File storage
Going paperless
I'm a big fan of storing my documents online. I used to have two man-size filing cabinets, and they were full. There's nothing wrong with that if you're going to be in the same place for a long time, but I don't have a home, so I move around pretty much all the time.Nowadays, the rule of thumb is that if I don't have it online, I don't have it. Except for a few vital documents, which my dear mom guards for me, and essentials like my passport, which I have with me, I don't keep paper. Let me tell you, I love it.
Making it happen was a miracle in two parts. First, I had to scan a lot of documents before I could burn them. Second, I had to find places to store the scans online. There's also a bit of maintenance, which is to scan and upload new documents as they come in. Opting for paperless statements whenever possible makes things easier.
Cloud storage
I've tried a number of services and settled on three for different purposes.For free storage to share big files, I use divshare. I find it to be the least slow of the free services. I used to have all my pictures on Xdrive (I threw away all my photo albums), but Xdrive was shut down by AOL, its parent company. I had signed up for Xdrive reluctantly as AOL is a company I have found repugnant since I had my first AOL account in 1993. Some things don't change: I should have trusted my instincts. Incidentally, I have helped a number of people move out of AOL and Hotmail onto Gmail. It's a form of community service!
For good-looking storage to retrieve files from internet cafés anywhere on the road, I pay the big bucks for box.net's business account. It's simply the nicest web interface for looking at the files you've stored. Like everyone else, Box wants you to use them for everything, so it's partnered with everyone under the sun to offer plug-ins. I don't use any of them. Perhaps the add-on mania is what makes Box so slow. It can take a minute to first get to your box folder. Once you're there, it's a bit faster.
For fast and reliable storage, I use Jungledisk. JD (as it's known) is an interface on top of Amazon's S3 storage, an enterprise solution you can't really access without a frontend. It's said to be very robust. I feel safer knowing that I have another backup on these servers. I pay extra for the version that lets you access files over the web. I use JD when I have access to my own PC for a long time, when I can set up an upload and forget about it. The files get uploaded in the background, sometimes for days. I have been impressed by JD tech support.
I'm always looking for the next solution. If you've got a serious contender to suggest (not an alternate service but one that has everything needed to displace one of my picks), please write.
Tips
JungleDisk backup doesn't delete remote files
In Backup Options, the box to "Remove locally deleted files from my remote backup" is checked. When you run a backup, the JungleDisk never deletes files in your remote backup. What could be wrong?If you have several backup jobs programmed in JD, check that the target directories do not overlap. If there is any overlap, files will not be deleted. Makes sense, no?
I happened to have a tricky case of overlap. I was taking ten folders and targeting the remote root folder ("/"). When JD support alerted me about the potential overlap problem, I moved the ten remote folders into a new folder, and changed the target for the backup job. I did not need to upload the files again. That fixed it instantly.
Warm regards,
Andy
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