Webware

I wanted to revisit some of the products that didn't work for me yesterday, since my personal demo demon seems to have moved on.

I'll start with Titanize, the unknown online backup product. Titanize competes with services like Mozy and Carbonite. But it offers features that the others don't, and it is worth serious consideration if you're looking for an over-the-Net backup service.

For basic backups, it's much like Mozy and Carbonite. It's easy to set up, and it runs in the background, sending your new and changed files to its secure servers. But Titanize also will back up your files to local storage like an external hard disk or a drive on your home LAN. This makes it a very good solution if you're looking to set up layered backup, using local drives for convenience and speed and off-site backup for disaster protection.

Titanize backs up data, shares it, and publishes it on the Web

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Titanize gives you Web access to your files: it lets you access your entire backup set from any Web browser. You also can share files in your backup with people via e-mail, or you can "publish" any file to the Web and Titanize will give it a static, public URL. XDrive and Box.net have similar features.

The system also will keep data synchronized between multiple PCs. This is very useful for people who use both a desktop and a laptop, although Titanize does not let you specify which folders get synced and which don't. For that, see Foldershare or BeInSync.

I like Titanize, yesterday's glitch notwithstanding. I've found that, in addition to offering a complete set of storage features, it's also very fast to back up. There's a 5GB, 30-day trial available for free; 10GB of storage costs $60 a year; an additional 40GB is another $40 a year.

Also check out the innovative Crashplan if you want to set up your own secure backup network among family or co-workers.

You may have noticed that posting is a bit light here on Webware today, but it's not for lack of trying. Let me tell you what I've tried so far today, and why there are no good hands-on reviews.

Titanize, an online backup system that competes with Mozy and Carbonite: I installed this service on my father's PC, and it seemed to be working fine. Today I wanted to check out its advanced features (publishing, online access, and so on) so I could write up the review. Sadly, they didn't work. I can't get a backup to run on my own system, and trying to view files on another account gives me "file has been deleted" and other error messages. Update: A few hours later, everything seems to be working fine. Backups are running on my machine, and I'm not getting error messages anymore from the Web site.

PDFescape, an online PDF file viewer: An interesting idea, since it could add easy collaboration to PDF files. But the demo is limited to files under 512KB or 10 pages. That's a stopper, since the free Acrobat reader has no limitation. I tried a random assortment of six PDFs from my system. All of them busted one or both of those limits, so I gave up. Update: The developer is increasing the system's limits.

Peekamo, a potentially very interesting social network for mobile users: Claims to offer free SMS, even for people who usually have to pay for each message they send. But the interface and setup stymied me.

Mosoto, which looks like a very cool real-time accessory for Facebook: It lets you see which of your buddies are online and share music playlists. See TechCrunch's review. The founder e-mailed me to pitch it, but he didn't send a way to get access, so I can't try it.

Finally, Wishood. Good Valentine's Day angle here: This service lets you collect wishes (like an online gift registry) or give wish "grants" to other people. But, basically, it looks like a fancy online greeting card site, and it doesn't float my boat.

I am heading out to lunch now to clear my head and wish (hello, Wishood?) for some good Webware that I can actually cover. Later today I am meeting with the new CEO of Pageflakes and hope to report some interesting news from that.