Tag Archives: Dropbox

Skydrive Updates With Dropbox Like Features; For Limited Time, Users Can Retain Skydrive 25 GB Of Free Storage Space

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Posted by on in Microsoft and Windows, Web Services
Skydrive img taken from Vinh Nguyen's MacBook Pro and Skydrive account.

Skydrive img taken from Vinh Nguyen's MacBook Pro and Skydrive account.

I’m rushing this blog post out as for a limited time, Microsoft Skydrive allows users to retain their 25 GB of free storage space, and in the very near future Microsoft will only allow Skydrive users to have only 7 GB of free storage space.  How come?  According to a piece on Techradar.com (Microsoft SkyDrive cloud storage gets Dropbox-like features boost), Microsoft has added new features to Skydrive that behave similarly to how the features that can be found on Dropbox.  I’ve not yet able to experiment these features such as syncing files from Desktop to Skydrive folder (i.e., allowing files to be remotely synced to Skydrive’s servers/cloud), because like I’m saying I have to rush this blog post out.  Anyhow, I had gone ahead and installed Skydrive app on Mac, and so now I have Skydrive folder in my finder.  So, in a way I think Skydrive will be very similar to Dropbox even though I have not yet used it in similar manners to how I would use Dropbox.  Nonetheless, I can feel that Microsoft has turned up the heat in regarding to the race in the cloud.

Skydrive is supporting so many devices and operating system types!  On Skydrive app download page (https://apps.live.com/skydrive) where you can download the Skydrive apps, it appears that Skydrive has apps for Windows Phone, iPhone and iPad, Mac.  I don’t really have to mention that Skydrive has a Skydrive app for Windows, but I guess I just did.  Anyhow, this means users can now access files that are residing on Skydrive with most devices, allowing users to feel that their files are more accessible.  I’m sort of disappointed that Skydrive has not yet come out an app for Linux (i.e., I don’t see Skydrive app for Linux on Skydrive app download page).  Hopefully though, Linux users will soon be able to use Skydrive just like users who use other popular devices and operating systems.

In conclusion, I think Skydrive will now be more appealing than before since it has been revamped with new features that compete against a very popular cloud service Dropbox. Plus, Skydrive provides 2 GB more of storage space than Dropbox (i.e., 7 GB free storage space).  For limited time, Skydrive allows users to retain 25 GB of free storage space.  Of course, if you or any Skydrive user isn’t going to log-in into their Skydrive account now to retain their 25 GB of free storage space, sooner or later, Microsoft will stop giving out 25 GB of free storage space — users will then have to play with 7 GB of free storage space only.  With Skydrive and Dropbox services are available for free, I think my using of these services have just allowed me to make the files that I want to have easy access to from anywhere are now even more resilient (i.e., in case of either one of the services is down or inaccessible).

Source:  http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/microsoft-skydrive-cloud-storage-gets-dropbox-like-features-boost-1077366?src=rss&attr=all

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Upload Any File To iCloud, But You Got To Manually Rename The Upload File Correctly!

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Posted by on in Apple, Web Services
iCloud

iCloud (Photo credit: BasBoerman)

I barely use iCloud, because I prefer Dropbox, Pogoplug (i.e., software only so it would turn a computer into Pogoplug device), Ubuntu One, CrashPlan, and FreeNAS (i.e., I prefer to virtualize FreeNAS until I can set up a proper physical FreeNAS box).  This is why I know so little about iCloud.  In fact, the only time I use iCloud is when I hit the iCloud button which allows me to backup my iPhone and iPad to free iCloud account (i.e., as this writing iCloud gives 5GB free storage space).  According to the video right after the break, iCloud isn’t allowing users to upload specific files from their Mac computers to iCloud, therefore you can’t really use iCloud as how you have been using Dropbox.  I’m perplexed why this is the case, but anyhow the video right after the break will show you how to upload any file to iCloud — it seems to me like a lot of work.  (Just stick with Dropbox instead?)

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Using FreeNAS With VirtualBox To Create A True Personal Storage Cloud?

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Posted by on in Networking, Open Source, Software
FreeNAS

FreeNAS (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Besides using third party online cloud services such as Dropbox or Pogoplug, you can always set up your own personal cloud at home.  In my opinion, a personal cloud should not route your data to any third party service, and so even Pogoplug touts as a personal cloud solution — your data still route through their network first.

OK, before we go even further into this post, I should make clear that a cloud can mean many things.  To some people, a cloud should be able to sync things.  To others, a cloud should automate things such as push and pull data — similar to iCloud.  Then there are folks who think cloud as expandable/scalable storage (either automatically or manually).  To me, a personal cloud can be all of the above and more.  Unfortunately, to have a personal cloud to do all of the above and more, one might have to go through a third party cloud service which touts as personal cloud — this to me isn’t truly a personal cloud!

In this blog post, I prefer to create a personal cloud that I host on my own machines.  Although the solution I’m going to talk about isn’t as elegant as iCloud or Dropbox, but at least this solution is somewhat capable of allowing you to interact with your personal cloud as if it’s an unlimited/scalable storage cloud (but manually scalable).  Our solution has to be manually scalable since when we want more storage capacity we have to add more storage means.  When I say more storage means, I mean we have to add either more hardware or to configure our personal storage cloud software to handle larger storage capacity.

So, what is our personal storage cloud solution?  Virtualizing FreeNAS!  Yes, FreeNAS is just a software which specializes in allowing people to create a free network-attached storage server.  When one uses FreeNAS natively (i.e., not virtualizing it), then it’s just a free network-attached storage server solution.  Now, imagining one can install FreeNAS onto VirtualBox, suddenly everything changes as one can begin utilizing FreeNAS as a personal storage cloud solution!

How is the virtualization of FreeNAS can provide us a personal storage cloud solution?  We can always add more virtual hard disks with the largest virtual hard disk size.  At this point in time VirtualBox allows largest virtual hard disk to be around 2 Terabytes.  You might be curious, what if you don’t have enough real disk space to support the humongous capacity (i.e., stringing together many large virtual hard disks under one virtual machine) of virtual hard disks right?  Well, the marvelous thing about virtualization is that you don’t actually have to have exactly the amount of real hard disk space until the virtual hard disks are actually growing that large.  In the worst case scenario, you can always move the virtualization of your FreeNAS onto a system with large enough storage capacity (i.e., move the VirtualBox virtual machine which runs FreeNAS and all of the attached virtual hard disks to a physical system which has larger storage capacity).

Meanwhile, working with FreeNAS in VirtualBox will not harm your real system in anyway, because it’s virtualization!  You can play with FreeNAS in VirtualBox without fear, and this leads to allowing you to understand FreeNAS better (i.e., practice makes perfect).  To tell the truth, I just get to know FreeNAS, therefore I will have to play with FreeNAS a lot more through VirtualBox’s virtualization before I can confidently post an excellent FreeNAS tutorial in thorough detail.

What I know so far about installing FreeNAS with VirtualBox is that it’s easy!  Just make sure that you specify FreeNAS as a BSD operating system type and FreeBSD as the operating system which FreeNAS is based on.  This means FreeNAS is a unix type of operating system, but it’s designed for creating network-attached storage server.  During the setup of a new VirtualBox virtual machine for FreeNAS, don’t forget to configure the settings to add however many additional virtual disks — this allows you with the ability to create storage volumes with specific virtual disks within FreeNAS’s control panel (i.e., FreeNAS graphical user interface control panel which can be accessed through a web browser through a local IP address or an external IP address).

When done installing FreeNAS through VirtualBox, you will see a black screen with scrolling letters and you will see options that you can choose so FreeNAS can be configured — you should pick the option which allows you to set up how FreeNAS should advertise its IP address (i.e., Configure Network Interfaces).  In unique situation when you cannot use DHCP to automatically lease/borrow a dynamic IP address from a router for your FreeNAS virtual machine, you can always fall back to the option which allows you to enter a shell.  Inside a shell, you can set up a temporary static IP so you can access FreeNAS’s graphical user interface control panel through a browser.  Here is how you set up a temporary static IP for FreeNAS — enter this command [ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.55 netmask 255.255.255.0], but do not use the square brackets and make sure you replace the static and netmask IP addresses with the ones that work with your router’s configuration.

Once done set up a temporary static IP for FreeNAS, you can access FreeNAS’s graphical user interface control panel through a browser.  Within FreeNAS’s graphical user interface control panel, you can access Network > Interfaces to add a permanent static IP address for your FreeNAS virtual machine (i.e., VirtualBox virtual machine).  This way, whenever you reboot your FreeNAS virtual machine, it will boot up with the same static IP address, consequently allowing you to access FreeNAS with the same static IP address.

By the way, I forgot to tell you that you should choose Bridge Adapter when you set up the network adapter for your FreeNAS virtual machine through VirtualBox Manager, because NAT adapter will advertise FreeNAS services on VirtualBox’s virtual IP address which might start as something like 10.x.x.x.  NAT type of IP addresses might prevent you from accessing FreeNAS’s graphical user interface control panel through a browser.

I’ll post more on FreeNAS once I get to be expertly using it, OK?  For now, at least we know that FreeNAS can be virtualized into an unlimited personal storage cloud in virtualization sense.  In reality, we still have to add more hardware to cope with growing disk space of virtual disks.  Even with FreeNAS, it’s illogical to think we can have unlimited personal storage cloud in absolute sense unless you have unlimited amount of money to buy unlimited amount of hardware (i.e., disk drives) to support the unlimited growing disk space of virtual hard disks.

For your information, FreeNAS is free to download and install and use, therefore there is no harm in trying it out — virtualizing FreeNAS for personal storage cloud or natively using it.  What’s even more wonderful is that virtualizing FreeNAS with VirtualBox is also free, therefore you can virtualize FreeNAS to your heart’s content without paying a dime.  What isn’t free is buying more hard disks to handle the growing virtual disks for your system!

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SkyDrive iPhone App Review

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Posted by on in Apple, Microsoft and Windows, Mobile, Web Services

SkyDrive is more impressive than Dropbox and other cloud storage services in one aspect, SkyDrive allows free 25GB of storage space.  Microsoft has also released SkyDrive app for iPhone and Windows Phone.  Perhaps, the SkyDrive app for iPad and Mac will come out soon, but I’m not sure.  As now, the search for SkyDrive for Mac and iPad in Apple’s App Store turns up empty.

SkyDrive app for iPhone is good but can be made better!  I can’t make the same comment for Windows Phone since I don’t have a Windows Phone.  Why it is good but not really good?  Unless I’ve no idea what I’m doing, it turns out that I can only upload individual photo or video but not entire folder of photos or videos at once onto SkyDrive with SkyDrive iPhone app.  Imagine people who have thousands of photos and more than a dozen of videos on their iPhone would have to take ages to upload all their contents onto SkyDrive using SkyDrive iPhone app.

The uploading of a photo from iPhone to SkyDrive using SkyDrive iPhone app is simple and easy.  Just tap on the sharing icon on the upper right corner of the iPhone screen, you can then tap on the Add a Photo or Video button to add a photo or video.  Right underneath the Add a Photo or Video button, you’ll see Create a Folder button which allows you to create a new folder for storing more contents.  Sharing a photo is easy too.  By tapping on a photo to view, tap the photo again when it is in full screen mode to reveal the sharing button on the upper right corner of the iPhone screen, and tap on the sharing button to review the Send a Link button.  Tapping on Send a Link button, you can send a link to someone’s email to allow a person to view or view and edit your photo.  Above the Send a Link button, there is a Download button which allows you to download a photo easily in case you have deleted such a photo from iPhone and wanted to recover it from SkyDrive.  Deleting a photo or a video, users have to view a photo or video in thumbnail mode, and then slide the finger from left to right on the thumbnail photo of a photo or video to reveal a Delete button.  Tap on Delete button to remove the photo or video from SkyDrive.  You can also delete the whole folder by viewing the folder in thumbnail mode and slide a finger the same way you do with a photo or video.

In summary, SkyDrive iPhone app is very limited in features.  The uploading and sharing of photos and videos are easy as pie, and so SkyDrive iPhone app deserves a praise here.  One other cool thing about SkyDrive iPhone app is that it allows you to take a photo or film a video immediately from your iPhone and upload to SkyDrive directly.  Altogether, SkyDrive iPhone app needs more features, but it’s still awesome since it allows users to interact with a free 25 GB of storage space on the go.

Side Note:  I’m baffled of not knowing how to upload a document using SkyDrive iPhone app.  Sure, iPhone isn’t a great tool in creating and editing documents, but I think this app should allow users to upload documents nonetheless.  Just a thought!

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Dropbox Wants To Be More Than Just Storage In The Cloud

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Posted by on in Internet, Web Services
Creative Commons, type of Attribution, Image by Jennie Faber on Flickr on files and folders

Creative Commons, type of Attribution, Image by Jennie Faber on Flickr on files and folders

Can Dropbox endanger the fames and fortunes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple?  OK, this question does sound wacky, but even Dropbox’s CEO Drew Houston hints that he wants Dropbox goes beyond just files and folders and sync.  The question is, how beyond?

I think Dropbox’s people can overdo the idea of going beyond what is Dropbox right now if they want to, and in this process they might invade into the territories (i.e., specific markets) of big corporations such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple.  How?  What if Dropbox wants to develop search system within its ecosystem, and this search system will also allow users to incorporate external search data such as how Google does right now?  What if Dropbox wants to develop and integrate social elements that are similar to what Facebook has?  What if Dropbox wants to open up an application store and sell ebooks and electronic documents and more to users (i.e., this would be the territories of Amazon and Apple)?

It’s all about the conveniency!  If Dropbox wants to surprise users by providing all types of conveniences such as the ones I had suggested in the paragraph before this one, then I suspect that the users will be more than happy to go along with the development.  Personally, I can see myself immerse into Dropbox’s more than just what Dropbox is now ecosystem more and more as long Dropbox promises the essential services such as storing data in the cloud are still being prioritized for further improvements.  Of course, let not forget about security; security is the utmost important element in the practice of keeping users’ data safe and allowing users to sleep soundly at night, knowing their data won’t be in the hands of the wrongdoers.

Source:  http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/10/dropbox-is-working-on-ways-to-move-beyond-file-folders/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+
Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

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Bitcasa To Compete Against Dropbox

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Posted by on in Internet, Web Services

Dropbox has proved to everyone that there is a huge market for cloud services.  Nonetheless, not all cloud services are endearing by users, because some cloud services are just too troublesome and having a learning curve that only geeks would appreciate.  Dropbox on the other hand has proved to be simple to use, and it stays out of sight so the users don’t really have to bother with it unless it’s necessary to be reminded of it, just like how a real hard drive works.  Unfortunately, Dropbox’s free account only gives users 2 GB of cloud space, and so users who do want larger cloud space are going to have to pay.  Cheapest plan for Dropbox is $10/month for 50 GB of cloud space.  Although it’s quite affordable, but many users know that 50 GB isn’t enough for nowadays considering media files such as video clips can fill up 50 GB of cloud space in no time.

As users have to pay somewhat a high amount of money per month to sustain a huge cloud space such as Dropbox service, Bitcasa sieges the opportunity and offers users unlimited cloud space for $10/month.  This puts Bitcasa in a straight path of competition against Dropbox.  Mozy is another cloud service that had ended its unlimited cloud space since it was too expensive for Mozy to continue to offer such a deal.  So, we have to wonder how on earth would Bitcasa think it could offer such a sweet deal (i.e., unlimited cloud space for $10/month).

According to Technologyreview.com’s article “How to make your hard drive infinite,” Bitcasa aims to use special algorithm that preserves one file for duplicate files across its cloud service.  By using this very algorithm, Bitcasa can free up used cloud space to hold even more data.  As for now, Bitcasa is only compatible with Apple’s products such as Macbook Pro, but Windows users will be able to use Bitcasa soon.  Hopefully, Bitcasa will also keep Linux users in mind.

Although Bitcasa’s offer of $10/month for unlimited cloud space is a deal that cannot be refused for those hardcore cloud service users, but I think many more people will still think twice about getting on Bitcasa bandwagon.  Why?  Data are personal, and so some people refuse to use any cloud service in serious manners.  Therefore, I think most people will save the data that they do not care about much onto cloud service, and they will store serious data onto local hard drives.  This makes one wonder will Bitcasa be able to thrive with its proposal!

Source:  http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38613/page2/