I known about and have used Evernote a little. Evernote is a web application that saves your text notes, photos, audio note and webpage clips in the cloud to use as reminders and help keep your life organized. I’ve got the phone application on my Nexus One. I’m going to use it more often.
Jungle Disk is an application that lets you store files and backup data securely to Amazon.com’s S3 ™ Storage Service. S3 does not have an application So Jungle Disk provides you with one. Jungle Disk creates a network drive in your computer and you just drag folder and files over or you can setup an automatic backup. I’ve been using Jungle Disk foryears and it is outstanding. Jungle Disk use to cost $20 and you could use it on as many computers as you wished but now I think it is some sort of monthly subscription. I think it’s $3 dollars a month. The data backed up via Amazon S3 is very cheap as well.
I just told you in the two previous post about alternative software but increasingly I am turning to the Cloud (or Internet) for many of my applications. Here are just some of my favorites:
Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Live Mail – alternatives for your traditional ISPs email with an email program like Outlook Express.
I mentioned in the post Cloud Storage Overview that there are some services where you can store your precious files via cloud based storage (on the Internet). Here are a couple of options that will create a virtual drive on your computer as if it was an actual drive.
Dropbox is a service that gives you 2 gigabytes free with an option to pay a small amount for up to 100 gigabytes. For Windows, Linux and Macintosh.
Microsoft’s Skydrive gives you 25 gigabytes absolutely free but you need a third party program to make it a virtual drive. “Skydrive Explorer” is a free program that does this. It is really easy to setup.
Amazon S3- Unlimited storage for a very small per GB transfered and storage fee. S3 has no user interface you must use a third party program like Jungle Disk (PC, Linux or Mac) or Gladinet (PC only, FREE).
Carbonite- Ultimate backup solution. Automatically backup an unlimited amount of data for $49.95 per year.
Thanks to Zack who commented to my SkyDrive post for this one!
Gladinet is the future! It is Web 3.0! Gladinet is a great little application that brings all of your online storage to your desktop as virtual drives. Use online storages (Not only SkyDrive but ADrive, Google Docs, Amazon S3 , and others.) as if they were local folders on your computer. Access local folders on your home computer remotely as if they were right there (only with standard version which is only available by invitation right now). But you can download free version now.
There is so much more in this appliction I’ll let this video tell you about it.
Apart of the the “Windows Live Essentials” set of tools “Windows Live Mail” stands out as a must have program for all of you that insist on using a desktop email client. “Live Mail” is beleaved to be the program Microsoft wanted to ship with “Vista” but it wasn’t finished or something and it didn’t get in. Instead we got “Windws Mail” (basically “Outlook Express 8″). You can download it now for XP, Vista and the Windows 7 Beta.
My rule number 1 is: “If you don’t have two copies of a file on different devices you don’t have that file!” Here are some programs to help you to that end.
RULE #1: If you don’t have two copies of a file on different media you don’t have the file. This being the case you have to back-up continuously. Backing up to an external drive or network drive is a good way to do this, but what happens of there’s a fire and all of your computers and backups are destroyed? All of those family photos and important business documents gone.
A great way to back-up is to a server over the Internet. One of the best services to do this is Amazon’s S3 using Jungledisk. JungleDisk is the interface for S3. S3 just gives you the storage space and JungleDisk turns that space into a drive on your computer. Jungle disk cost $20 to use forever. As many computers as you like. All the upgrade for the software as long as the the company exist.
Amazon charges you a very small fee for storage and a somewhat larger fee for the transfer. There will be one large charge (though still very affordable) It will be even better now because they are dropping the price November.