When computer people and marketing people talk about 'the cloud', they are talking about doing or storing something on a computer that is only reachable through the Internet.
When diagrams of computer networks are drawn out, the Internet has always been represented by a "cloud", because it would be impossible to diagram all of the computers and other hardware that comprise the Internet.
So, now that you know that all of the 'cloud' stuff means that your stuff is now outside of your computer, what should you know?
First, anything of yours that exists outside of your computer or your control, no longer belongs to you. You may tell your cloud storage or service provider that it does, and they may agree with you, but really, it doesnt. Whoever has control over it, owns it.
Second, there may be hidden costs or frustrations dealing with cloud services. What happens if your cloud service or storage provider goes out of business? There goes your stuff.
Also, if you store controversial material online, such as your music collection, then if the record companies decide to sue your storage provider for "abetting piracy" and get a court order to delete all "pirated" music unless the owners of that music can prove that none of it is pirated; what do you do? (In case you are wondering, the record companies believe that any and all music that exists outside of a CD is pirated, even music copied from a CD to a computer.)
So you see, there are a couple of considerations to think about before storing anything online, in the "cloud". Because the cloud might rain on your parade.
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