[cmoylan]

The best case scenario for cloud computing would be some sort of device that you could run on your home network that would provide services like email, web hosting, and file sharing. It would have to be painless to setup. Maybe it could backup heavily encrypted copies of your stuff onto off-site servers just in case. You could VPN/SSH into your cloud wherever you had an internet connection.

Unfortunately, I think such a device would STILL be too much work for the average computer user when all it takes is a couple seconds to make a dropbox account.

[trotsky]

It seems like it'd be pretty easy to roll those features into the broadband router - and everyone seems to be able to handle one of those pretty easily.

[zackfern]

Sounds a lot like me for a perfect use for a Mac Mini Server or Pogoplug.

[cmoylan]

I use a spare computer and a couple virtual machines. The only thing that makes me nervous is the possibility of natural disaster or hardware failure.

The Pogoplug looks like it's geared towards file sharing, but it's very promising.