Webware

McAfee Online Backup has a lot of options and a rudimentary interface that could be intimidating for novices.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)

McAfee, one of the world's largest Internet security providers, wants to go one step further in keeping your data safe. It now offers to store your backup data for you.

The company announced Thursday the availability of its McAfee Online Backup, an online backup service that automatically uploads data from your computer's hard drive to a remote server via the Internet.

While online backup services are nothing new and have been available for a long time from many providers, such as Carbonite, Memeo, or Cuku, the main difference with the new McAfee Online Backup service is that it's one of a few that offer unlimited storage space.

For a fixed annual fee of $60, you can back up as much data as you want. This could possibly the best deal around for online backup, especially for anyone with a lot of important data and a high-speed Internet connection.

Other than the generous amount of storage, according to McAfee, its new service, which is powered by Mozy, is secure and comes with easy-to-use software.

I tried the software out briefly, and it was, indeed, easy to install and get the first backup up and running.

Once you have registered an account with McAfee, you can download the software and install it on your computer, much like you would do with the company's security software. When the install is finished, the software tests the speed of your Internet connection, which later helps determine how long it will take to get the first backup done.

The software offers a lot of options, such as Bandwidth Throttle that limits how much of the Internet connection is used for the data upload, and Backup Speed that lets you choose either fast or slow backups, to lessen the impact on the computer's performance.

McAfee Online Backup can automatically detect and find important data, including bookmarks, e-mail, contacts, documents, photos, and so on, to back up for you. You can also manually back up any folders of your choosing. Once everything is set, the software will take care of the backing up on its own. Depending on the amount of data and the quality of the Internet connection, the first backup can take a very long time (perhaps days), but after that, only data that has been changed will be backed up.

It's worth noting, though, that even when you set the backup speed to optimize for fast backup, the software seems to upload data rather slowly. If you have a cable connection and have tens or hundreds of gigabytes, expect the initial backup to take days to complete. Also, the software's unfriendly interface and the overwhelming amount of unexplained options could be intimidating to novice users.

Nonetheless, overall, this seems to be a decent backup solution and could be the most affordable for those who have a lot of data to back up. If you don't have already have a reliable backup service, consider trying it out, as it comes with a 30-day money back warranty.

Social-storage service Dropio on Thursday announced a partnership with Yahoo Mail to deliver a default application for the e-mail program's users. Dubbed Attach Large Files, Dropio's application will allow Yahoo Mail users to send attachments up to 100 MB in size.

When Yahoo Mail users log on to their accounts, they will now see Dropio's Attach Large Files listing included in the Applications drop-down box, which also features apps from Evite, Flickr, and PayPal, among others. When they click on Dropio's application, they can immediately start sending large files through their e-mail accounts.

The Dropio application isn't available through Yahoo Mail's e-mail composition form. Only when the user clicks on the "Attach Large Files" option will they be brought to a page allowing them to select files from their computer. Once they choose all those files, they can then upload them and compose an e-mail message. The message contains a note at the bottom saying the attachment technology is "powered by Dropio."

Dropio has made its way to Yahoo Mail.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

The recipients will then view the e-mail's contents on a unique Dropio page. There, they can leave a comment or download the files to their computer.

Incorporating the Dropio technology marks an improvement for Yahoo. Currently, users of Google's Yahoo Mail rival, Gmail, can attach up to 25MB to their messages. By effectively quadrupling that figure through Dropio's app, Yahoo Mail has another compelling feature to communicate to users.

Dropio was quick to point out that the app it created for Yahoo was based on its open application-programming interface. It hopes that the Yahoo Mail feature will be used as a proof of concept for other developers to find unique ways to use its API.

Dropio's Attach Large Files application is available now for free in the Yahoo Mail Applications listing.

Storage provider and collaboration service Box.net is launching a mobile extension to its OpenBox platform of application programming interfaces on Thursday. The updated platform will enable iPhone app developers to make better use of the service's cloud storage, giving users access to their files across mobile applications on the iPhone and soon other platforms.

The idea is that users will be able to save whatever they're doing on the phone to Box's cloud storage service, as opposed to their servers or the device itself. It's similar to the way the smartphone can natively send some files to places like Apple's MobileMe service and Google's YouTube. Users can then make edits to those files using other applications, subsequently syncing back up the next time they launch the iPhone app.

As part of the new program, Box has already given a handful of developers access to the new APIs. These include Pixelpipe, JotNot, iRec, and iThoughts, all of which are releasing new versions of their apps that will be able to access and save to a user's Box account.

What's missing here are Box's servers, which are doing all the heavy lifting. But the idea is the same--your data flows freely between mobile and desktop apps, all through Box.

(Credit: Box)

Beyond productivity apps, the new APIs allow for any kind of data to be sent over, which opens up transfers from generic things like text files, photos, and videos into things like game saves and user settings. A Box representative told me that while gaming would not be a focus of the API, a developer's implementation of it would not be discouraged.

Considering the heavy saturation of cross-platform games on the iPhone, it could quite easily give developers a way for gamers to continue the game they were playing on another device, making Box a valuable storage locker.

After more than a month of waiting, Apple has finally brought its MobileMe iDisk application to iPod and iPhone users. Originally announced during Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference in early July, the free iDisk app offers users of Apple's MobileMe service a way to access files they, or their MobileMe contacts have stored on Apple's servers.

Some of the nicer features include being able to view and send any native file types. This includes music, so if you've got a bunch of tracks stored on iDisk, you can stream them from the app. Movies work as well, although they have to be formatted to play on an iPod or iPhone.

Apple says that some files over 20MB won't load, although I successfully managed to get a 198MB MPEG4 movie file to stream in. Things that require downloading, however, such as documents and photos, are capped at 30MB--even when you're on a Wi-Fi connection. The application must first download those types of files to your device before you can even see what they are. This process is made faster by a cache you can adjust to allow for more local storage, all the way up to 200MB. Not included in that cache are audio and video files, which are simply streamed, meaning that you'll need to be on a solid connection for the entire listen or watch.

As nice as the local cache is, it's a long ways off from offering users the chance to manage files locally as some other iPhone storage apps have done. You cannot download anything back to your device from the app, save for photos, which can only be saved using the iPhone's screenshot feature--not the superior copy and paste. There are also no previews before or after you've downloaded something to view locally, which means you better have named your files properly.

I applaud Apple's efforts for giving users a first party way to access their files, it's just too bad it offers so much less than third parties have provided. Besides local file downloading, I would love to see omissions like copy and paste, and quick visual previews offered. It would also be fantastic to let users copy a file from the app into a mail message without having to use the built-in e-mailer, which wraps each file in MobileMe branding.

MobileMe iDisk for the iPhone weighs in at 2.2MB and requires users to have an active subscription to MobileMe, along with an iPod Touch or iPhone running OS 3.0.

The good:
• Lets you quickly access files you have stored on your iDisk in a native application.
• Streams in audio and video, letting you bypass file size restrictions.
• You can view files in portrait and landscape modes.
• Your log-in is saved between sessions, so you don't need to re-enter your user name and password.
•You can view files your friends have stored online if you know their MobileMe user names.

The bad:
• Certain files are capped at 30MB--even over Wi-Fi.
• There are no visual previews of what photos, videos, and docs contain.
• No way to save files for offline viewing. There's a local cache, but as soon as a newer file needs some space, old files are removed.
•Copy and paste doesn't work.

Web storage provider and collaboration tool Box.net has launched three new features aimed at giving its business users more customization, and simpler ways to set up collaborative workflow.

The first is tasks, which are action items you can assign to specific files. To start with, the service gives you three actions (approve, update, and review) that can be applied to yourself or someone else. Say, for example, I have an article I'm writing and saving in Box. When I'm done with it, I can assign my boss to either review or approve it. The same goes for updating something like a list of phone numbers or e-mails; I can send that out to multiple collaborators, telling them to add the information in the context of an action that can be kept track of.

You can choose from one of three premade tasks, or make your own.

When anyone finishes a task, the service gives them the option to add a customized response. That message gets sent to the person or group who assigned it, while crossing out the original task request that lets you track who did what during or after a project. What isn't saved, however, are any custom tasks you've created in case you want to reuse them on other projects at a later date.

Along with the addition of tasks, business users now have the option to brand Box's workspace with a company logo and color scheme. Any other users in your team will see this when they use the service, as will anyone you've given file-reading privileges to.

Secondary to this, Box is now letting business users create what it's calling "global" folders, which get their own URL that the creator can choose. Similar to what Dropio provides, this is a permanent place where anyone can get at whatever files are there, as long as they have the URL. They can also subscribe to the folder and get e-mail notifications as soon as new files are added. Unlike Dropio, however this cannot be done via RSS--you have to sign up for it using your Box.net credentials.

These new features continue to round out Box, which is smartly trying to break out of being perceived as a place for users to dump their files. With tasks, branding, and the recently released Web document editor, it's getting much closer to being a do-everything-in-the-cloud service.

If you're sharing a folder with its own vanity URL you can change the way it looks to others as well.

(Credit: CNET)

On Thursday, Web storage provider Dropio took its presentation tool Presentio out of private beta and opened it up to all users. Similar to the recently launched, real-time activity view found in its collaborative storage folders (or "drops" as the service calls them), the new tool gives users a simple set of controls to present those files to others.

It's effectively like watching someone else's screen as they navigate around the storage folder. If they open a file, you see it straight away. If they jump to a certain page in a PDF or PowerPoint presentation, you see it too. The same goes for music and movies, which play right in the browser using Dropio's integrated file-viewing tools.

Presentio also comes with a few handy features, like the capability to hand the presenter controls off to another person. There's also a free conference line that you can call into, along with a chat room that pops out from the bottom of the screen (which can also be found in Drops where real-time collaboration is turned on).

What I like about this tool, and more so than others, is that it's assuming that you're already using the storage service to stash your files. You can move files you already have stashed on Dropio, or very quickly upload new ones, then get straight to business. It's just taking that extra step out of when it's time to present to others.

Here's a quick run through of how it works by Dropio's founder Sam Lessin:

Soonr is releasing the third version of its service Wednesday with a redesigned Web site and updated iPhone application that brings more of its desktop functionality to mobile users.

On the desktop side, the site has been rearranged to put all of Soonr's collaborative features in one place. Things like past file edits, user comments, and permissions control are now in the same place. And you can quickly create a project and start adding files to it on your own, or with collaborators who will be alerted each time there's a new file, user comment, or a change.

However, many of the biggest changes remain on the mobile application, which the company says should fulfill most of the top requests users had when it originally came out. These include:

• A full-screen document viewer that can be pinched to zoom in and out of large, complex files like spreadsheets.
  

• Streaming video. If you're opening up a supported video file it will play right on your phone.
  

• Contact list integration, so you can send files to people on your phone's contact list, even if they're not a Soonr contact.
  

• You can send and receive eFaxes from your phone if you have an eFax account set up.
  

• The option to create and move around folders, so you can reorganize everything you have saved on the service when you're out of the office. You can even upload files from your phone.

The updated dashboard divides up projects and site activity into different tabs.

(Credit: Soonr)

To help sort through everything the service now has a search engine that indexes not just the names of your files, but what's inside them. This works on both the mobile and desktop versions on supported file types; So if you remember a small snippet of a Word document, it will be able to pull it up out of hundreds, or thousands in your account.

One thing that's not coming with this version is the capability to make edits to files from your phone. Creator Martin Frid-Nielsen tells me it's on the road map, and is on track for a future release, but it's not quite ready yet. It's definitely the one thing that keeps this service from being a true replacement for the Web version, since any changes or fixes to your work must be done when you're back on a real machine.

See also: Box.net updates its search to go inside your files

Box.net is rolling out a new version of its search engine that lets users search for information found within the files they've stored on the service. Previously its system only worked with file names and user-created tags. The new tool will index text within Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, user descriptions, and Box.net's recently-added Web documents service.

This is an important feature to add, and one that's long overdue. For things like videos and image files it was not a big deal since the built-in preview tools made viewing the content within your folders quite simple. For documents, however, the only real quick way to go about hunting through them was to name them properly the first time, or use an appropriate OpenBox service to preview the file within your browser. For businesses or individuals with a large number of files stored on Box's servers, both of these solutions break down quickly.

The company is rolling this out to users, both free and business accounts, over the next few weeks.

Search results now go through your saved files to find words or phrases within. You also get a preview of what it found.

(Credit: Box.net)

This is the new Dropio interface with a chat pop-up at the bottom.

(Credit: Dropio)

When Facebook announced that its news feed would turn into a real-time "stream" of updates and media, it became clear that the Twitter-like model of fast-moving information flow was gaining a real foothold in the dot-com world.

Now, file-sharing service Dropio has opted to turn its "drops"--the pages where people can drag and drop any number of multimedia files and then password-protect them--into streams optimized for collaborative work. If you're working in one of them, it updates instantly for all users.

There's also a new feature, much like in Google Docs, Zoho, and other collaboration tools, which lets all members looking at a given "drop" chat with one another. Dropio has also turned on access to drops from third-party chat clients with Jabber support, like Adium and Pidgin.

But founder and CEO Sam Lessin said that he doesn't see the collaboration-focused new development as bringing Dropio, which turned on Twitter support last summer, in competition with the Web's numerous productivity-suite applications.

"We're still not interested in, and we're not competing in the 'let's open up a document and edit it together in real time' space," Lessin said to CNET News. "I've yet to see...a normal workflow where you want to do that. The workflow for us is much more along the lines of opening up a pipe between 15 people who are collaborating or 100 people who are in a conference audience and let them collaborate around the event."

A more direct competitor, he said, would be the 37Signals product Campfire.