading easily...

    EPIC FAIL

  10. Tim Brown
    Heart

    S3 very useful

    I recently started using S3 to backup important files from the dedicated server I administer.

    I searched around for a while before deciding the most straightforward method was using some open source software called s3fs. This enables you to have an s3 account mounted as just another directory under Linux. Making backups is now as simple as copying the files to that directory. For added security I also encrypt them before copying.

  11. Craig

    Yay, I get to be that person

    Your PHP is horrible!

  12. Sam
    Coat

    Shome Mishtake

    You don't get clouds on the gerund, they're in the air.

    Already on.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Clouds on the gerund

    Misty computing? Fogging the issue?

    Too hot for a coat especially for running away.

  14. Dave Rosenberg
    Paris Hilton

    Code sample got all bashed together

    Sorry lads, the code got a little screwy. I will get Ashlee to fix it. I can also post the full PHP if anyone wants it

  15. Ashlee Vance (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Code sample got all bashed together

    Aye, that was my fault. Should be better now, you whiney bitches.

  16. Thaddeus Quay
    Paris Hilton

    "Cloud Computing" Is The Correct Term

    I assume that, in future articles, the author will talk about the full scope of Amazon's cloud computing, but in the meantime, my British cat, Mr. Fluffer Wickbidget, III, is meowing quite discontentedly at the above comments. "Computing", regardless of what English language labels and rules apply to it, is definitely a part of the "cloud", although it's not obvious from this story, which covers only S3, the storage portion of the cloud computing services Amazon provides. You can also use EC2, the computing portion, which allows you to do pretty much anything you can do with your own systems. I don't really understand why the author even continues to use his own.

    As an example of pure computing, you could create a virtual machine to calculate the digits of pi, provision one of Amazon's EC2 machines to run it, and just let it go, without storing the digits, or even serving them up to anyone. Amazon will charge you for every hour the machine is assigned to you. S3 is billed by how much data you store, and how much you transfer, in and out. EC2 is connected to S3, such that S3 stores all of your virtual machines, which are booted and executed, by EC2, only when necessary. Data transfer between S3 and EC2 is free. Basically, except maybe for backups, you can run your entire business from Amazon, which is the promise that "cloud computing" delivers, today.

    Paris, because she's also clueless about the cloud.

  17. Jim Oase

    Apple has some unused Clouds.....

    With Apple's recent ME generation product rollout going a bit slow I am sure they could spare a few clouds.

    Jim

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