Foxmarks, Xmarks, LastPass, Xpass, LastX, X%^&% Quick Rant
Warning: I think I’m becoming a curmudgeon – except that title has until now been reserved for somebody else . But I still have doubts about the recent transaction: LastPass acquired Xmarks. I really liked Xmarks – when it was Foxmarks. A simple bookmark synchronization service that would keep your Firefox up-to-date no matter where […]
Dropbox – Envisaging a Future Well Beyond Files
I’ve been talking a lot recently to cloud storage, cloud synchronization and cloud backup vendors (all variations on a theme but they all have a different emphasis to what they do). Recently I had a couple of opportunities to talk with Dropbox, first with founder Drew Houston, and later with recently appointed SVP Marketing and […]
How to Use Picasa on Multiple Computers – The Updated Definitive Guide Part 2: the Solution
This is going to be a fairly detailed how-to guide, so if you are not using Google’s Picasa program, you’ll probably find it boring – and if you are, I strongly suggest you start at Part 1, where we define the problem (Picasa being hopelessly single-user, single-PC focused), why earlier solutions, whether sync-based or network […]
How to Use Picasa on Multiple Computers – The Updated Definitive Guide Part 1: the Problem
My 4-year old how-to guide, Picasa Photo Sync on Multiple Computers has attracted tens of thousands of viewers, and is still quite popular. In fact too popular, thanks to Google. I can’t believe people actually read it today and try to follow the advice therein… it’s and OLD post with outdated information. I’ve long struggled […]
The Challenges of Allowing Offline Usage in a SaaS Based System
So I was reading an article recently about the latest Google Reader and how it still can’t be used offline with full features. In particular the article focuses on its inability to allow you to read articles offline and then flag those articles as already read, such that when you get back online Google Reader […]
Gmail Outage and the Benefit of Synchronization (or Backup)
Gmail appears to have another outage today. While reports of the outage surfaced on Twitter hours ago, Google’s status board indicated all was OK, until about 15 minutes ago, when this update appeared: 2:16pm: We’re aware of a problem with Google Mail affecting a small subset of users. The affected users are unable to access […]
Syncplicity Focus Groups: the Bumpy Road from Free to Paid
SaaS providers increasingly find that customer love is not enough to make a living nowadays, but the road from free to premium is bumpy. The search for revenue leads to introducing premium services, starting to charge for previously free ones or shifting focus from the consumer to the business market. The transition is anything but […]
Ma.Gnolia Data Loss, What Have We Learned?
Ma.gnolia , a social bookmarking service is down, lost all their user data and they don’t know if / when they can recover. This is as bad as it can get for any Web 2.0 service (and more importantly for users), and the backlash against Cloud services has already started. Krish will do has a
Zumodrive Launches, Forgets About Transparency
Krish wrote in December about the importance for startups to do the math early and publish their pricing: In the absence of any word about the future pricing plans, users are hesitant to put their data on these storage startups, usually offering generous amounts of storage space. Why would anyone spend their valuable time uploading […]
The Cell-Phone Aware PC May Be a PC-less PC
2008 REDUX Another piece in the 2008 Redux series, originally posted in March 2008. The computing landscape has somewhat changed with the appearance of netbooks, but I am still waiting for the cellphone-aware PC-less PC. Mike Egan @ Computerworld makes the case for PC’s to be smarter, with improved awareness of cell-phones, which means of […]
Trust the Cloud, but Have a Backup Plan. Google Lockouts are not Fun.
Just about every few month we get a high-profile case of someone getting shut out of their Gmail and other Google services. Google is notorious for freezing accounts without a warning, often in the users defence, i.e. when they detect probability of hacking. When you’re Loren Baker, Editor of Search Engine Journal and blog about […]
