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Microsoft to Offer Free Online Storage
athloi writes "Microsoft Corp. is giving computer users up to 500 megabytes of online storage for their documents, music, photos and video. They're offering it to a select 5,000 test users for now, but will make it widely available later this summer. This move is the latest in a series by the previous large corporation we all loved to hate to compete with the newest large corporation we might hate and fear, Google."
... too late, and too Microsoft.
I still hate Microsoft, and still love Google. You hear that Google? I love you, and this submitter doesn't. When you take over the world, you know who had your back.
GMail storage anyone? It lets you use your GMails many GB's of storage as a network drive. 500 fixed MB is pretty paltry in comparison...
That's not even enough space for a regular linux ISO. Come on Microsoft, you can do better than 500MB - it's about time you helped getting decent software out to the masses. /me ducks
Frankly, MS, that's smaller than my current USB drive, and that drive isn't actually very large by today's standards. And it has faster access, too.
It's easier, when I want to store something, to GMail it to myself. They have over 5X this amount of storage -- and aren't Microsoft!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Evil microsoft aside, this is actually pretty cool. I know that i keep quite a few little apps and docs and stuff inside of $home so that i can grab them via scp (pscp on windows). With this service, I won't have to go through the steps of googling PSCP, then downloading it to whoever's C:\WINDOWS\system32\ folder. Most of these files used to reside on a flash drive, but given the ubiquity of high speed internet these days, the necessity of keeping a 2-3mb file on removable media seems to be kindof gone.
/. users probably perform several times a day.
This service just simplifies a process that most
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Wait what? We hate who... I can guess we all dislike MS, but I dont think fear or hate should be in the same sentence with Google.
I wonder if that enough disk space for all my most sensitive documents.
Because if there is one company I trust not to abuse their power...
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
Too little too late, indeed. .mac springs to mind as do dozens of specialized services from Yahoo, Google and others. Offerings by "social networking" sites and photo sharing sites redouble it all. How much do you want to bet that M$ adds insult to injury by selling adverts on the service?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And will be doing it for real shortly with Gdrive, which is apparently no longer a rumor.
My blog
ftp.exe
It should probably be noted that Microsoft also bought FolderShare.com (which is a very sweet little app).
The free-storage combined with FolderShare's file swapping is starting to paint an interesting picture... IMHO I wouldn't discount this as "trying to be like Gmail"...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Comes out with something similar.
This is a killer product offering, and having something clean and open would be great.
I'm thinking Google Talk (ie, Jabber with any client able to connect) vs MSN Messenger
If you haven't already, time to get going Google!
Have you tried it yet?
Don't speak so fast, competition is ultimately good for the consumer.
Here you go, give it a spin: http://folders.live.com/
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/E-mail/Mail- Utilities/GMail-Drive-shell-extension.shtml
:-) Yumm
Linky goodness
When I rather the evil Google corp have (some) of my data than Microsoft have any of my data?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
GMailFS. Why wait to see how long before microsofts offerings are available.
Overhead is a bit of a pain but its certainly useable, unless you're wanting to swap to it of course =).
Ice Cream has no bones.
Hotmail also offers mailbox sizes with several GBs.
The primary problem with mail based storage is that you have to split the files and use http form upload.
Http form uploads are very unreliable.
with all the crud thats included in their document formats you'd think they would have the scenes to give quite a bit more space than 500M this is an excellent opportunity to embed some MP3's / Movies or even Linux distro's inside the documents... warez
www.omnidrive.com
Users get 1Gb free, and up to 50Gb is available if you want to pay.
Disclaimer: not a shill, just a happy beta tester.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
where's the Gdrive?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I sure can understand yahoo writing such a story: Only compare your dick with smaller ones.
The most relevant information to this whole thing (to me) is the EULA MS is foisting on people. Some of their previous EULAs for their online properties have included giving them the right to sell, market and/or redistribute any content you create and upload to those online properties. That, and other privacy issues (using the information to profile you in some manner and then sell ads to you via their LiveSearch stuff for instance - as referenced in a previous post regarding their work on obtaining as much private, identifying data on people as possible) are things I'd like to see clearly addressed and spelled out in their EULA.
I am also interested in how this all fits in with their current DRM schemes and related practices. Will they DRM any music I upload? Report me to the RIAA? Assume the program archives I upload are pirated and sue me?
All in all, I see this service as one for only the brain dead - based off MS's previous track record for trustability. (Yeah, it's probably not a real word, get over it).
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
it's no big deal if you're worried about that. And if you're worried about security.... WTF are you doing on Windows to begin with? ;-)
I can see the lemmings falling over themselves to jump off this cliff already.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Is that what they'll call it I wonder...
Of course we all know Microsoft would never, EVER mine your personal data for it's own gain.
Pass. Mostly because I have no need of it.
Between my music player, camera SD cards and USB sticks, I'm carrying nearly 18G of storage in my pockets right now.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
they don't have access to MY files.
I never run MS update, live. I use the offline method and my xp box NEVER connects directly to the net.
(ctupdate is the thing I use. I now swear by it.)
never let your winblows box 'autoupdate' itself ever again. always update OFFLINE. much more sane, that way. and secure.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Its against Goog policies to use file storage software and your can can be suspended.e r=43692
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ
Meh, I spoke too fast.
I tried it. It sucks.
Nothing innovative, plain old technologies. You go to a page with 5 filename inputs, you select each file, you put them in folders, you share certain folders.
Screenshots:
* http://tinyurl.com/2vaa7e (main page)
* http://tinyurl.com/38fsb9 (uploading screen )
* http://tinyurl.com/2j53kp (folder with files)
It does not seem to be "mountable" either.
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
Yes, but you can only send emails that are a maximum of 20MB. I'd love to have to split up a bunch of archives in 20MB chunks...
That aside, the mere fact that nobody can be held liable for the lost of data and that backups are likely not made, I wouldn't feel bery comfortable with the data being there as a means of recovery.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
That's a brilliant idea! I can't wait to read the EULA saying "Microsoft Corp can at any time access, copy, edit, and delete any and all files uploaded by users for whatever users." Except in a quieter way. Awe this is great, as if privacy ever existed with MSFT! I hope that there isn't a single sorry sod who falls for this nonsense.
How much do you want to bet that everyone else does? Oh, wait. They already do. Never mind. Clever use of the dollar sign, though.
> Microsoft Corp. is giving computer users up to 500 megabytes of online storage
;)
... of companies doing exactly what someone else has already done. Oooh look! Someone's written a web browser!
500Mb is not enough. It should be at least enough to store an upload of a Vista DVD.
> This move is the latest in a series
> never let your winblows box 'autoupdate' itself ever again.
> always update OFFLINE. much more sane, that way. and secure.
WTF are you talking about? Microsoft have full system access every time you install an update - you've no way of knowing what they're installing.
Are viruses included in that 500 meg total? They could really cut into that 500 meg number.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7773 117&st=512+usb&type=product&id=1142289732645
it's worth the investment once you consider microsofts storage will require internet :P
www.purevolume.com/martyd
There's a free service called Openomy which offers 1GB of free "network drive" space.
The whole thing seems very dot-com-era-ish to me; I'm not clear on how they're going to make money off of it, and until I understand their business model I'm not going to trust them with anything valuable, but hey -- it would beat emailing myself stuff. Apparently they're going to offer "Premium Memberships" in the future which will offer extra services (this sounds a little like "3. ???", but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt).
They have an open API, and file organization is done via tags (which is either a bug or a neat feature depending on your stance on tags vs folder-hierarchies in terms of organizational paradigms). The API is similar, in some ways to Flickr's -- applications need to be authorized before they can access user data, using cryptographic keys, and it uses simple HTTP calls for the actual interaction/transfer.
Anyway, I haven't played with it much but I'm definitely pretty intrigued. I think that online file storage is definitely harder to monetize than free email (you can't offer context-sensitive ads when the user only accesses the site through an API and a frontend app, and if their files are all encrypted archives or something), but it seems like there are enough possibilities that we're going to see some serious competition in the market soon.
And there's nothing better than a bunch of cash-flush tech companies competing to give the most stuff away for free...reminds me of 1998...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Now that's a lie. I think most of the people singling Google out for privacy are stupid(everyone else regularly does much worse and nobody calls them up on it) but there are quite a few non-MS-lovers who think Google is evil. The obvious one is the GoogleWatch guy although he's mostly mad that nobody linked to his website so he got no PageRank.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Won't take long for the "creative programmer" community to turn Microsoft's new offering into a wonderful, free, shared, non-traceable BIG FILE SERVER for all the warez, pr0n, and MP3's they'd like to keep online.
Microsoft isn't competing with Google, they're competing with Pirate Bay. Why torrent or FTP when you can just mount a drive?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Try XDrive at www.xdrive.com. 5 gig for free.
Also consider that for less than $40 USD, you can get a 4Gig usb drive, why do you really need this online storage?
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Xdrive is what you're looking for. It's got 5GB just for you with no attachment limit.
Google is ahead of them, this is MS's response. Platypus and more on Platypus.
I'm perfectly capable of losing my files and documents all by myself. Thanks anyway.
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Gmail is awkward though. Mostly because it's intended for mail, and comes with a 20 MB attachment limit. There are workarounds like GDrive and stuff, but if this service would come with actual merged files without cludges to solve the limitations, I'd much rather use that.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
If not locked in to MS, then expect some sort of incentives of the form 500MB for everyone, 2GB for Vista systems. A nice low-cost bait to get people to buy a high price product.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You're talking about a bad workaround, in violation of the Gmail terms of use. MS actually might get to free online storage before Google. It's obvious they're playing catch up, but if they can do it, it'll still be big among the rest of the population that are not Slashdot freaks.
I don't respond to AC's.
[Gdrive] is apparently no longer a rumor.
I think you mean "Gdrive has been rumoured for the past year to no longer be just a rumour". There's no announcement or even confirmation from Google.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
...will be a .PST file.
First 500 MB are free? That is, until it hits that 2 GB limit. Then everything goes down the toilet.
And Yahoo!Mail now has unlimited storage, plus links to a blog site (for public storage--complete with photo album option) and what used to be Flicker. Their e-mail folder actually has links for "photos" and "attachments."
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Probably still in the early stages in terms of features and interface. They need to work out the performance and reliability issues and get some user feedback from the initial testers. They obviously are taking it slow because they are limiting the hours the server is even available for use during the initial test.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Who would honesty trust their data to some company that you dont even have a valid contract with? ( i dont care if its yahoo, microsoft, or countless others )
Sure, if you are paying customer to a remote datacenter with TOS, i can see this, but some free service that is subject to terms that change on a dime, security holes all over the place, or it might suddenly dissapear?
No thanks, ill stick with my ( encrypted ) 2gb usb key, that doesnt even need network access.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Actually, no, he just suffers from that particular kind of paranoid schizophrenia that makes people write huge amounts of incoherent text on badly-designed websites, and draw diagrams with lots of images and arrows (http://www.google-watch.org/gifs/connec5.gif).
Microsoft will compete with Google, maybe they will compete in terms of volume, so we will get about 2GB from MS and 2GB from Google as well. If I make up enough dummy accounts I can back my whole home network up over the wire. And distributed too! MS can keep one copy and Google can keep the other. That way if one destroys the other when the war comes, I'll still have a good backup.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Hotmail already offers 2GB. This isn't an e-mail storage service like GMail (though Gmail can and is used for some file storage), this is a separate endeavor meant entirely for file storage.
This is an obvious honeypot ploy to draw unsuspecting, God-fearing users everywhere to upload their copywrong material and thereby indict themselves for extraordinary rendering by a nefarious acronym.
Run away! Run away!
These stories are free but worth money.
I betcha!!! Just read the EULA before you sign up for the *free* service. A requirement buried in the document will state that at any time they can seize your documents or files and use them for any purpose what-so-ever without any responsibility to you--not even financially. And the lawyers will make sure of that.
Better not put anything up there that is important!
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Uh, or you can just use POP/SMTP, as GMail supports that.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I was made in 1997 and I want my freakin hard drive back.
Who knows if this is just a way for the "good folks" at MS to get a look at their client's common files, and use it as some sort of marketing ploy for spam and whatnot.
I say this, because the ISP I used to work for, whose name I won't mention, used to scan customer e-mails, and require that we ask for alternate e-mails for spamming purposes.
Honestly, if this is MS's scheme, it really wouldn't surprise me.
If it isn't the case, and this is just for the sake of competition, then MS should realize that they're name and quality has been smeared enough, and they should try to improve on their current merchandising ventures instead of dabbling with new ones. For God's sake, make what you already have actually function, don't just make more and more useless crap.
Seriously, who mods these comments up? Pownce is Kevin Rose's (of Digg) new venture, and it looks like they're fine with the adverts:
Just like everybody else. But this is "M$" so it's "insult to injury". Way to go.
And .mac? That's a great example, considering they don't have ads because they nail you for $99/yr (or $200 "for the kids"). Only Mac users who have no clue about teh interwebs sign up for that crap. Of course, for $99 a year I can only expect I won't see any ads. But you never know.
What's the deal with their certificate chain? xdrive signed by "VeriSign" (no, not the right Verisign) that is signed by an AOL dialup user-issued certificate?
Why do they fake a certificate of VeriSign? And once you accept the chain, what else will this new "VeriSign" sign for you?
Something doesn't smell right here.
As I read this article, the very first thing that popped into my head was privacy issues. We've all ready how the NSA, CIA, FBI, etc. accessed AT&T's phone records, etc. I wouldn't put it past them if they are already accessing and data-mining Yahoo! and Google E-mail.
The service gives users who e-mail documents between home and work computers an alternative way to access their files on the go. Users can keep files private or share them with people they know or with anyone on the Web.
When I need to take some of my work home with me to finish it up, I always use TrueCrypt to create a volume and use AES-Twofish-Serpent with Whirlpool. Since it is free, I recommend that everyone here use it. You have nothing to lose if you do and if you don't - you don't want to be in the news as the employee who lost another database of customer records.
Sadly, "in this day and age (tm)," you need to be vigilant of all of your data as everyone from hackers to governments want to see what you are doing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
AOL's XDrive is available now and offers users 5Gb for free. It certainly makes 500Mb look paltry. And of course don't forget, the Microsoft offering will exclude Macintosh users. When they go to Microsoft Live they get told they are not running a supported browser. This just goes to show that Microsoft's real strategy is turf protection of their Operating System monopoly.
Mark S Twitter/AIM/Skype:ekivemark B: http://ekive.blogspot.com
... or leave your home linux or bsd box on and have it text message you when its IP changes (about once a year if you're on cable) and have a terrabyte of raid5 storage available, as well as ftp, http (if your ISP blocks port 80, listen on another port), ssh, etc for an initial investment of ~$350.00 for 3 x 400 gig hds.
Its not like you have to have this set up on your fastest box - you're limited by your upload speed, so drag that obsolete sub-gigahertz duron or celery out and put it back to work.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Someone needs to write an app that would let a user group various free storage locations (google, ms etc) into one mountable drive. Just a thought. If this already exists let me know.
Now, call me ungrateful, but 500 megs? Let's see what such a service could be good for.
... erh ... content whose copyright I cannot claim legally, I'd again choose anything BUT Microsoft.
1. Offsite backup.
2. Making your data "mobile", by making it available wherever you are.
3. Transfering your data to another machine (local or remote).
4. Distributing data
Should anyone have other ideas, please share them.
Well, for 1, I'd choose pretty much anything BUT Microsoft. They aren't really the company that comes to my mind when it comes to data security.
For 2, there are USB sticks. Now, you may argue that they cost money while this service is free, but c'mon, 500 megs? I just gave away a 1GB USB stick 'cause it was too small for my needs, and sticks in the 500m region don't cost a fortune.
For transfer, locally I'd suggest USB as well and for remote, connect the machines directly.
And for distribution, especially of
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is fantastic! I need to free up some space on my hard drive, so I'll upload my copy of Vista I got from The Pirate Bay. More seriously, does anyone actually trust them wrt privacy issues?
What the heck good is 500M of free storage when it still takes way too long to upload 500M of data? I seem to get around 70k/s upload speed on my Cox cablemodem (business cablemodem, I think I have 512k/s upstream) and it takes two hours to upload 500M. The average user will take even longer.
I currently use Amazon S3 for storage (mostly backups) and I have 100G of stuff on there for my 4 monthly full backups. It takes me 4 full days to upload a full backup. So I spend nearly a quarter of the month constantly uploading! Thank the FSM that I have a Linux box doing QoS using the fine Wondershaper script so I don't even notice the uploading.
The only way I could see this being useful is if it's tightly integrated with the OS. For example if you could walk up to any windows machine, select "Log onto Microsoft [name here]", type in a user name and password and it automatically mounts your 500 megs no extra software required.
AOL gives everyone that signs up for an IM account 100MB of web space, but the interesting thing is it's ssh accessible. That means that you can mount it with sshfs or sftp, making it a handy place to keep (encrypted) data that you access from multiple machines. For example,
/some/directory
sshfs userid@members.aol.com:
The above (after responding to the password prompt) makes the 100MB available in your local "/some/directory/". The data is also web accessible at:
http://members.aol.com/userid/
I find the space, even though small, very handy for storing small amounts of useful information. Using encfs on the sshfs mounted space allows remote access to things like server status/logs in a secure fashion, even when the machine is not directly SSH accessible.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Why not just get a shared hosting account. I'm currently getting 246 GB for 7.99 a month. A lot cheaper and a lot less maintenance than your solution. Plus you don't have to worry about your cable company getting angry with you for running a server.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, honestly. Add the benefit of knowing exactly who is looking at your data, and the potential to access your data the way YOU want it, and it sounds like a win.
Security Focus - by way of the Register - had an interesting "birds eye view" of why you might not want your data in the hands of a third party here.
Paranoia? Maybe, but wouldn't it suck if your personal data happened to be living in the same storage as $PERSON_OF_INTEREST who was the subject of a FISA Warrant or a pedophile?
Eye kneed eh Grammer chicken.
Yes sir, encourage everyone to store all their documents and files online with Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc. All the much easier for the government(s) to go snooping around hoping to find someone they can charge with something nebulous and awful. What? You say 'they can't do that!'? Wanna bet? Secret courts, secret searches, secret detentions, secret prisons, secret (fill in the blank). Thank you, no. I'll keep all my stuff on my own drives and equipment. At least if they decide to search my stuff it hopefully won't be a secret from me. Unless, of course, they secretly enter my house, secretly diable my alarm system, kill my ferocious dog, and secretly search my stuff. But HA! Just let them try to secretly search the body cavity where I keep my secret USB drive. Ha!
You already are splitting them up into chunks, and much much smaller chunks than that. They're called blocks. Practically the whole raison d'etre of filesystems is to abstract over silly little implementation details like this. The fact that GMail has a very large block size (20MB instead of 4kB or what have you) doesn't seem like that big of a problem to me.
connections to most free online drives tend to be slow, usually the best is about 100Kb/sec and usually a quarter of that. .mac goes at megabytes per second.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The reason I say 30MB is its *just* enough for MS to say "Hey, ours is more than Google!" but yet not by enough to really matter (as in you still won't be able to put anything more than 50-100MB up). A week from now I'll bet that Google will announce a superior competing service - assuring many chairs flying in Redmond accompanied by many an utterance of "I'm gonna fucking kill Google!"
Funny but since most computers nowdays can network boot using PXE. A service having premade OS images could be useful. The only problem I see is that it doesn't work over the internet, but a reflashed Linksys could help bridge the gap.
Dude, just use two synchronised Gmail accounts! Then if one breaks, the other will still be around! ^_^ (Alright, some humour intended)
Take off every 'ZIG' !!
suck my kiss
This is once again too little too late again by macroshaft industries again. What a boring corporation.
Did you check? I tried digging for a bit, and amusingly enough, I got the link for this page from Google:
This blog from a week ago shows that it's possible the project is active and mayhaps even advancing...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
I have a hosting account already. However, lets face it - remembering to load stuff onto a remote server can be a real PITA, especially if what you want is sitting on your home box, which is turned off because you figured you had everything you need on the shared hosting box.
Then there's the convenience of being able to ssh in and do whatever I want.
And being able to run stuff that exceeds the shared hostings per-process memory limit (twiki, for example, requires 32 megs).
Lastly, not having to worry that Microsoft or Google or anyone else is "collecting stats" or "doing research".
Kevin Smith on Prince
I'm confused at the summary. I just signed in at that site with my live ID to check it out and I could access it, upload and download. Unless I just happen to be one of the select 5000, and nobody told me.
Jimmie: "Now let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you see a sign out in front of Microsoft that said Dead Data Storage?"
Jules: "Jimmie, you know I ain't seen no..."
Jimmie: "Did you see a sign out in front of Microsoft that said Dead Data Storage?"
Jules: "No, I didn't."
Jimmie: "You know WHY you didn't see that sign?"
Jules: "Why?"
Jimmie: "Cause it ain't there! Cause storing data ain't their f****** business, that's why!"
Thanks for the helpful tip tip.
Not the same thing. You can't share that unless you give everyone your password. If I just want to store stuff for myself, I have DVD sneakernet.
Yahoo has a "Briefcase" for filesharing, but it's total is just 30 MB. Presumably after MS goes online they'll up that, as they did total mail storage when GMail came. So even though I probably won't use it, I welcome MS's entry.
"All your files are now belonging to us!!!"
Don't fear the penguins
>>> "It looks like you are uploading an MP3 with no DRM!
Hey, wanna check out Microsoft's new music file sharing service? Just use the username: "RIAA" and password: "Sue-MSFT-here" for access to 500GB of freshly squeezed illegal tunes that Microsoft are kindly holding on their servers.
Xdrive.com by AOL? 5GB of free space. And software to map your xdrive as a network drive.
And I for one would like to welcome our new search engine overlords.
The Gospel according to lolcat
and when Google becomes the next Microsoft, we'll remember all the Microsoft-hating sheep who had their back.
I'm uploading the Windows XP ISO right now. The password is "retribution."
Anti-Globalism
mozy.com
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
There's also the possibility that you could be setup for blackmail coercion with a ton of phony stuff that you had nothing to do with, but gets associated with you.
I think similar to this happens to powerful legislators eventually, and they get controlled that way behind the scenes, I mean beyond normal corruption, on purpose phony "dirt" creation. "Vote such and such on this bill, or we release these documents showing your secret swiss bank account " and etc., said bank account something "they" setup on purpose for framing and blackmail.
Duplication, not production.
Just as the invention of the printing press led to the rise of the media barons, personal computing has created our software barons. The difference this time is that each computer is fully capable of duplicating any software it can load, so our barons need powerful protection to maintain scarcity of their product.
Hopefully, when our modern Star Chamber is overturned and its support vanishes, the power of the software barons will also evaporate.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
"Duplication, not production."
*looks at CD in hand*
"The difference this time is that each computer is fully capable of duplicating any software it can load, so our barons need powerful protection to maintain scarcity of their product."
And that all it can do. DUPLICATE. People CREATE.
"Hopefully, when our modern Star Chamber is overturned and its support vanishes, the power of the software barons will also evaporate."
You should hear yourself some time.
I'll do that. Thanks for the advice.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
This is nice, but lacks the familiar file system features like cut/copy/paste. Check out Fresh Logic Studios Folders for an AJAX UI with all the bells and whistles... like drag and drop, right click, etc.
the real solution to hosintg all of your files online or sharing files is something I dont know how to code and keep waiting for.
It connects to multiple free storage servers, probably multiple accounts per aervice
It chunks data, creates a header keeping track of where chunks are, and can upload or download basically as fast as your connection can handle by increasing the number of connections & hosts you're connecting to, decreasing the load per service - and probably still getting more than any other user of the service by connecting multiple times.
If you wanted to get careful about this you could impliment some sort of passive checker of accounts & something similar to raid style redundancy to keep your files up even if a site goes down or an account gets banned. If you did this you'd probably want to include some sort of bandwith monitor to assess where of the available locations of a chunk to download from.
It would be a bit annoying to keep a seperate list of accounts for personal and per group - and creating accounts often needs to be done by hand, more annoying still -- but we're talking about unlimited online storage at up and down speeds as fast as your connection can handle, and in the fancier version it's resilient to services cracking down on a program like this without wiping your data or even losing access.
What function does this service offer that FreeBSD + tftpd wouldn't? Log in over the Internet, shuffle files about, leave. Same thing, with the added bonus of not getting assraped by Microsoft's EULA.
Ya know, frankly someone needs to create something like that: Preinstall a stripped-down FreeBSD on a micro-sized computer, duck tape a bigass hard drive to it, and run nfs/tftpd and some media center software on it. Then you plug it in to your network, put it's address into your browser, fill out the questionaire, and it's ready to use. Just be sure to put in a button that says "geek" to take away the cutsey stuff and it's golden.
by the previous large corporation we all loved to hate
Rub it in, won't ya. Yes, we're losers that love to hate a damn software company. It what makes us wake up on the morning.
Google may "peak" at your email, but so far I've seen nothing to prove that it tries to incriminate you based on what you have stored in your Gmail inbox. I feel so much safer knowing Bigger Big Brother is offering me to use his storage.
You still have a maximum file size of 20MB for messages you send and receive, which I think was what the GP was trying to say.
...said the spider to the fly. I hope I don't have to explain how utterly stupid it would be to trust Microsoft with any of your personal files.
Though really, I'm against online file storage of this sort anyway because it makes the assumption that you have a network connection. I think local file storage is best for most people; at least you can get to your stuff anytime (unless there's some kind of major hardware or software failure) that way.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
...640K? Sound familiar? 500MB in this day in age is a joke. But to state that it is specifically targeted for users to store their digital pictures and *video*, that's just plain insulting.
Error:
Apple is. Consider the whole antitrust stigma. If they start doing exactly -or damned close to- what Apple does with the .mac account then there is grounds for them to do it. After all others are already doing it. I have a strong hunch that this is the first step in MS trying to counter/catch up with the gains Apple has with the .mac/iLife/iPod combo.
Sure, everyone's "eyes on MS" are on how it relates to Google, but MS has never operated that way. Mac is out of the single digit share and posting gains each month. Vista is a bit slow on pickup, and Leopard is due out soon. Apple is pulling off what Linux people have said for years: put an appealing application on the MS platform. The iPod/iTunes(/and iPhone?) combo has done that.
Consider the different paths for Business use of Linux and Windows. Windows essentially was taken up by businesses because they wanted workers that were using the apps already (and thus didn't need training or as much). They then eventually started working their way into the server market. Linux started on the serve rmarket and is making it's way to the desktop.
Now, MS is trying to make it's way into the "personal device" market - phones, Zune, "media PCs". Apple, however, seems to be going the opposite direction. iPod (audio), iPod (Video), OSX (Intel). So far there is good evidence this strategy, if it exists is working. But the question here is which strategy is more likely to succeed assuming equal competence?
I'd say the apparent Apple strategy is the winner. Seriously, does having a Windows PC make you WANT a Windows phone? Most Windows people I know (professional Windows engineers) find the opposite. People with Windows machines that keep failing also develop an aversion. But Apple's apparent strategy of making the iPod and using that leverage to get people to look at other Apple products is the one based on people *wanting* something. It's been the big Linux desktop failing. Linux Desktop has been largely about it being an escape from MS, not a seeking of something from a positive desire.
Microsoft's compatibility issues only strengthen the perceived Apple strategy. People have learned to expect compatibility issues with devices from different makers. So, the thinking may be, if you get an iPod sure you'll start with iTunes on Windows but then start looking at Macs "just to be sure". And many who try OSX seem to quite enjoy it. I know my wife is loving it, and I am doing pretty well.
MS does not have the "accessory" market range or penetration Apple does. Ultimately, the Mac ads and current orientation are clearly at the masses. People seem to have an innate sense that computers *should* be easier and less hassle - and they're right. For average home user, OSX does fit that expectation. This is the real threat to MS, and it's someone MS has fought before. It is common when facing potential enemies to take on someone you've beat before as a morale and PR move.
All the signs for me point to MS being a tad concerned about Apple's gains. After all, if people start using non-MS software at home and run non-MS machines at home, they know that is the road to deeper penetration. They've been down that road.
Apple doesn't have to take over as dominant. But a 25-40% share for Apple would spell serious trouble if not general doom for the monopoly (but not necessarily the company). If the experience with OSX leads more people to consider Linux[1], and Linux can capitalize on it, then the monopoly is in greater risk.
1: I'm using Linux as shorthand for "The Linux Community"
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
mp3.com, anyone? How can microsoft justify allowing you to upload music to their servers where it could be downloaded by anyone with the password?
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
I wonder if they'll allow MS employees to use this service to store email that MicroSoft (ahem) doesn't have room to store on their own servers.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I wouldn't even give them the public stuff because I'd have to worry about its integrity all the time.
No thanks.
In a completely non-trolling and neither MS- nor Googlebashing way, I feel like poking fun at the fact that MS has to fabricate their vaporware all by themselves, while Google can have it for free without a single official press announcement.
Perhaps this is a secret to its success...
I was doing some development a couple days ago with a library for accessing Google mail under program control, and Google did in fact suspend my account for 24 hours. It happened after I tried to read about 1200 email addresses from a particular tag. The gmail drive extension is probably dead now, unless I'm mistaken. Perhaps that extension has a different way of doing it than what I was using?
Actually let me amend that. It was working great until I tried to read the contents of those 1200 emails in a loop. The suspension seems to be traffic oriented. So the drive extension may be fine as long as you don't do something really outlandish like try to actually read the contents of too many of your emails.
Still waiting on that confirmation from Google...
That website just shows that they are still internally using an internal program.
Um, Taking a look at my account now, it's at 2869MB of storage and growing daily. (they actually have a ticker: mail.google.com ) I think you are thinking of when they first started?
Oh, by the way, Gmail is also available to everyone now too, without an invite.
I was going to mod on this story...
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
I have that much storage on an SD card sat on my keyboard, and the same on a couple of pen drives in my shirt pocket. Why on earth would I rather upload my data somewhere else than keep it in my pocket?
No, really. Look at the ridiculously small mmcmicro and transflash camera cards that are around now. 512 Mb on a card ¼ the size of a postage stamp.
Deleted
Yes Google has already done this but like any business Microsoft is looking into ways of making money by offering this service although from the article I would assume the first 500MB is free or until they get enough subscribers to nickel and dime them for additional storage. You really don't think Microsoft would do this out of the goodness of their hearts do you? It must be noted that this is not an evil plan in-fact it is actually quite a good service "but".
Now this brings up a can of worms:
- Who actually owns your data?
- Can other parties look at your data without your permission?
- Is your data secure?
- Do you trust Microsoft for confidentiality or any other data storage service for that matter?
- What is it going to cost me over the life of my data?
The few trivial questions I have raised are not just important for the average home user but all business in general. All computer users should be aware that any physical device will eventually fail and unless you have backups and the knowledge to restore from them you are eventually going to loose your data. Unfortunately most people including business don't think along these lines until the inevitable happens and then they are severely embarrassed if not out of pocket.
As more and more data is generated people or business must put a price on their data and spend appropriately on computer disaster recovery. For the home user this is a dilemma because it is not difficult to have over a Terra byte of data when you have a media center and the only reasonably viable solution is to have a separate and equal sized disk or disk array to duplicate that data. This is viable and reasonably cheap but "fire" and "theft" makes your backups worthless. Of course the same can be said for any backup strategy if you keep your backups in your house or on-site.
Even if dual layer Blu-Ray disks were the same price as a single sided DVD's backing up a Terra byte would take 20 Disks (forget about DVD). Holographic Versatile Disk burners and Tape systems acceptable for business but they are not cheap. Still you need to have off-site storage (eg. friends or relations place) to provide a reasonable level of protection for your data.
If you have valuable but a small amount of data it would be best to save it off-site and even though Google does provide approx 2.5GB of personal mail storage you are at least free to opt for Microsoft when they start their service, which I would assume would integrate quite nicely with your existing Microsoft OS. I would even go as far as saying that Microsoft may even provide a backup service for non Microsoft OS's. If if generates an income why not.
Now this also brings up the question of DRM and the law. What happens when you save your DVD's, or HD movies (legitimately purchased of course - cough!) to your media center disk(s) then backup this data and send it off-site to a "trusted" person such as a relation or Google or Microsoft. Are these providers breaking the law? To prevent this these providers must vet your data but is this not breaking your trust in them?
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Other sites, like DropBoks for example, have over 1GB of storage, AES encryption and are much less of a target for data theft/hacking. I think I'll pass on this until they offer something like true drag and drop and unlimited upload sizes, etc. There's a lot of competing sites for online data storage (just too lazy to do the Googling right now...)
499MB of it will be filled with spam, as usual
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Just use Webdav and always use the shared drive. That way, you don't have to remember to upload. Ok, it's not quite as fast as a local drive, but it will get the job done. Personally I've tried running a home server, and it's just too much trouble. Between your cable connection cutting out, changing IP Addresses, it's just not worth the trouble.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
What is up with the first post on so many articles here on slashdot being like the above? Can slashcot not just remove them, or are they afraid of offending the free speach nazis?
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Ok, who wants to write a service that combines many free accounts to have one big multi-gig online storage engine for free?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Or you could just browse at 0 rather than -1...you won't see them once the mod's get to them :)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
My pocket has 512.
sometimes, nothing.
Maybe its time to demand better service. My cable connection went out this winter because a 5-alarm fire down the street burned through the wiring (most people also lost power). They restored service the next day, and there were a few temporary outages while they took the opportunity to upgrade the local infrastructure. The time before that was because I moved.
The cable modem is always on - my IP changes maybe once a year, if that. Running a home server in my case is as simple as just leaving the machine on when I leave for the office ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
I'll have Fredo move all of our wiretapping e-mails from the Fuhrerbunker to the Microsoftbunker.
Regards,
W
Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Good? Bad? Just more room for porn on the internet.
It's the Digg effect on Slashdot.
Nobody in their right mind would upload ANY personal documents to free hosts unless the filenames end in .tc.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I'm far from being an MS fan. Of the 32 computers in my house, only 5 computers run an MS OS. Soon to be 6 when I get my daughter her computer built. The rest of the machines are mostly headless servers or htpc running freebsd. My distrust in google is in how they are trying to dominate markets they have never been involved in before. They are trying to be a be all, end all to the web in general. Once they are the monopoly, once they own the fiber and are your isp, your search engine, your offline storage, your god knows what else, who is to stop them? The became who they are through the people and the ability to provide based on a do no evil mentality, but as history has shown itself to often, all good things will fall. Remember, their was a time when even Wal-Mart was good for the economy and the middle to lower class.
color me a stick in the mud- but,
if I am putting personal data online it is accessible to being stolen not to mention that it will be accessible to the host (google, MS etc)- I don't want to do that
if I am putting up someone else's data I am violating intellectual property rights- I can get in trouble for that
if I am putting up open source or creative commons material there are better places to do that
if I put up work data it is a security risk for my company
am I missing something here?
to give them my data. Why the hell would I trust *Microsoft* with my data!
Dreamhost offers 200GB of Web space (well, 148GB now, they drop it a bit every little while - but it can go up to nearly 400GB), AND offers a file storage plan where you pay, IIRC, $2.50 per gig ONE TIME for them to host the file FOREVER (or until they go out of business, whichever comes first.)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Pixel Pusher, please share with me this marvelous tactic which should de-diggilate my ./ experience! Where do I change that? And thank you.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
I wouldn't feel berry comfortable either!
This is Microsoft, it has nothing to do with competition.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Dreamhost's interface for file transfer is scp or ftp.
Any more statements you'd like to share with the group?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
who.hasfiles
It's a service that has been around. Gives only 100 MB for free, but provides "native" storage usage. So that no extra software is needed -- a plus comparing to GMail storage.