Online Storage 2.0: Six Sites Reviewed

mikemuch writes "Services like box.net, openomy, and eSnips are more than just places to access your files from the web. Some include media organization tools, Windows shell integration, drag-and-drop uploading, tagging, and social content sharing. ExtremeTech has a review up of six online storage services with Web 2.0 twists."

Comments

Re:Yippee - 6 more sites to add to the "banned" li

[rainman_bc]

Props to you for such a great reply to such an ass hat IT person.

Truth is, many IT people don't seem to "get" it. They call everything a security hole and make b2b communications more difficult.

Not everything needs tight-arsed security. If I want my outside people to send me a file with not-so-sensitive information that isn't very useful to anyone else, I think they should be able to FTP it to me ( or SFTP or SCP or FTP with SSL if pedantic IT people were so inclined). Instead of an ass-hat saying " you can't have an ftp server up because it's a security hole", the ass hat IT person should say "I'll set up a secure FTP server instead and they can send it there".

I've had those conversations all the time with idiot IT people.

Truth is I think they're just on a rampage sometimes without any real knowledge of why they're doing something.

That said, the IT department at the company I work for is the first competent group I've seen. They locked down IM, but set up a jabber server instead with an MSN gateway. IMO that's the way to go - set something up that's a viable alternative instead of just saying "no" to anyone who wants anything.

Fuck sometimes it'd be just easier to pull all ethernet cables.

Re:Yippee - 6 more sites to add to the "banned" li

[bberens]

I call shenanigans. We use an SSL VPN solution through active-X or applet (the VPN router supports both) at my office. The SSL certificate we use is invalid and Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, etc. disallow me to view the page even after I've attempted manually importing the certificate. However, IE let's me right through with a simple warning. For those few of us without access to IE at home, that means we can't use the VPN. All they'd have to do is get a proper certificate and everything would be solved. But the response I get is "We can't support every flavor" or "We don't support linux." Nevermind the gaping security hole which is just waiting for someone to man-in-the-middle our VPN to gain access to important data files. This sort of response is typical to every IT department I've ever come across. I realize you may be nice and friendly and will at least attempt to be helpful but that makes you not in the 'norm'.

Re:Amazon S3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't used it myself but it sounds like you want s3sync.net.

Stashbox

[Benski]

http://stashbox.org/ is an up-and-coming storage site. Includes the incredible useful and usable Shup screencapture and file upload utility. It can even upload to sites other than stashbox.org

It's still a work in progress, but the site and tools receive frequent updates.

Re:Yippee - 6 more sites to add to the "banned" li

[josath]

My gf works in a corporate office at Wells Fargo. They have the hardest time transfering files around, email is capped at 10MB, outside programs banned. The only 'approved' way of transfering files (for example large 500 page financial statement 30MB pdf) is through a "SwiftSend" program. The only problem, is that this custom/enterprise app is so buggy, she is afraid to even open it, because she knows there is a 90% chance it will crash hard, locking up the PC, and needing a visit from IT in order to get the PC working again.

If they just were to lift the email cap, then they would be happy. Or perhaps installing a ZIP program, most PDFs can compress pretty well. But no, too much bureaucracy.

I like my job better (small, 10-person company), where I have free reign to install what the fuck ever I want. If I screw up my machine, it's my own damn fault, I'm better able to fix it that most people there anyway.

Re:Yippee - 6 more sites to add to the "banned" li

[thousandinone]

In my experience, just because a company can afford it doesn't mean they'll fork over the money for it- and the more money a company has, the less inclined it is to spend it. The company I currently work for offers a VPN for those who would like to do some of their work from home, but they do so with a mentality of it being a luxury, and if it doesn't work, their option is to go to work. It's a ridiculous policy, and next to no support is offered for it. The company can most definitely afford to support it, but it's not a priority. That could easily be the case in other companies as well.

Run your own

[Plug]

I spent quite some time looking for a way to run my own web-based file transfer site so accountants could stop e-mailling 10MB data files to each other.

The best I've seen is Boxroom, an OSS Ruby on Rails application for web based file transfer. With the Mongrel web server it does upload progress, recent versions have had in-file search added, and my employer is currently sponsoring the implementation of virtual hosting in it.

I would like more people to know about this program - it's very cool, and more developers on it would be certainly be appreciated by all of us who use it!

iSCSI target

[Gothmolly]

I have a machine at home running the Linux iSCSI target, and the iSCSI initiator on my laptop. Mount it up just like local storage. Can even swap to it.

Re:Never worked in IT, have you?

[swb]

Rarely do people in IT talk about how they often don't even know what the business problems are for the company, divisions, units and work groups they are providing services for. When I worked in an IT department, I used to *beg* to have employees explain to me what their specific business problems were, only to be told I wouldn't understand, lacked the niche experience or some other bullshit answer that had more to do with maintaining exclusivity and power bases among middle management. So you guessed as best you could in keeping with the IT policies and procedures you *knew* existed and were enforced, but then got chided for not understanding the business problems. OK, great, you don't like my cooking and you won't share the recipe. I guess that works.

Even in situations where the basic business problem is being solved (ie, replacing desperately old machines first on a companywide basis), I've had departmental managers tell me "I don't care what the company needs, I want my people taken care of first." What business problem is THAT solving?

Even for those problems that they are aware of, frequently problem solving takes a back-seat to the problems of structure within IT itself (well, the desktop team has to approve it after they get the purchase order for the technology liasion and then it needs to go to the network team for approval before I can do anything), silly procedural rules designed for no-trust situations which ironically create zero trust because of their application (any time we do a change you need to send me two emails the first saying "I've checked the code in pre-production and it should be promoted...blah blah blah), IT arrogance (we do not provide that service and you can't go elsewhere for it), etc. At the end of the day/week/month/year, IT has its own internal accountability which determines pay, raises, bonuses, promotions, and so on, typically following a company wide model. I got tired of being taken to the woodshed when I violated obviously stupid IT policy for the benefit of users; I have to respect what side of the bread gets buttered. And then there's the *financial* accountability -- often wanting to support users in the way they'd like involves spending money in ways that finance won't approve (often for reasons cavalier and petty) or if they do approve, its a choice between critical infrastructure (mail servers, firewalls, core networking) versus vanity needs (5 marketing people who want top-of-the-line Mac laptops and full design suites, despite being top-10 "How do I create a folder?" help desk callers).

Sure, people ask for and do stupid things and IT needs to be careful with tracking changes and such - but there is a lot of flat out lying (because it is convenient) and other bullshit that goes on because IT departments forget who their customers are. I've always found the customer-centric analogy fundamentally flawed in IT, at least in your most common centrally funded IT departments. You're only a customer if you're *paying* somewhat directly for your IT services; usually its "we want this and that and we don't care what it costs or who else is inconvenienced companywide."

I've never worked in a chargeback-centric organization, but it would be interesting to see if some of the most abusive "customer" behavior disappeared along with some of the worst IT policies if at the end of the day IT didn't *have* to act as a gatekeeper, since the business unit in question was *paying* for what they wanted, and had some internal pressures to eliminate some of the dumb behavior and waste lest continuing demands (ie, more mail storage, etc) erode business unit margins.