The Smorgasbord

My “Free Online Storage” review of 10 different online backup services shows you how you can protect your digital photos, mp3’s, multimedia, documents, and more online (for free!)

A co-worker recently told me that he had two external hard drives that he’d been backing up photos and mp3’s to - and they were about out of storage space. He wanted to know what his options were for more storage space, and if tape backup were still a viable thing to invest in.

I think this is a good question, one that more and more people have as digital pictures start piling up - and as more of us buy music online vs. having a pile of cd’s lying around. It used to be the only thing you worried about was a fire destroying your precious family photos or music collection. Nowadays - I think that people are much more careless with “digital” versions of memories or paid music. Think about it, have you ever had a computer die, motherboard fry, or a hard drive go bad?

I few years ago my own daughter was heartbroken when over 2 years of digital photos were lost (in addition to he mp3’s) when her hard drive crashed. No matter what I did I couldn’t bring that drive back long enough to get data off of it. I should have done then what I told my co-worker to do now.

If you’re in a similar situation - you can of course buy more network storage as I’ve written about in the past. You could also get a wireless hard drive, or a Buffalo Drivestation - but by purchasing more hardware you still aren’t safe from a fire - unless you are backing up and then taking those external drives to a secondary location on a regular basis (like a safe deposit box).

My recommendation to my co-worker was to signup for “free online storage”. This way you’re protected from a natural disaster in addition to computer issues. In addition - you can also access your files from multiple computers if necessary, and getting at your files when you get a new PC or laptop is no problem. All this sounds expensive - doesn’t it?

There are 6 different online storage services featured in this c|Net review, but I decided to also add some services to this list that they left out. All in all, every online storage site listed below has a “free” option that you can use - and if you signed up for them all you could get more than 100GB of free online storage space combined!

We start with Windows SkyDrive, and they offer 5GB of online storage for free. It’s password protected storage, and I would be a bit surprised if this is something they don’t try and push as a “feature” of the next version of Windows. This services looks pretty simple, but I wouldn’t be surprised if was only completely usable from Internet Explorer (and most geeks I know use Firefox). You can make files public, personal, or shared.

MediaFire is a completely free online storage service that claims “completely unlimited storage”. Looks like their banking on that model of getting tons of online users and worrying about how to pay for it later (and maybe being bought for big bucks like YouTube!). They have options for making files public or personal. There is a limit of 100MB per file, but that shouldn’t affect the majority of people.

The XDrive has been around awhile - it was one of the first online storage services that I can remember. You get 5GB for free, then it’s $9.95 per month after that. XDrive was purchased by AOL some time ago - so you need an AOL username to login or create an account, but an AIM ID will do if you have one of those. You can upload files one at a time, or there’s a “java accelerator” for multiple files. You can share files and folders with this service as well.

You can get 2GB free online storage with MozyHome, or pay $4.95 per month for unlimited. Purchased by EMC, this service has been around about 2 years. Unlike the services listed so far, to use MozyHome you have to install an application that will backup your email, documents, and photos. You can choose (in “expert” mode) what files are or aren’t backed up, and how often backups occur. Mozy runs in the background looking for changed files to backup on a regular schedule.

Carbonite is probably the most heavily advertised online storage servies, with (currently) ads on the radio every hour. You get unlimited online storage space, but the cost is $4.95 per month, or $50 if you pay by the year. Carbonite is like Mozy, it’s an “online backup” service that runs in the background backing up your PC or laptop as you work. The difference between Carbonite and all the other online backup and storage services is that your files are encrypted before being securely sent from your PC to the Carbonite servers. That might not be important to some people, but as far as privacy and personal and confidential documents are concerned - it should be. Especially since most PC’s are riddled with personally identifiable information like resume’s, financial information, claimforms, and maybe even copies of paystubs or timesheets. If you own a home based or small business you would be smart to choose Carbonite for this one reason alone.

Box.net offers 1GB for free or 5GB for $7.95 per month. The free account limits individual file size to only 10MB per file. There’s also a 10GB per month bandwidth limit (if you’re repeatedly updating the same files), and they have a java drag and drop application that you can use. Even though this service seems a bit limited and restricted (for the free account), it does have uses that the others listed so far don’t. You can use this service to host blog or eBay photos and then placing the link on the appropriate page. It might be a handy account to have for just those types of uses, or for smaller short term online file storage.

ADrive offers 50GB of free online storage and they offer a “desktop backup client” as well. Something ADrive offers that the others don’t (or at least didn’t mention) was the ability to edit documents online. You can share files, and ADrive boasts a “search tool” as well, something I hadn’t seen any of the other services list in their offerings. ADrive sounds like a great service since it has lots of free space AND an online backup tools, but I hope that the intermittent problems I was having with their web site aren’t indications that their servers are maxed out (from too many users).

iDrive offers 2GB of online storage space for free with additional accounts starting at $4.95 per month. iDrive is advertised as working for both the Mac or PC - and you need to install their application to work with the service. You can select what to backup, or have true archiving and “sync” of updated files - and even access up to the last 30 versions. You can search and restore, or even explore your backed up files from a “windows explorer” like view.

Humyo offers 30GB of online storage space for free, which also includes the ability to edit files online. You don’t get a desktop client with the free version or encrypted file transfers (you can get 100GB and encrypted file transfers for $59 per year). You can send files via email with this service with no restrictions on size. The unique feature of Humyo is the ability to “publish and embed” media. You can put your media (movie file, mp3) on a blog or social networking site, and Humyo automatically embeds a “player” on the page - making it a snap to publish your media wherever you want. This would be a great feature for artists or bands.

Orbit files offers 6GB of free online storage space. You can edit your files online, and OrbitFiles offers a “tag and search” feature I’ve not seen in other services. You can add friends and share files, zip folders, and create public or private photo albums. Two features unique to OrbitFiles are the ability to enable RSS, and the ability to “sell files”. That’s right - you can sell your files online, whether it be PDF, eBooks, MP3’s, photos - you name it! They only charge a small 2% commission on the sale price - which really is quite cheaper than most options for selling digital content online!

There are all kinds of other online storage services that seem to do something different to set themselves apart. Like Omemo for example, which bills itself as the “world’s largest drive”. You sign up, and “share” part of your free hard drive space with others, for a huge “peer to peer virtual drive”. DropBoks offers 1GB of space in what appears to be about the simplest online storage interface I’ve seen. In.solit.us offers free online storage that you can even access from your iPhone. divShare offers 5GB storage and 10GB bandwidth per month and boasts integration with Wordpress, Facebook, and iPhone. They have an API that can used to integrate their storage space with any online application. SendUit offers the ability to send files via an expiring download link that you can set from 30 minutes to one week.

Whichever service you choose - you should be able to find at least one online storage service that meets your needs!

Ever lost a password? I did today, and I found a “free password reveal tool”. Actually, what happenned was that I had a password saved in my browser, but I didn’t know what it was anymore and I wanted to change it. When I tried to change the password, it wanted the old one before I could enter a new one…and well, that was the start of a way to figure my password out.

Back in the day (like 10 years ago) I remember when we used to download all kinds of Windows utilities to do handy things, and there was this thing called a “password revealer” that I used to have. When you ran a small executable file it would open a “loupe” (fancy word for jewelers maginifying glass). When you moved the “loupe” over a password field it would turn the dots or asteriks into their real letters, numbers, and characters revealing the real password. w00t!

Now today I wanted to find this utility or a very good reason - I wanted to figure my own password out. Unfortuantely there are people out there who would want to use this tool for ill gotten gains, like hacking your myspace password, breaking into your hotmail account, or for an easy way to steal your yahoo password. What I’m saying is, I’m going to give you a tool you can use to reveal most saved password, but it would be in your best interest to uninstall when you were done to keep prying eyes from getting into your business! Like I said - there’s a reason that less than 100 people per month search for “password revealer”, but more than 2,000 each search for “hacking myspace password”, and “hotmail password stealer”?!?

When your dealing something like looking for a “password revealer” tool - a lot of the search results are spammy or trying to get you to buy some piece of software to solve your problem. I was lucky enough that Lifehacker saved the day (again) with their post Recover Lost Passwords. They linked to a site and post I forgot about - Snadboy’s Revelation 2.0, which is course is a freeware password revealer. It worked for me! If it doesn’t work for you, try some of the other tools on the Lifehacker page, and report back here what works and what doesn’t!

Memory Cards keep getting lost? Get a “Memory Card Case” to organize them so you have them all in the same spot - each and every time!

I can’t tell you how many times I went to the Camera case and all the memory cards were gone. Or the times that I grabbed my digital camera and either no memory card was in it - or the card in it was full of pics (I wasn’t sure if I could erase yet). Flash memory cards are small, and the microSD ones are smaller than a thumbnail.

Of course, there’s already something you can buy to fix this problem - and it’s a “memory card case”. There’a ton of ‘em on eBay - and they don’t cost that much at all. In fact, it’s probably more expensive to replace a lost flash memory card than it is to get the case, not to mention the cost you can’t put on precious memories and pics and if they aren’t on your PC yet. These would make excellent gifts for Christmas or any occasion - you should stock up now!

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The Socket Sense Expandable Surge Protector Strip is something I wish I had a long time ago! It always seems like I have some kind of big bulky adapter to plug in that spans more than one outlet. This nifty little gadget just slides out at any outlet to expand and give enough room for big adapters where needed. I think all surge protectors should do this. I can use one of these in my living room entertainment center, and also at just about every computer in the house, in addition to carrying one in my musicians gig bag for the stage (where I have all kinds of adapters for effects)! Where could you use an expandable socket surge strip? click here to check prices for the “Socket Surge”.

Don’t lost valuable documents, mp3’s, and digital photos use a “Buffalo Drivestation” to backup your valuable data.

This post of part of The Smorgasbord Tech Reviews series!

When I wrote my “Network Storage Review“, one of the first things in that article was the “Buffalo Drivestation”. I was thinking about the Drivestation this week because I had a family member who had a hard drive crash and lost all of her family photos and mp3’s she’d purchased, in addition to saved tax returns, and many other valuable documents.

I think sometimes people forget what kinds of “digital treasures” are stored on your PC or laptop, and what kind of chaos could ensue if it suddenly disappeared tomorrow. The Drivestation came to mind because it comes in so many different sizes (from 320GB to many Terabytes), and because it’s so easy to use. Just plug it in, push the button, and you’re backed up! They make models big enough for most small to medium sized businesses, and the versions with “RAID” have 2 hard drives inside for dual mirroring. That means if one hard drive fails, there’s another as a backup. The disks are even encrypted, so if anyone takes the unit, they can’t access any of your data.

It’s like insurance for your computer in a way. You have insurance for your car and home don’t you? If you have an accident or a fire your insurance company will replace what you have lost. Not only is there no insurance for your computer, but the personal documents and data you lose there likely can’t be replaced at all. If you have pics of your daughter’s wedding on your computer’s hard drive, for example, if they were lost no amount of money could compensate you for that.

I recommended the Buffalo Drivestation to my family member that lost her data, and I recommend it to you because of it’s ease of use, multiple connections (firewire and USB), and because it works with both Macs and PC’s. The price is reasonable for the value you get, and even your Grandma or the most tech-clueless office manager or secretary could set one up.

You can nearly always find Drivestations on eBay, or Amazon (below).

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This AC inverter fits in your cupholder, has a USB slot, AND a holder for your iPod or cell phone - w00t!

I’m in the car a lot - I commute over an hour to work - so having various accessories and gadgets in the gar is kind of a necessity for a geek like me. I also have two teen aged kids, and they have their own gadgets like mp3 players, cell phones, PSP’s, Nintendo DS, and who knows what else. I’ve had an AC power inverter in the car for quite some time just in case I need to plugin the laptop on the go, and it works quite well. We’ve used it on many vacations and trips too.

So when I found the “Smart AC Inverter” with the USB slot and holder I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Let me tell you about the cool geekery this thing has. First of all it’s 150 watts, and that’s enough to power most any laptop. Second it’s designed to fit in your cup holder! Third, it has a USB port for charging your iPod or any mobile device or portable music player with a USB port. Last, it has a holder to drop your iPod, cell phone, or mp3 player into while charging in ADDITION to the AC outlet! I’m sorry - this was designed by someone who knows that would be useful to people on the go! This would make an excellent gift for a commuter, road warrior, or geek on the go - especially for Dad on Father’s Day!

Click for price on the “Smart AC Inverter with USB Slot and Holder”.

Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor

Monitor how much electricity you’re using the the “Kill A Watt” Electricity Usage Monitor! Meter your own electrical usage!

When you get your monthly electric bill - ever wonder what was using the most electricity? What appliance or device is costing you more money per month than any other in your house? Is it your microwave? Your fridge? The hair dryer? There’s no more guesswork, because you can track energy consumption on your own with the “Kill A Watt” gadget. I’ve seen it demonstrated on Good Morning America and other news broadcasts and talk shows, and even online in forums people talk about it calling it the “Kill-o-watt”, “killawatt reader”, killwat, kilowatt, killowatt, and more…

The bottom line is - if you want to learn how-to conserve energy just get this little gadget, let it track how much your spending by the hour, day, week, month, or entire year by measuring the electricity you use for certain devices. Just plug one thing at a time to let it capture a reading, and it will forecast your electric bill costs within 0.2% accuracy! You’ll be amazed at how much money you can save once you find out where your money is going! To Check Prices on the Kill A Watt Click Here

Here’s a video demo of how the Kill-A-Watt works:

I’ve also seen some extremely good deals both new and used Kill a Watt gadgets on eBay - here’s some auctions ending soon for you to check out:

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I have become so frustrated by to cost of gasoline in America that day by day I’m out to “find the cheapest gas”. I use the web each and every day from daybreak until bed, so it’s only fitting that I created my own page to find cheap gas. Just click on the tab at the top of any page on this site for a map:

All you have to do is input your zip code at the top to get gas prices in your local area for all listed stations and immediately find out “who has cheap gas” by you!

I commute a lot, and spend a LOT on gas each week. This will help me save money on gas quite a bit I a logon to check the prices every morning before I leave the house. I encourage you to bookmark this page and regularly visit to find the cheapest gas by you too!

Rent Books and Audio books with BooksFree, no late charge, free shipping, it’s basically Netflix for books!

I want to tell you about a new service I recently found, and I don’t know why somebody hadn’t started this company 5 years ago. It’s always cool when a new service comes around that uses the web. Do you have Netflix? Ever used Netflix? It’s the service where they send you DVD’s in the mail (like a rental), and when you’re done watching you slip it into a prepaid envelope and mail it back. No postage costs, quick turnaround on shipments, and you can keep an online queue of moves to be sent next. This is a great way to avoid ever going to the video store again. They also have services like Gamefly to rent video games through the mail like this, and even a few services that rent adult DVD’s this way too.

Well, it only makes sense that someone would invent the very same service for paperback and hardback books. BooksFree is a service that has over 100,000 books available from classics to recently released, and you can signup and have them sent to your home free of shipping charges just like Netflix. It’s like having your own library that you can check out what you want, when you want - without ever having to visit the library.

If you’re looking for the latest novel by Steven King, Michael Crichton, Mary Higgins Clark, or John Grisham - they have them all and more! One bonus feature is - if you’re a commuter (like me) they also have a huge stock of audio books, so if you drive a lot this service is perfect for you! I think it would also make a great gift for any reader - maybe for your Mom or Dad on Mother’s or Father’s day! You can cancel it anytime, and they have plans that start at $9.99 too. I think I’ll get as much use out of BooksFree as I do out of Netflix!

This is my review of “hulu.com”, the TV network and movie studio attempt to battle YouTube head to head.

I’ve been working online for 13 years. In that time we’ve seen the rise and fall of Napster, the birth of IM, online chat, and “social networking”. I’ve read that 70% of the country (or more) has a broadband connection. I was appreciating that fact today uploading 200K pictures to one of my web sites. Zing, zing, zing, all 100 of them were uploaded in just a few minutes. What does all this mean? The web is growing up. It’s maturing. It’s also changing how we live our lives, and what we watch and see and do. I was just telling my son the other day that I remember when I was a kid we had one tv in the family room and an antenna rotor. There were 6 channels to watch, the three major networks, one PBS, and two independant channels. In my house today we have a flat screen tv, DVD, VCR, a Wii, and a laptop in the family room. Every bedroom but one has a PC. Every bedroom has a tv and a DVD player. My son’s room has an Xbox 360 and 7 or 8 older classic game consoles. He also has a wireless mp3 player. We have a 3 base telephone set with a Vonage line, and 2 adults and 2 teens in the house have cell phones. The house has wired and wireless broadband throughout. Both of our cars have satellite radio.

In other words - there is no shortage of multimedia distractions in our home. I can’t imagine that we’re much different more or less than millions of other families. What this means is traditional media should be worried…VERY worried. Traditional broadcast media, or what we call “terrestrial tv and radio” - they should be the most worried of all. If cable and satellite tv haven’t already nearly killed them compared to their decades and decades of near total dominance - the web has usurped the rest of. But the web has also hurt traditional print media like newspaper and magazine sales, and it’s also hurt the recording and movie industries. Rather than try and embrace the “information superhighway” nearly all of these forms of “traditional media” have dragged their feet. Since the advent of the Internet has also meant the ease of “digital distrubution” some media have resorted to frivolous lawsuits against private citizens in a vain attempt to scare the public and keep themselves fat and happy. While YouTube is still a big of a mess (as far as copyright infringement and video quality are concerned), the model that has made it so successful is flourishing better than flowers in a manure pile.

I wasn’t surprised when NBC first announced it’s deal with YouTube. It seems like they were the first major network to make a deal with YouTube. Maybe it was that experiment that taugh them it could be done better. It wasn’t long ago I heard NBC was going to create their own online video network. As soon as I heard it I just said “whatever”, figuring that it would about as successful as all the other “video clones” currently sprouting up. And then last week I heard it was live on hulu.com.

Naturally - I had to check it out, and I have to admit I figured in less than 5 minutes I’d chalk it up to be a complete and utter failure.

When I went to hulu.com for the first time the first thing I noticed when browsing around was that multiple networks were participating. Bravo, Sci-Fi, FX, G4, Sony, Sundance, E!, Fox, Universal, NBC, the NBA, USA, WB, 20th Century Fox, the NHL and more had signed on.

In addition major movie studios such as Lionsgate, Metro Golwyn Mayer, and 20th Century Fox had signed on.

Even though it would appear that there are less than 1,000 full pieces of content within the site currently (based on the fact that you can browse them from one or two web pages), I think that the quality of the content indicates there is much, much more to come. Within just a few minutes I found that I could be instantly watching Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Office, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ice Age, Point Break, Sideways, or Weekend at Bernies. These are major titles, and many current broadcast shows.

For the purposes of this review I chose to watch a movie - “The Big Lebowski”. I should mention that prior to this I had already signed up for a free “account” which you have to do to view content. It was nothing extravagant, just a simple form and then email verification. Which surprised me, because the movie I had chosen to watch was “rated R”.

I mean honestly - I was glad it was so easy to just “start watching”, but who’s to say I really was the appropriate age? They asked my age when I signed up, but both my teens are savvy enough just lie about that - as are the bulk of the web aware youth today. So after the obligatory “intended for mature audiences” screen, the next thing I’m faced with is of course an advertisement.

I was concerned about this at first, but in the scheme of things it’s really not that bad. If you look at this images check out the timeline at the bottom of the pic. The white dots in the timeline are commercials. For this two hour movie there are 11 dots, and added to the one at the beginning that’s 12 commercials for a two hour movie. These are 30 second commercials, and that amounts to 6 minutes of ads for the entire movie. Compare that to 24 minutes of commercials for two hours of television or 15 minutes of previews in the movie theater. All traditional media has always been based solely on this type of advertising model - it makes complete sense to just carry it to to the web. Oh - in addition in this image notice that wherever you move your mouse, the exact timestamp appears, which is handy for moving to any point in the timeline you would like (no you can’t forward past the commercials).

In this next image I show you the menus that appear when you mouse near the edges. At the bottom you’ve got the standard play/pause, timeline, and volume - but there are 4 options on the left and 4 options on the right.

The second from the top right is “Pop Out”, which allows you to watch the movie in it’s own browser window like this (the menu only stays when you mouse near the edge):

The “share” option leads you to a social media sharing menu with options for myspace, facebook, digg, windows live, del.icio.us, reddit, StumbleUpon, or Google Bookmarks. Look at this, major networks and movie studios brazenly asking us to “digg” them!?

Another option they give us is to email it to a friend:

And in an incredible YouTube ripoff moment they give us the ability to “embed” anything. Wow, you can embed a 2 hour movie in your blog? Why yes you can…

There are also options for “full screen” and even one to change the video quality from 360p to 480p. I applaud them for actually stating the quality without the usual “broadband” and “dialup” type options. I tried viewing the movie full screen in 480p, and it wasn’t choppy at all, it instantly buffered, and the quality was pretty good. There wasn’t much I didn’t like about the entire experience. I found that there were sections on the site for just “clips” and another for full length series and feature films. Searching was easy and brought expected results. Play was pretty instant and the entire site seems to be on a pretty good backbone with some pretty good servers and bandwidth. I know wonder that if the free vintage TV series at NBC.com I wrote about a few weeks back also run on this network (or not). I would have to presume “yes” since a search for the A-team on hulu.com brings immediate results.

In synopsis, I have to say that I am very impressed with Hulu and I’m very surprised that the major networks not “get the web” and aren’t yet again trying to screw us. One of the modern “conveniences” that has long since bothered me is the fact that modern media thinks that we (as consumers) are stupid. They blatantly believe they have the ability to charge us over and over and over again for the exact same content. Case and point - I paid full price for the Rolling Stones “Tattoo You” album when it came out when it was released in 1981. Then in about 1985 I bought in on cassette, and again probably about 1995 on CD. If I want to listen to it on my phone, Sprint wants me to buy it again - and even if I do (buy the full song) I have to pay $3.99 just to use “Start Me Up” as a ringtone. To play it on my iPod I have but the album again on iTunes, and for the privilege of listening to those Stones songs on my satellite radio - I have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Sometime in the near future I’ll probably be forced to buy it yet again in an “HD Audio” version. This same example could also have been the movie “The Blues Brothers” which I have now on both VCR and DVD. I’ve yet to try and view it on my iPod or one of our computers. “F” you guys! Don’t you get how sick of this I am? I don’t want to continue to buy “licenses” for the same content on different devices.

While Hulu doesn’t completely address this issue, it’s a start, and I hope that the other major players follow suit. As an online markete the thing I really find hilarious is the fact that major media are just figuring out the web, but the sex industry has been raking in over 300 billion online for many years now with the exact same model (give tons of free content away and sell loads of advertisement). If you want to see if hulu is for you or not - I give to you John Belush in one of my favorite SNL sketches “Samurai Delicatessen”: