I have a lot of email.

A local search using Mail can take over a minute. The same search on gmail takes a fraction of a second, because their servers are seriously fast, plus I can do it from any computer with internet - even the 30kbps dialup my Mum uses.

Doing stuff "in the cloud" makes a lot of sense in certain situations. The key factor is that the data being sent and returned has to be within the capabilities of your connection.

I can see cloud computing becoming increasingly viable and important as the infrastructure improves but I'm a little ambivalent as to security and what exactly the owners of the Cloud infrastructure will want to do with my data in exchange for hosting it.

I'm sure eventually we'll all be doing lots of stuff in the cloud but I doubt that this will see the end of the stand-alone computer any time soon.

I believe many people already have.

There's quite a few "geeks" on here that use computers as tools and toys, but we're not normal.

For many people, they are simply a means to get on line and communicate. They use Webmail, Facebook and Youtube. The only game they play is Farmville. If they ever actually take pictures off their phone, it'll be uploaded onto Facebook or Photobucket and edited on-line. Their CV or school work might be on Google docs. They can do all of this from any computer, or even just a smart-phone or ipod touch.

I can understand this. I helped a couple of friends the other day set up their new laptop, they are in their late 50's and haven't really used computers. They asked me to transfer all of their photos and games across to the new laptop, not realising that it was all stored on Facebook! There was literally nothing to transfer!