Webware

With AOL-owned Xdrive on the auction block, competing cloud storage providers are scrapping together all sorts of plans to woo these potential paying customers to their services. Two in particular, Dropio and Box.net, have set up simple escape hatches wherein Xdrive users can simply plug in their account credentials and have their data piped over.

There's a catch, though: both services have free storage caps well beneath Xdrive's generous 5GB. In the case of Dropio, that cap is 100MB. To supplement this, the service is offering Xdrive users a special premium drop, which bumps up the cap to 1GB. Normally these premium chunks of storage cost $10 a pop, and only keep for a year's time (read: subscription service).

Likewise, Box.net's free cutoff cap is 1GB. If a user wants more space than that they'll need to upgrade to a higher plan, which starts at $7.95 per month to get that same 5GB users had back on Xdrive.

So to summarize, if you're an Xdrive user looking to jettison your data to someplace besides a hard drive, either of these services is really great, but they'll cost you. The 5GB equivalent will be $40 in Dropio (for your first year, then $50 after that), and $95.40 for a year in Box.net. If you're willing to stick to 1GB, Box.net is the better deal, since you won't have to pay $10 when free premium credit from Dropio expires. You could also just throw caution to the wind, and go all-out with 50GB of ad-supported online storage from Adrive.

Now that AIR 1.0 has officially shipped, it's time to start experimenting with applications based on the shiny new platform, like the AIR-based file management application for AOL's Xdrive, Xdrive Desktop Light. I got a quick demo of this new application at CES in January, but now that it's out we can take a look at how well an AIR-based application can compare with a mature desktop application.

Xdrive gets AIR.

I like AIR applications, but it's very early days for this platform, and it shows in Xdrive Desktop Light. The application is pretty, and it does a few things very well, but in other areas it's very different from standard applications--enough to be frustrating.

My frustration with Xdrive Desktop Light centers on how it works with files on a local PC. To AOL's credit, it's cool that you can browse files on your PC and just drag them to your Xdrive folders. But the way Xdrive displays your local files is nonstandard: There's no tree view, which makes finding buried directories a chore. Also, you can't drag files that are displayed in list view; you have to switch to the slower icon view before you can grab them.

However, once have the files identified, transferring them between local and network drives is very easy and fast. More importantly, sharing your online files is extremely easy. From with Desktop Light you can send e-mail links to files or to folders, you can define the sharing permissions for them, and you can easily delete the shares. Xdrive will also host image and media files for you (users get 5GB of storage free; no word on bandwidth caps), and there's a viewer provided if you want to embed photos.

Of course, since Desktop Light is an AIR application, it will run on both Windows PCs and Macs.

Sharing and embedding is extremely easy.

Missing are the full backup functions from the older desktop application, its capability to automatically sync media files from PC to network, as well as the older application's native Windows speed. Also missing is the Windows application's painfully slow installation process, which requires a reboot.

AOL has announced its plan to eventually retire its PC-only desktop application in favor of an AIR-based front-end, but the company is smart to not do that today. Xdrive Desktop Light looks good and is easy to use for many purposes, but it's no replacement for a rich desktop application.

By the way, stay tuned for Webware coverage of Adobe's big day-long event, Engage, which is taking place Monday in San Francisco.

AOL's new AIR-based XDrive front-end is simple, but universal.

At CES, AOL was showing new features in its media-sharing service, BlueString (see hands-on). The latest news is the release of a Facebook app, My Memory Gallery, that lets you share your pictures with your Facebook pals. It's a nice bow to AOL's realization that, "We need to be where people actually are," as a representative told me. In my quick tryout of the application, though, I found no way to move files from preexisting BlueString folders into the Gallery folder so they'd show up on the Facebook widget. That kind of burst my bubble.

I also checked out a new version of XDrive, whose technology is at the core of BlueString. The new AIR-based XDrive UI, called Oxygen, is scheduled to drop in February. It will be a much simpler application than the current C-based app, and represents the future of the XDrive Web site as well. AOL will eventually phase out the Windows-based XDrive user interface, although at the moment it does things an AIR app cannot, such as automated file backup.

Users can access their files XDrive files from BlueString and vice versa, but the products are designed for different audiences and have different features. BlueString, designed for the "female head of household," recognizes only media files and gives you fancy slide show and sharing functions. The older XDrive brand represents a more technical product with better file management features, and while the interface will work with any and all file types, it doesn't have the same presentation features.

I'd rather have just one app that can do it all, but AOL's marketing geniuses clearly see a value in different interfaces and features for different demographics. (I'd also like to see an unlimited storage option instead of the 50GB space you get for $99 a year with both products.)

XDrive, ultimately, competes with upstart online file stores (Box.net, for example), live backup apps like Carbonite, and even raw storage services like Amazon's S3. The XDrive product was going downhill in the period before and after AOL bought it in 2005. It's good to see some resources finally being applied to the service.

Waiting for Google's online hard-drive service to launch? Check out Digital Bucket, a new storage service that's simple and intuitive. We've seen plenty of virtual desktop services here at Webware, and the one thing many have in common is attempting to emulate an existing GUI. In the case of Digital Bucket, that look and feel is the Microsoft Windows file explorer, and as I've found by using the service this morning-- this isn't a bad thing.

When it comes to files, drag and drop is by nature a very effective way of moving things around. In the Web world, this was a relatively difficult thing to manage until recently. Getting your files onto Digital Bucket in the first place involves hand picking files off your hard drive. There's also a simple mode that will sync an entire drive or folder of your choice. Once they're on there, you can drag and drop at will, sorting them into various music, video, and document folders. There's also a tagging system to let you quickly group and sort similar files.

The file uploader is simple to use, and gives you plenty of information about the status of your files.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

What makes Digital Bucket "webby" is its collaborative nature. During the beta test you get a 1GB storage, and two collaborators. These folks gets access to your virtual storage space, and you can place all sorts of permissions on your files on a per-user basis to control access. You can also monitor their bandwidth usage through the admin controls, and set up file feeds that they can subscribe to see the newest additions without having to log-in. Digital Bucket is rolling out the multiuser feature only with their $149-a-year business user tier, so users of the less expensive basic and pro accounts are on their own--literally.

Another handy feature of Digital Bucket is the integration with Zoho to let you edit any documents or spreadsheets you've got stored. Box.net and Omnidrive have this feature, and it's wonderfully helpful if you don't feel like firing up another app on your computer to quickly view what's on it. Likewise, there's a picture viewer that does full-screen slide-shows, and music and video previews that play right inside the file browser.

I really enjoy the look and feel of Digital Bucket. In terms of value for your buck, ideally the company could transition the beta into a free service, and add shared accounts on the two lower-tiered subscriptions. If you're really looking for a free gigabyte of space (or more) to stash your stuff, there are already a handful of services like the aforementioned Box.net and Omnidrive, along with others like Xdrive (5GB), eSnips (5GB), and MediaMax (25GB).

View your files like you would on a Windows machine, although the picture preview mode is a little bit more svelte than XP's.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

AOL is showing off today a new media sharing and storage service, BlueString. I snuck into the unfinished product after I got a preview, and it looks like it's going to be very straightforward and easy to use. There are several services that do what it does, but few that do it as easily.

BlueString's neat trick is that it manages to work well as both a sharing site--a good place for you to create slide shows of events that you then e-mail to your family or embed on your personal site--and a media storage service.

BlueString is a good media storage service, and it also makes it very easy to create slideshows for friends and family.

The storage back-end for BlueString is XDrive, an online storage and backup service that AOL acquired, and where AOL has clearly been testing BlueString ideas. BlueString's show creator function, for example, looks like a rebuild of a nearly identical feature in XDrive.

Getting media into BlueString is quite easy. The import dialog box allows you to select multiple files to import at once. If you're a user of AOL Pictures, files from there also automatically load into your workspace. These features are being showcased today at the TechCrunch 40 event in San Francisco. BlueString will also import from Flickr, which is great for people who miss the straightforward Yahoo Photos application recently killed in favor of the higher-concept Flickr service.

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Box.net is beta testing a new plug-in for Microsoft Office that lets users save Office files to their Box.net storage folders. The plug-in works for both Office 2003 and 2007 on Windows XP and Vista, provides users a new "Save to Box.net" button, and gives visual notification when the file is uploading and then successfully sent. Users can then access that file anytime on their Box.net Web storage folder.

Box.net users can now download a plug-in for Microsoft Office to save files right to their Web storage folders.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The new plug-in was built using Box.net's developer API, which the Box.net team says can be used to add this functionality to other applications. Box.net is also planning to add support for their network-sharing platform, which supports centralized file access and sharing for multiple users.

This is definitely a worthy download if you're a Box.net user, as it skips the need to fire up your browser and upload your files. However, similar solutions from competing companies offer a more robust option for file junkies. Omnidrive and Xdrive's virtual drives let you open and save remote files right from Word, or any other application for that matter, although I have a feeling Box.net isn't that far behind with their own virtual drive solution.

[via DownloadSquad]

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.