Today, it is Cloud Computing. “The Cloud” may indeed change computing forever, but no one really understands quite how yet. That doesn’t stop people from writing about it, however. Companies are again clamoring for people who can write about the nebulous technology. Publications want to be regarded as the most authoritative source of cloud news. (One editor told me: “We want to be known as the expert on all-things-cloud.”) And yet few really know what they are talking about. In most cases, it’s more like a Rorschach test, with companies projecting what they hope cloud will do for their business. They spend big on advertising to crow about how their products and services relate to the cloud. And they churn out a never-ending stream of white papers and “thought-leadership” articles to show that they understand what cloud computing is and how it will affect the industry.

It’s whistling past the graveyard. The basic idea of cloud computing – that someone else owns and runs the computer and you just buy the service (like Google Apps) – is scaring most hardware and software companies to their core. After all, what happens to their business model if most individuals and corporations no longer buy computers or applications? Better to talk loudly about how cloud actually creates a need for whatever they are selling.

For freelancers like me, who specialize in technology and business, cloud computing has been a boon. Last year, as companies started recovering from the economic body blow of 2008, they restored marketing departments’ budgets. After a very lean year in 2010, I suddenly had a wealth of assignments all about the cloud. Take any topic that I might otherwise have written a story about a couple of years ago – computer security, for example. Now it is a story about computer security in the cloud. Mainframe computers? How mainframes can be used to create clouds. Storage technology? How to store data in the cloud. At least 50 percent of my work last year was related to cloud. And so it seems to be going this year as well.

We journalists like to complain about the hype in the high tech industry. We sometimes accuse marketers of trying to create FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in order to sell their products. But, at least in this case, the FUD fallout from cloud is selling my product and paying my bills. Let it rain!

Many of us writers have pet peeves about punctuation and can cite ferocious battles with copy editors over things like semicolons, the serial comma and m-dashes. I’ve never been able to figure out the semicolon, for example. I know a few writers that use it, but why? Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style says, “If two or more clauses grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon.” It takes several readings and some concentrated brain power to even understand what the gods of grammar are saying there. They helpfully give these examples:

Stevenson’s romances are entertaining; they are full of exciting adventures.
It is nearly half past five; we cannot reach town before dark.

Then in the next breath, they add that it is “equally correct to write each of these as two sentences, replacing the semicolons with periods.”

My point, ahem, exactly. Just as Strunk & White advise us to “omit needless words,” I think we should omit needless punctuation. Overusing it is either pretentious, as in the semicolon, or obnoxious, like when people insist on emphasizing everything with exclamation points!!! (These are usually the same people who INSIST ON YELLING AT US BY USING UPPERCASE LETTERS FOR EVERYTHING. (!!!)

Although we journalists love to interview people, fewer quotes (and thus quotation marks) are almost always better. Many writers use quotes out of laziness. After all, if you just quote what everyone else told you, then you don’t have to write, or think, much. Inexperienced reporters often use quotes out of “insecurity.” They don’t have the “confidence” to rephrase ideas more “succinctly” or analyze what’s been said. Quotes should be like jewelry. Too much is gaudy. But a few very fine, well-placed pieces will make the whole story sparkle.

If you care enough about punctuation to tell someone that it’s is not the same as its, you may want to celebrate this Saturday. A few websites that can liven up the party:

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. I especially recommend the greatest hits in the lower right-hand column.

A blog that chronicles the ongoing misuse of apostrophes.

The National Punctuation Day website has a great list of resources on punctuation, grammar and editing.

And finally, watch this old clip of how Victor Borge and Dean Martin punctuate their singing.

I thought such fights were a quaint thing of the past, now that print has waned. But along comes Maya Angelou to not only renew the war, but also raise it to the level of national debate.

After the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial opened on the National Mall in late August, Angelou threw an editorial fit. The monument includes 15 inscriptions, quotes taken from King’s most famous speeches. Turns out the memorial’s architect thought he had artistic license to edit one of the quotes so it would better fit the design.

Here’s the original quote from King’s 1968 speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church: “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Here’s how the inscription on the monument reads: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

The edited version “makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit,” said Angelou. It changes the meaning to the exact opposite of what King intended as a statement of humility.

The architect was rather testy when interviewed by NPR shortly after the unveiling of the monument. His arguments echoed what I’ve heard many times from art directors. The overall design of the piece dictated certain constraints on the words. Besides, if you look at the big picture, the entire package including the statue of King and the 14 other quotes all made sense. (You can read and listen to the NPR interview here.)

“When we are faced [with] design decisions we have to do so with respect to a number of factors: size, shape, distance, perspective height, depth, width, size of letters, font style,” said the architect, Ed Jackson Jr. He couldn’t resist taking a subtle jab at how Angelou’s words may have been edited to fit certain constraints in other contexts. “I am a fan of Maya Angelou,” he said. “I have several of her books. I buy her Hallmark cards.”

I’m on the side of the poet here. (Big surprise.). The edited quote not only sounds like bragging, it fails to reflect the beautiful cadence of Dr. King’s speech. It is not authentic, and I think it will irritate people for time immemorial. I salute Angelou for making her point loud and clear, even though it won’t do any good. (I never won an argument against my art director, either.) In this case, in particular, things are literally set in stone. Then again, we did have an historic earthquake in D.C. just days before the opening of the memorial. Hmm – God’s way of saying “get me rewrite?”

Conferences are usually great, and the ASJA conference was everything I expected and more. But then comes the Monday morning after the conference. I return from these things with a mile-long to-do list and a head full of possibilities. I’ve learned all about “how to use social media to build your platform.” I now have “everything you need to know about e-books.” I’ve collected lots of “tips for producing a podcast.” I’m sidestepping the “ten ways to blog your way into a lawsuit.” And I’ve experienced how “Sree explains it all,” in which Columbia J-school professor Sree Sreenivasan crams as many social media tips as possible into three hours.

Exhausted from non-stop learning and networking over three days, I have to face a week of deadlines and demands while the stacks of notes and business cards from the conference sit accusingly on my desk. Come on, they nag, you need to connect with all these folks on Twitter. Remember those three editors who expressed interest in getting a pitch from you? Better follow up soon or you’ll lose them. But I have three editors to whom I owe actual stories or outlines this week. And those great tips on podcasting? In one corner of my office sits a box with a fancy $300 digital recorder I bought last year, after a conference in June got me all excited about producing podcasts for my blog. I haven’t used it once.

The ASJA conference was great. But the chasm between all the potential opportunities gathered there and the day-to-day grind of reality here at my desk seems impossibly wide. Maybe things will look better tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m going to get some aspirin for my aching head.

I launched into my disaster recovery plan. I called my sister. She was out of power, too. Time for Plan B. I spent the morning shoveling out my driveway, then hit the road.

We already live in an electricity-addicted society. But for us home workers, the loss of power directly impacts our livelihood. Not only does the house go cold and the food in the fridge go bad, we can’t work without computer, phone and Internet access. And when we don’t work, we don’t get paid. So as soon as houses go dark, we swarm businesses and public places like bees to blossoms, searching for sweet juice.

My first stop was the neighborhood Starbucks. A hand-scrawled sign on the door told me they had lost their power, too. The next stop was the nearby Panera’s. As I suspected, I had been too slow in shoveling out. Every table was occupied. Every electrical outlet, taken. I stood in line to buy a coffee, hoping that someone might leave in the interim. They did, but I wasn’t quick enough. Juggling my coffee, laptop and bulging paper files, I was like a lumbering elephant amidst a pack of Twitter-deprived teenage cheetahs. No contest.

Stop number three was the public library. Not only does it have lots of chairs and outlets, but the public square around the library has free WiFi. At least I could access the Internet. I pulled into the garage, then slogged over to the building to find a small group of similarly frustrated refugees huddled before the doors. Not only was the library dark, but the entire public square was powerless. I sloshed back to my car, demoralized.

But I forged on. Next stop: Barnes & Noble. It has a Starbucks inside, WiFi and two spacious floors full of chairs, tables and outlets. When I pulled into a full parking lot, I knew I had finally reached a watering hole. Inside, the store was packed. Every chair and table was taken, and around the perimeter on both levels, folks camped greedily on the floor around the outlets. I wandered around, searching for an open plug, when this woman caught my eye and pointed down at the floor next to her. I could hardly believe it. It was an eight-outlet power strip, and she was beckoning me over to use the last available one. Instead of eyeing me warily, this woman was smiling. I plopped down next to her, and plugged in. I felt like hugging this lady. She explained that I needed to thank the teenage girl sitting next to her. It was she who had agreed to unplug her single device (a cellphone, I believe) and allow this woman to plug in the power strip, thus multiplying the electricity for all. She was like Jesus with the loaves and the fishes.

I sat there for a couple of hours, answering e-mail and finishing a story that was due that day. I offered to buy the woman coffee, but she declined. She just seemed to enjoy being helpful.

As I drove home I thanked God for those good Samaritans. And I revised my disaster recovery plan: next time I go foraging for electricity, I will be armed with a power strip.

I pulled into my driveway and noticed a low droning sound coming from the house across the street. I got out of the car. I smelled propane. A generator. Addendum to disaster recovery plan: next time it snows, help others. Offer to shovel your neighbor’s driveway. And bring a very long extension cord.

And I’m back at my desk. It’s gray and cold outside (21 degrees Fahrenheit today). My basement office is cozy, almost too cozy, since I renovated it last year and put in electric baseboard heating. It’s dark and warm, the kind of place where I can really hibernate through the remainder of the long dark winter.

But bills must be paid, and there is work to do. So, rather than curl up for a long winter’s nap, I dive into several projects.

And that can be a recipe for depression.

One of the challenges of the freelance life is balance. When you work where you live, it’s easy to work all the time. When you can do your job quite well by phone, e-mail and Internet, you can end up staying home all the time. In spring, summer and fall, I’m able to keep my balance. I’m a summer person. I love the heat and the humidity (which means I thoroughly enjoy the sticky, sweltering D.C. summers). It’s easy to get outside and walk, go to the gym, go swimming, break up the day with errands and lunch dates, and then go out in the evening as well.

But when the whistling of the wind through the trees reminds me of how unpleasant and cold it is out there, it’s hard to summon the energy to bundle up and leave the house. When the air outside is so dry that it makes my skin itch, I’d rather turn on the humidifier and sit at my desk.

We freelancers tend to be loners by nature, and we can do some of our best work alone. But too much isolation is dangerous. Trapped in our own heads, we can battle demons that aren’t there. It’s in the dead of winter when my evil inner editor emerges, whispering confidence-crushing comments in my ear. She tells me my thinking is clouded and my writing is crap. And this story I’m working on? What a mess. That stack of bills from the holidays sits accusingly on my shelf, reminding me that I don’t get paid until I work. And the more I work, the more money I make (theoretically, at least), so I should just work all the time until I get everything paid off.

Holed up in my basement office by day, and huddled near my living room fireplace by night, I’m a perfect candidate for a mild case of seasonal affective disorder. My social life slows down. My critical alter ego tells me that it’s because no one likes me, when really it’s only because I’d rather sit home and stay warm.

This year, I’ve prepared an antidote for the winter blues. The ingredients aren’t too taxing, because I know myself all too well. I’m hoping, however, that by publicly committing to it here, I will actually stick to it:

1. One 20-minute walk in the cold, cruel world every single day
2. At least two hours of additional time outside the house every day or evening – visiting friends, volunteering, shopping, working out at the gym, whatever
3. Meals that feature more greens, less sugar and fewer carbs

Will this help me make it through the long winter? I’ll report my results in March, just in time to start battling spring fever.

When I talk on the phone, I have to sit down and think about what I’m hearing and what I’m saying. That takes about 95% of my attention. As much as I’d like to, I have trouble doing other things while talking. This is a problem for a journalist. It took me years before I was somewhat comfortable taking notes during an interview. I had a hard time listening and writing at the same time.

Long before people worried about how mobile phones led to distracted driving, I refused to talk and drive. I knew how dangerous that would be for someone like me. I recently discovered that I can’t sing and drive either, when I ran a red light while practicing a choral performance for my church.

For years after Microsoft introduced Windows, I stubbornly clung to MS-DOS and a word processing program called XyWrite. The whole idea behind Windows – having multiple screens available so you could run several applications at the same time – spelled doom for a single-tasker like me. As it turned out, Windows was just the beginning of the multitasking culture that dominates society today. It’s a culture that’s always excluded me by default. Now everyone else seems to juggle two, three or even four things at once, while I’m still focusing on one.

Lately, though, I’m not feeling so inferior. The latest research on multitasking reports some alarming results, including evidence that multitasking makes most people less productive, not more. Some scientists even think that multitasking can rewire people’s brains, and not in a good way. Constantly juggling multiple streams of information can undermine the ability to focus and shut out irrelevant information. One study reported that computer users at work change “Windows” or check e-mail or other programs almost 37 times an hour. That’s once every minute and a half. No wonder people have trouble concentrating.

Multitasking may be creating a generation of interruption-addicted, attention-deficit junkies. Although my serial brain may be vindicated, my mind is not eased. My ability to focus may be becoming a quaint relic. What good is it, after all, if I’m concentrating while all around me are spinning in a flurry of multimedia streams? I may be able to write The Great American Novel, but no one will be left with an attention span capable of reading it.

Inside was an assortment of coffee, a travel mug, a stainless steel carafe and a fancy 12-cup coffee maker, all from a company called Gevalia. Whoever sent this, I thought, doesn’t know me very well. I like coffee, but I’m not the kind of gourmet who would appreciate this sort of high-end beverage. (I’m more the Dunkin’ Donuts type.) Then I looked at the packing slip, which said that I had ordered it and paid with my Visa card.

Uh-oh. I sat for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out if there was any way that I could’ve inadvertently placed such an order. Then I called the company and explained what happened. Mysteriously, someone had used my name, address and Visa number (she verified it by reading me the last four digits) to place the order. But they had a different phone and different e-mail address, which she gave to me. She also noted the exact time of the order, which was while I was driving to see my son at college. She said she’d put a fraud alert on the order and told me to keep the goods for my trouble.

I then called the phone number that was associated with the order. It was a non-profit organization a couple of miles away from me. When I told the receptionist that someone was using their phone number in a case of credit-card fraud, she mentioned that she’d had several calls like this. She didn’t know what was going on.

I was tempted to send an e-mail to the address I had, but I thought that then the thief would have my e-mail address.

My next call was to Visa to find out what else might have been charged to the card. Luckily, there were no other charges. We immediately cancelled the card, Visa placed a fraud alert on the number, and I was issued a new one.

The whole incident baffled me. Although I was concerned that someone somehow got hold of my credit card information, I was not that surprised. I take reasonable precautions, both online and off (I shred all my mail), but I’ve done enough reporting on Internet security to know how easy it is for thieves to get your number. And even if you never use a credit card online, your financial institution keeps all that information on a computer somewhere, a computer that can often be just as easily hacked.

What baffled me the most: who was this person who would use my credit card to order coffee and send it to my house? I imagined some teenage hacker-in-training, just trying out his skills to see if he could get away with it. Or maybe it was someone in my neighborhood who pulled my information off my WiFi network, ordered coffee and hoped to pick it up from my doorstep before I noticed?

Then I did a little research online and found that this has been an ongoing problem with Gevalia, dating back to 2008. There is a formal complaint lodged with the Justice Department in the state of Delaware, where Gevalia is located.

Now I’m doubly baffled. Why would a merchant do this? Are they hoping that some of us actually think we ordered the coffee but forgot? And how did Gevalia, with whom I’ve never done business, get my credit card information? I’ll never know. But I consider myself exceedingly lucky that my only experience with credit card fraud (so far) cost me nothing but a couple of phone calls and gained me some cool coffee paraphernalia.

One of the joys of freelancing is that I don’t have to get dressed up to go to work. In fact, I don’t even have to get dressed. I do, of course, eventually. But when I have loads of work or a pressing deadline, I stay in my pajamas. All in the name of efficiency, of course. Why spend time on clothes, hair and makeup when nobody’s going to see me anyway, except maybe the FedEx man?

But now that integrated webcams have become a standard feature in most laptops, rudimentary video conferencing through services like Skype and Google video chat are becoming more common. I started to realize this when my son went off to college this fall. He was amazed that he couldn’t video chat with me. (I was amazed that he wanted to. It was probably just a momentary lapse caused by the novelty of the webcam on his college-issued laptop combined with a golden opportunity to make me feel clueless.)

Initially I thought maybe we could keep this Skype thing just between me and family. Then in October Cisco introduced Umi Telepresence , a video conferencing system for the home. The system, which retails for $600, includes a camera that connects to a high-definition TV to become a video-conferencing system that shows everything. With this technology, you’re no longer just a talking head at the computer, but a full person, head to toe, with a picture “so clear, natural and lifelike that users will see . . . the twinkle in your eye.” Or, in my case, the stain on my bathrobe and the fuzzy slippers on my feet. Wonderful.

I’m hoping this won’t catch on. But the monthly subscription cost – just $25/month for unlimited video calls and storage of up to 100 minutes of video messages – is going to be attractive for businesses that till now have been priced out of the high-end videoconferencing market. And there’s going to be lots of competition that will drive those costs down further. Skype, for example, just hired away a senior vice president of Cisco’s, Tony Bates, to become its CEO. It doesn’t take a high-definition picture to see what’s going on there.

My five-year-old computer is about ready for retirement. But I keep putting off shopping for a new one, because I probably won’t be able to avoid buying one with integrated webcam and microphone. Which means this time around it’s more than the hardware and software that requires an upgrade. Bye, bye, bathrobe.

I’m not exactly on the cutting edge of social media, but I do use Facebook, have my own website and blog, and pride myself on being an early and fairly sophisticated user of LinkedIn. I find all of these platforms useful – either professionally, personally or both. They each have their learning curves, but they aren’t so steep that they keep moderately intelligent people away.

Twitter, on the other hand, baffles me. Its content is neither relevant to my life nor useful in my work. The top Twitter trends last week – the NCAA and Justin Bieber – don’t interest me. Every time I see an article on how to use Twitter, I scan through it eagerly, hoping that I’ll find the key to make sense of this confusing world. So far, nada.

Typical tips for how newbies can get started on Twitter:

1. Share URLs. We’re already overwhelmed by stuff to read, see and hear on the Internet. Unless it’s really important, why would I want to add to that burden? And if it is really important, why would I rely on Twitter – where it will get lost in the great galaxy of tweets (except of course for those people who’ve mastered the Twitter universe and can filter out the critical news from the mundane I-just-spilled-coffee-on-my-keyboard drivel)? Having said that, I have tried to use Twitter to market myself. Each week, I dutifully tweet the URL of my blog post. Google Analytics tells me it draws very few readers. (It’ll be interesting to see the stats this post generates.)

2. Retweet information. If I don’t understand the usefulness of tweets, why would I want to retweet and just add to the cacophony?

3. Directly message friends and colleagues. I already can’t reach them by phone, e-mail, texting or IM. Now I have to add tweeting to that list of futile attempts? Sometimes I suspect it’s all a cosmic joke by the gods of the Internet, who laugh as we all run circles around each other online.

4. Search for friends and colleagues. See non-reason #3. Besides, when I try to search for people, I either come up with complete strangers (with similar names), I can’t tell which of the people listed are my friend/colleague (most don’t have photos), or I locate the right person but find they haven’t tweeted since 2009. (There’s a lot of us newbies who tweeted once or twice, then gave up.)

I’ve also tried some of the desktop clients, such as TweetDeck, which are supposed to make all those tweets manageable. I couldn’t figure out how to use them. It probably had to do with the fact that I didn’t even know what it was I was trying to manage . . .

So, why twouble myself? Give me a good reason – in 140 characters or less – why I should tweet.