Your brain is full of spiders, You've got garlic in your soul, Mr. SC...

[Nunavut Pants]

... [The cloud is] nothing more than a bunch of servers. Servers, which do require maintenance, and *can* fail.

True, but it depends immensely on the provider. Many of the more reputable providers will have significant redundancy such that if a server goes down there is a pretty smooth transition to a fail-over server. And storage is pretty much always redundant, most often with multiple redundancy.

That's generally a lot more reliable than a single server somewhere. Granted, nothing is perfect, but the provider's whole business model is to provide servers. If they eff that up, there's no reason for them to exist!

[RichS]

I use both. I back up to the cloud every time I do anything major, and I back up my files to a thumb drive on a regular basis as well.

That's one part of knowledge that's been drilled since I started tech; for critical data, have one copy onsite (home), and one offsite (work, the cloud, etc.) for just the reasons you mentioned. Plus, a good cloud service is going to have hundreds, if not thousands of servers to keep your data safe.

[greek_jester]

No thanks--I'll use a bunch of discs, and mirror my machine's hard drives on my own server.

I use both. I back up to the cloud every time I do anything major, and I back up my files to a thumb drive on a regular basis as well.

I work on the theory that the thumb drive is kept on the same desk as the computer, so if the cause of the failure is external (theft, fire, flood) then the thumb drive will be destroyed as well. Backing up the important bits to the cloud allows me to download the data (slowly, let's be honest) later when I have a new PC. If it's a hard-drive or motherboard failure, the thumb drive is fine.

[protege]

They may be better at recovery and security than you are, they may not be. Up to you if you want to roll those dice.

...and that's why I don't use the cloud. The other reason, is that most of the time...it's claimed to be a service that never fails. It's nothing more than a bunch of servers. Servers, which do require maintenance, and *can* fail. Also, while you can get the data, it's nowhere near as instantaneous. It can take days to download. No thanks--I'll use a bunch of discs, and mirror my machine's hard drives on my own server.

[mjr]

I can't just up and make two lines disappear for you buddy, it doesn't work that way. I know this situation sucks but you chose to add these lines to an account in YOUR name which means YOU are financially responsible for them. I feel for your personal situation, but there's not a lot you can do about your wireless account unless you're willing to eat the cancellation fees.

Question about this...since there appear to be extenuating circumstances here (the ex wife seems to be refusing to put the other devices in her name), could you waive the fees?

If he would have behaved himself and asked nicely and not referred to his ex with all those names, would you have tried to work with him?

I do get that canceling and re-establishing service seems to be the way to go, but it appears in this case he's trying to "fix" a problem, and wanted to stay with <red checkmark>. He just didn't want to pay for his ex wife's devices any longer. And I don't blame him.

[Crossbow]

I've always defined "cloud computing" as "Storing your important data on someone else's computer that you don't control." They may be better at recovery and security than you are, they may not be. Up to you if you want to roll those dice.

[Rosco the Iroc]

I think about an ex who I let into my join acct, she left me on deployment and was stealing all my money thanks to direct deposit.

I was able to call from Spain, and they thought I would mad about he $10 card kill fee, shit she's taking me for $$$'s who cares about that!.

Put a Pw on the account and was warned she could still cut checks.
humm
Gave it a day and called asking if they took her card at the store, checks are cut off lots of stuff.
So to "get back at me" she put the check book in the garbage disposal.

I'll give her this, she did lots of what would be ID theft today, so she was ahead of her time in 1994 and by the time there were laws, they were too far in the past to have her charged.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

The phone and tablet were apparently subsidized by the plan; the term "cancellation fees" was hidden in the story.

If it had been a car loan in his name, I don't know whether he could tell the lender not to expect more payments and "here's where you can find the car," but electronic devices are generally too small for repo men.

This is correct. Dude could have cancelled the lines but he would have been on the hook for about $400 remaining on the lease plan for the phone and $100 on the cancellation fee for the tablet. If he chose not to pay those, his one active line would be suspended as well. So unless he wants to cut us a decent size check, he'll have to fight with the ex to get the lines off.

[Argus]

why didn’t he just cancel the ex’s phone and tablet?

The phone and tablet were apparently subsidized by the plan; the term "cancellation fees" was hidden in the story.

If it had been a car loan in his name, I don't know whether he could tell the lender not to expect more payments and "here's where you can find the car," but electronic devices are generally too small for repo men.

[Dave1982]

I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the first story with the guy and his ex wife. If the plan was HIS plan, why didn’t he just cancel the ex’s phone and tablet? I mean, it’s pretty clear how he felt, so cutting her off should not have been an issue, IMHO. I get that he can’t set up an entirely new account in his ex’s Name and transfer the lines to it, but why not just cancel them?

[Mr Hero]

Old men really DO yell at clouds!

Damnit, I hope you plan on buying me a new monitor for Christmas.

[Catwoman2965]

Well, it's Christmas time, which always means we are crazy busy at <Red Checkmark> and the SCs get even more intense. Ready for some Holiday hell? Here we go!



That's...not how this works.

For some reason a LOT of my customers seem unable to grasp the concept of "Cloud computing". They think the Cloud is one big universal service run by only a single company that anyone should be easily able to access at any time.

Consider this statement from an SC I had two weeks ago: "I got some e-mail about cloud services. What clouds? I don't want clouds, I don't use clouds."

So I spend a few minutes explaining what cloud services are and how they work and he still doesn't really understand, saying: "I have no idea why people would want to store their stuff in clouds."

At that point I kind of mentally checked out. He rambled on about clouds for another few minutes and then hung up.

I really can't stand these people sometimes.

Wow. If my 82 year old mother can understand what the cloud is, then well, others should as well. I will say my mom was having trouble, and as I was explaining it, a light bulb went off. Her analogy was "oh its like a basement or an attic, where you keep stuff you don't use all the time, until you need it and then download it when you do" YES! Now she totally gets it.

[Argabarga]

Old men really DO yell at clouds!

[Josh]

"You currently owe use around $623, some of which is already past due. Your due date is the 11th and here you are asking me to change your due date to the 27th because you want to make sure little Johhny can get his new bike for Christmas."

We get this all the time also. 97% of the time from people that are just paying last months bill (a month behind in reality).

I have made lots of friendly suggestion that 'THEY' could easily "change" the due date by, you know, paying ahead of time since the excuse is always "lands in the week i don't get paid" so they would ask to be moved back or forward a week (mainly forward).

[RealUnimportant]

No, I can't give you a credit for "inconvenience".

They keep using this word. I do not think it means what they think it means.