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You might like something like Dropbox where you get space, automatic synchronization, and web access to the files.

theres a torrent too, seading now.
  http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1825088/sequoiacompletefile.zip.torrent

I want my car to sound like the flying cars from The Jetsons. Then I can at least pretend that I got the future I was promised as a child.

"We were promised flying cars. I want my flying cars!"

I want my car to sound like the flying cars from The Jetsons. Then I can at least pretend that I got the future I was promised as a child.

Maybe you'd like proprietary software more if, like the author of TFA, you were paid to sell it. Read on page two where the author promotes DropBox over a free alternative, providing a referral link as she does so. If you look on the DropBox website, you will find an affiliate program paying out up to US$50 for each referred subscription.

Actually, I found this kind of strange, but on Snow Leopard, all application executable code is compressed and stored in a resource fork. The reason it's not left in the data fork is because it apparently would confuse Leopard to have a compressed data fork in the app. So now to Leopard, all Snow Leopard apps look like 0 byte files.
See here
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/118359/ars/snow-leopard-indexed.html

To agree, EC2 for me is a scalable render farm over which I have complete control and only pay for usage. This is incredibly useful for custom graphics programs, and enables me to do things which I'd just not be able to afford ( or wait for ) otherwise.

I also like Dropbox a cloud based service which synchronizes a folder on any linked machines, allowing you access to the files via a web interface, it automatically keeps file versions and allows sharing between accounts.

There's a free 2Gb a/c and a $9.99 pcm, 50Gb a/c.

For me it's a 50Gb usb stick I can't lose, don't need to remember to update, and is accessible from anywhere. For my gf it's a folder on her desktop that means that if she loses her laptop then she won't lose her data.

I've not personally tried, but I believe it's possible to host a truecrypt or similar container there. ( You'd lose the web interface for anything other than the whole file I'd think. )

You might wanna take a look at Dropbox. It lets you sync files with an account at their servers, and also lets you share folders between groups of people. There are clients for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it's nicely integrated in the file system (I've only tried it on a Mac, though). It also comes with built-in undo.

It's free with 2 GB of data and 30 days of undo, and they've got 50 GB for $9.99 per month, 100 GB for $19.95, both with unlimited undo (I think).

I have no affiliation with Dropbox other than being a happy user, however, if you decide to check it out I would be happy if you used this link to sign up, since that would give me a little extra space!

https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTExODQ0NDg5

Best regards,
Linus

I use DropBox for backup and synching. It's ~$10 a month for 50GB of space. I back up generic files (a couple GB) and our photos (many GB). I self-encrypt anything really sensitive (eg copies of tax returns with SSN), in case someone were to hack DropBox or my account.

For those of us for whom no longer find designing, implementing, and maintaining a home backup system captivating, DropBox (or similar) is the way to go- set it and forget it. I also like how it keeps our various family computers nicely in sync.

Yes, "RAID is not backup", in that you shouldn't simply RAID your primary drive and consider the backup problem solved, but backing up to a RAID array can be advantageous -- you do disk-to-disk backup (via any of a variety of methods), and monitor the health of the RAID array closely -- if any disk in the array goes south, replace it promptly and your backup stays consistent. And, if you keep a spare drive or two around, you can swap a drive out occasionally to take off-site (and let the array rebuild onto one of your spares).

Personally, I like the ReadyNAS Duo a lot more than the Drobo (hard to explain, I just trust their tech better, and the ReadyNAS is natively networked, rather than needing an afterthought add-on). Last I checked, Amazon will sell you an empty ReadyNAS Duo and a couple WD Green 1TB drives for ballpark $500. That said I haven't got a ReadyNAS yet (because money has so many uses these days); I'm using my second most favorite backup setup, a 500GB laptop drive in an external bus-powered FireWire enclosure. I'm using a MacAlly PHR-S250CC enclosure (which I'm very happy with), using a drive I already had, but for a complete setup, I'd probably go with one of Other World Computing's packages for about $150. This loses RAID (which I ultimately want very much to have, for reliability), and isn't networked (which would be good for backing up multiple machines, and ease of use), but the bus-powered drive is so damned easy to use that I actually do it every day (set the drive next to my laptop and plug one cable between them, Time Machine notices the drive and starts a backup, 5-10 minutes later it's done, and I unmount the drive, unplug the cable, and put it back on the shelf).

My primary machine is a Mac; I use Time Machine for daily backups, and use SuperDuper to clone my MBP's drive onto the same backup disk every few weeks (minus a number of large directories that I know Time Machine is getting anyway); this gives me a backup drive I can boot from (via SuperDuper), and a lot of incremental history stored in a very usable manner (via Time Machine). And a backup system that I actually use because it's painless.

Add a ReadyNAS, and I could have my laptop automatically backing (hourly) up any time it's on the home network.

As far as on-line backup goes, I haven't been convinced yet. It eats a lot of bandwidth, and it means that someone else (that I don't know personally) has a copy of all my data, with only their promise of encryption keeping them honest. Sure, there isn't much there for anyone else to get worked up about (a variety of legally purchased music and software, a bunch of old email and vacation photos), but if it's not out of my hands, then that's one less thing I have to worry about. I do love DropBox for moving non-confidential files around, but I wouldn't use it for backup.

I have an external harddrive attached to my Macbook and Time machine takes care of the rest. And my important document and photos I upload to my dropbox That way I have a local backup of my entire harddrive in case something happens to my Macbook and one stored on the "cloud" that I can reach if my house burns down.

I don't believe that paying for a service that can just as easily be done with a NAS or even USB drive is a smart move.

Another me too ... since it syncs Linux/Mac and Windows it was perfect for me. I recently upgraded to the 50Gb plan - cant see myself going back.

( I hardly need the extra referral bonus space now but hey, it doesn't hurt either ... https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTE2MjAzNTk )

http://www.getdropbox.com/ Works perfectly for me. I use the free option, which has a 2 GB limit, which is more than enough for me to keep all my important stuff in sync. It has a client that integrates nicely with the Nautilus file browser on Ubuntu, which is what I use at home and office. Whatever you put (or symlink) into a designated folder (which you can choose) gets mirrored to their server, from where it gets synced to every other system where you have installed the client, the next time you connect that system to the internet. They also give web-based access to the stored files. There is the issue of privacy for the really paranoid, but I am not very concerned about that with the files I currently choose to mirror. I am more worried about the chance that their client develops a bug that wipes out my files, but I guess I'll take that risk.

• If you're keeping track of code, use a code repository. Subversion, GIT, Bazaar, etc.
• If you're trying to keep config files, documents, pictures, etc synced, use DropBox.
• For bookmarks, use one of the numerous Firefox bookmark syncing extensions, or the Del.icio.us extension (or use DropBox to sync your .mozilla/firefox folder).
• For multi-GB files, use a portable hard drive, or rsync with a file server in your house/office

I wouldn't recommend using one tool for every purpose. I wouldn't want to store multi-GB files in SVN, and I wouldn't want to store all my code on an external hard drive. Maybe using DropBox, or rsyncing with a server somewhere would work.

Since I don't have a lot of content to sync, Dropbox meets my needs perfectly (and it's free!).

Or you use DropBox which seamlessly syncs your local data with the "cloud" and whatever other machines you have.

It's pretty sweet. Every photo of my kids I upload from a camera to my PC (OK, Mac) appears on the grandparents' PC (OK, that's a Mac too) shortly thereafter (Yes, I know I could just cron a unison job across a SSH tunnel to get a similar effect, but a) I'm too old for that crap and b) I want auto offsite backup).

You can get something similar for $0/month if 2GB is enough for you, and it has a really nifty auto-sync utility.

https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTYwNjQzNzk

Yes, you can, through dropbox.

And you'll get even more space if you use a referral code like this.

your wife is pretty

Check out dropbox. It syncs files, built in encryption, platform independent.

http://www.dropbox.com/

http://www.getdropbox.com/

Check out dropbox. It syncs files, built in encryption, platform independent.

http://www.dropbox.com/

http://www.getdropbox.com/

What offsite backup services do you all use?

Mozy. But someone else on here warned me that the restore procedure can be a nightmare. I've personally never tried to backup my entire set... I've only done small numbers of files. Their backup software on Mac can be trying at times, as well...

For my active projects I use the excellent DropBox, which keeps a folder on all of your Mac, Linux, and Windows computers in sync with their servers and also acts as a versioning tool. The first 2GB is free... it's much easier than any other tool I've used before (I was doing syncs with Unison... a fantastic tool in its own right).

That won't work for me... my 300GB would cost $45/month just to host, plus upload costs. That's a lot more than my current $5/month.

Again, Mozy isn't my primary backup plan. I mirror my drive periodically. My photos are also backed up to DVD, as are my home videos. These are then distributed to my parents as well... sort of a de-facto offline backup. I use the very good DropBox for all of my current projects, which makes my data even more redundant as my machines sync with one another and the DropBox server (with versioning!). My friends and I all share our MP3s, so that's another de-facto backup. So if Mozy completely flakes and loses ALL of my data, then it would have to be coincident with some sort of regional catastrophe for me to lose everything :)

I do almost exactly what you do, with the addition of Dropbox. It isn't for anything too private since there's no Mozy-style encryption. But it's free up to 2GB, syncs between Mac, Windows, and Linux, and has built-in versioning! It's also great for sharing things since there is a "Public" folder and collaboration features. I keep my work-in-progress on Dropbox. This has the side-effect of automatically backing up my stuff to 3 computers plus on their server, with complete version history.

What about something such as dropbox... http://www.getdropbox.com/

Why make your own when you can use something like dropbox?.

I prefer to be assured of my privacy. Besides, I like coding new stuff.

Why make your own when you can use something like dropbox?.

You should try Drop Box. http://getdropbox.com/

http://www.getdropbox.com/ - Store, Sync and share your files - versioning is standard. Piss easy to set up on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Not much more to say :)

How much does it cost? The one thing dropbox's pricing page doesn't mention is the price.

You're asking two questions. The first is that you want backup, so that all their data just gets thrown somewhere and they lose the last few days' work their hard drive dies. You don't even necessarily want this on the network; just back up to a DVD-R every so often, and take every month's DVD-R offsite (a friend's house, a bank's vault, whatever). There's lots of backup software for this. Most can do fancy stuff like incremental backups. You can probably find something opensource you can host for your friends and family on a decently-available server.

The second question is networked file storage, where you don't care about automatically archiving files, but you do want frequent access and a good UI. For this I recommend something like Dropbox, which has good support for OS integration and a web interface.

See Dropbox. I use it as an SVN service of sorts with my supervisor. It runs on Linux and is open source, although you do have a 2GB limit on free accounts. It's quite good. The Ars article discusses in detail how cloud computing and FOSS can work together. Use the cloud only as storage and encrypt in the frontend with suitable open code.

Your data must not be that important if you aren't willing to pay a little cash to keep it safe. That being said, Dropbox (awesome, and has clients for Win, Mac and Linux) and Mozy both give you 2 GB free. There are probably others. As far as finding this stuff, have you tried Google?

it's freeware, and it's working great!

Dropbox

Well, for the "document sharing" and "editing rights" part you could use Dropbox.

I use Plaxo, Weave and Dropbox to do the same things.

There is already at least one commercial product for live sync between machines: DoubleTake. It's not designed for public use over the Internet, though, more for replication between data centers. I'm currently taking part in the Dropbox beta test, and this looks like it's designed for normal users. It basically does what you describe - sends only the changed parts of files, replicates them between multiple machines, and keeps multiple file versions on their servers (so you can revert to an older version of a file). Have a look at the video on the website - describes it better than words. Files and transfers are encrypted, though they don't seem to do anything fancy with public key encryption.

I have been using a service called Dropbox. This has 2GB of space for nothing but the point is that you define a single folder on all your machines as the Dropbox and it syncs everything between each device (and online). This means that I save a file on my laptop and it get sent to The Cloud, but also to my desktop computer. Best of both worlds, and the more computers you add, the more backups you have. Windows and Mac clients are available at the moment, and a Linux edition (currently Ubuntu/Nautilus) is in testing - I have a copy and it's truly lovely.

This is why you should always store your data in more than one location. Yes, put it in the cloud - but also store it locally. Dropbox is a good example of software that does this.

Here is the presentation:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/Defcon_Presentation.pdf

Mirrors:
http://www.evernote.com/pub/ssulistyo/InfoSecStuff#07ff6ce9-1aa9-45e9-8bd2-10ce0805e534
https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/77164/anatomy%20of%20a%20subway%20hack.pdf

Also, a vulnerability assessment report:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/vulnerability_assessment_of_the_mtba_system.pdf

I've been using Dropbox to move stuff between laboratories that needs to be updated by more than one party. It's all encrypted and stored server-side, and it's pretty much transparent to the end user since you just drop files into what looks like a normal folder. That eschews all the complexity of PGP or making FTP users, and is secure as long as physical access to the machines is locked down.

An excellent, up and coming alternative to this is Dropbox. Currently in beta, so you have to register for an invite. But it works on Windows, Mac and (in a few weeks time) Linux.

I've been testing it for the past few weeks and it really is very slick. It stores a backup copy (up to 2GB in the beta) on their servers - actually hosting in Amazon's S3 - and syncs to all the rest of your computers. The service is integrated into your local filesystem, so it's very seamless. It also stores all revisions and allows you to roll back to any of them, and undo deletions.

Anyway, I'm rather impressed.

I think GetDropBox is trying to achieve this, but the draw back is that this functionality should not be a thrid party app, but instead it should be embedded in the OS or within each application for seamless and idiot proof integration. It must be automatic and brainless in order to be useful. It can't be more difficult that clicking the "save"/"save to web"/"save for everyone" button.

Take a look at Dropbox (http://getdropbox.com/; screencast at http://getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html) if you want something that's rsync-like but integrated into Windows and OS X. It's in beta (and full disclosure: I co-founded the company) but was designed precisely because there's nothing out there that does this well and is easy to use.

Take a look at Dropbox (http://getdropbox.com/; screencast at http://getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html) if you want something that's rsync-like but integrated into Windows and OS X. It's in beta (and full disclosure: I co-founded the company) but was designed precisely because there's nothing out there that does this well and is easy to use.

sounds like this is exactly what you're looking for: http://getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html we're in private beta, but if you shoot me a message I can get you in ;-).

Check out http://www.getdropbox.com/ . It hasn't launched yet, but is very a similar product: think rsync for Windows that's actually pleasant to use -- integrated into the shell, low-overhead automatic/continuous backup based on filesystem change notifications, compressed binary diffs, etc.

-Drew