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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...
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."
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
And will be doing it for real shortly with Gdrive, which is apparently no longer a rumor.
My blog
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 : )
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
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.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
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!
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
Are viruses included in that 500 meg total? They could really cut into that 500 meg number.
I'm perfectly capable of losing my files and documents all by myself. Thanks anyway.
[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.
For all that can be complained of .Mac, it has no ads.
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ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley Says Apple's iPhone Needs ActiveSync
Mary Jo Foley, who describes her ZDNet blog as "an unblinking eye on Microsoft," seems to have been charged with the unpleasant task of producing a somewhat positive sounding iPhone story, and gave it her best shot. Unfortunately, it wasn't very well thought out, and reflects a preoccupation with flattering Microsoft.
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.
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
Yes, you do get what you pay for. I'd agree that .Mac needs a significant upgrade, but the baseline service is $99, for the same as what MS is offering. What .Mac really needs is a speed upgrade and far higher bandwidth limits, so it makes any sense as a hosting service.
When I had the chance to skewer Steve Jobs about it, it did.
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Answers from Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Meeting
At Apple Inc.'s May 10 annual shareholder meeting, a series of proposals were presented for voting after which CEO Steve Jobs answered a series of questions from the audience.
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley Says Apple's iPhone Needs ActiveSync
Mary Jo Foley, who describes her ZDNet blog as "an unblinking eye on Microsoft," seems to have been charged with the unpleasant task of producing a somewhat positive sounding iPhone story, and gave it her best shot. Unfortunately, it wasn't very well thought out, and reflects a preoccupation with flattering Microsoft.
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.
I pay 7.99 a month for dream host, and I have 246 GB of data storage. Ok, I haven't actually tried to upload that much. Currently I have 1.5 gigs up there, but 246 GB is my quota. Why pay for something like .MAC when you can just get some shared hosting. You can use it as a website too. I'm surprised that more people don't have shared hosting plans. They are cheap, and provide you with a lot of features.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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.
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.
Xdrive.com by AOL? 5GB of free space. And software to map your xdrive as a network drive.
I pay 7.99 a month for dream host, and I have 246 GB of data storage. Ok, I haven't actually tried to upload that much.
Oh yea, those 246 GB on a shared host what a great example.
You get 246 GB of disk quota, and if you upload more than 5-6 GB, the FTP mystically gets slow. At ~10 GB, the support calls you to say "you seem to, uhh, be using too much resources on our server, get it? yea... resources. watch it".
At ~20GB they shut you down and mail you that you're a an effin abuser of their resources, and all the poor users on the same server had their sites down because of you. They forgot to mention that they managed to stuff 200 sites on a server with 100 GB disk and promise them all 246GB quota.
If you're a thick head and keep uploading, at around 40 GB upload they'll send a hitman in a black mercedes to circle your house and watch at you suggestively.
At around 60 GB, they call the hitman to hit you, your family and anyone who ever knew you hosted with them.
Truth is, most people upload their "page coming soon. LOL!" index, and forget about the rest, so get to live on.
Amen. I'm experimenting with S3 for backup (offsite backup, in additional to my optical media backups), but the upload time is killer. What scripts/program are you using for backup? I'm currently using JungleDisk because it looked like the best of OS X.
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
Bullshit.
Again, I call bullshit. Yes, Dreamhost does oversell like crazy. They even admit to it!. But they actually will let you use all the bandwidth and disk you're given. All of it.
Right now, a quick look at my panel shows that I'm using 64.1GB of space (as of last measurement). This month, I've moved over 1TB of HTTP traffic alone (I've used another 20GB or so of FTP traffic). No black mercedes. No phonecalls. Not even a damn e-mail from Dreamhost.
As Dreamhost points out, the only usage-related issue they'll cut you off for is CPU usage. For serving static content (i.e. not PHP pages), Dreamhost actually kicks ass. They really will let you hit both your quotas. Sure, you won't be able to run the next iTunes Movie Store off one of their shared hosts, but you can actually use all the space and not get so much as an e-mailed warning.
The real litigious bastards...