More Things on a Stick: Thing 45 Cloud Computing

What do you see as the advantages of joining “the cloud” by using a Web OS? Disadvantages?
Advantages:

• My bookmarks and documents can be accessed from any computer, anywhere.


• I can collaborate with people to get a project done, without being in the same location.


• If my system is down, or just freaking ssslooooowww, I can do my work from a faster/better system.

Disadvantages:

• My accessing my information is dependent on the site where I have it stored. If that site is down, for whatever reason, I probably can't get to my stuff.


• I think my information would also be more at risk, especially if the site I'm using to store it gets compromised.


• iTunes is tied to a specific system, so I couldn't store that in the cloud. I know I could use the different Internet radio sites, but I like my iTunes too.

There are other advantages/disadvantages, but those are what I came up with right off the top of my head.

Do you currently do any computing in “the cloud” (i.e. GoogleDocs, Zoho, etc)? What do you think? Has it helped your productivity?
Actually, yes, I do. This past year in school, I used things like GoogleDocs and other tools for group projects for which it was just not feasible to meet out of class. In fact, one group project involved building an entire website, and the only time we met was once a month in class. Another class, we built a Ning, completed a paper, and put together our entire presentation online. It was awesome, and was exactly what was needed to complete the assignments.
I don't know that they help my productivity in everyday life because I tend to only use them for schools. I've been migrating select bookmarks to my library Delicious account so I can access them while at work, though.

What other cloud applications are you using or planning to investigate?
When I was looking at the Mashable site (which I have really liked ever since I started using Twitter last fall), I saw the GTD NINJA: 50+ Websites For the Kickass Control Freak page, so I'm going to take a closer look at that. I'm a fan of GTD (well, a modified version, anyway), have been since I started school. I'm not sure I'dve made it through sane if I wasn't.