Cloud Syncing/Storage Options

One of the problems I had very early on with my smartphones was issues with the microSD card.  It was like I was cursed to have bad sectors.  More than once I had lost many pictures that I hadn’t backed up.  I swore to myself I wouldn’t let that happen again – especially as my 3 year old is doing some pretty darn cute things.

Now I’m still pretty much guilty for not having a fail-safe method yet, but I try to stay on top of things for the more important photos.  But there’s just so many options, and I’m not sure which is the best, so I set out to try a few this week.

PC-Desktop via USB

Okay, now this seemed redundant, but I figured I had to start with the obvious.  Plugging in my phone via USB, or even having to get the SD card out seems pretty archaic these days.  But it’s probably the best way to physically get things done.  I have Galaxy S, which means that it uses Kies as a desktop program, but I don’t use it for that at all – only for firmware updates, should they ever come.  But it does allow me to view the phone’s contents if I go to drive L (or whatever it happens to be).  This would involve plugging it in, choosing the right USB method, opening the folder and choosing the right sub folder (and in my case there’s the card and the phone, each with photos and videos to save).  This works when I want to upload some files, but often I use an alternate method (see below).  I’m sure there’s some sort of script that could be written to automate this process, but as geek as I am, I’m not that much unfortunately.  The other issue comes from the fact that my Galaxy S suffers from the post froyo condition of not being able to use it in Mass Storage mode (I have to put it in Media Player or Firmware to get all 16GB availability – and then it’s god awful slow).

Dropbox

I’ve only recently started to use Dropbox, and haven’t quite got the hang of it, except I know that it’s got a great feature to upload a bunch of folders in my Gallery, and it’ll know that some are already there.  What would be a great feature would be for me to set which for Dropbox to monitor and automatically upload the photos.  But, I’d hope that there’d be an option to only do so when on WiFi (as I tend to take pictures where there isn’t, and I wouldn’t want it to upload a ton on my dataplan).  Overall, against the others it’s the one I’m liking the most.  Being able to set up a shared link for the folder or file is a great feature to have on the phone.   One thing is that I can’t get is why I can’t delete a folder in dropbox, yet I can delete a file.

SugarSync

I’ve only learned of this program myself.  Apparently I’m not as well ‘connected’ as thought.  So I’ve given it a bit of a try.  I’ve only had it a couple of days now, so I haven’t really figured it all out, but it seems to have an automated feature for uploading and backing up.  It’s got a lot of ‘eye candy’ in how it operates, versus the barebones look of Dropbox, and that tends to drive me away from software.  The more ‘flashy’ it is, the less I expect from it feature wise.  But I feel like I could be wrong on this account.

Wuala

Now this I’ve heard of before, as a couple of companies had sent me their larger preview files (videos, graphic designs, etc…) via the web version.  I hadn’t ever created my own account tho’.  But just yesterday I found out “there’s an app for that” (ooh, I can hear the apple lawyers firing up their pens over that).  So I created myself an account.  I was never fond of the ‘remote access’ on the web for wuala (plus it never worked for chrome), and I’m not liking the app interface either.  Nor can I find an option to ‘share’ a file via Wuala, so everything would have to be done in the app itself, just seems a little redundant to take a photo, look at it, then load Wuala, which’ll load the gallery again to select which photo.  I’m doubting I’m going to keep this, but I’ll keep at it and give it an honest effort.  The major downside to this is the interface is not all that pleasant (the web version is horrible) and all that aside – you only get 1GB

Docs

If you know me, you know my thoughts on all things Google.  I did a recent review of the app, so I won’t repeat myself here.  I think that this is the clear winner, and has the potential to be entirely the best option by far.

Overall

The biggest need I have to is that there is a seemlessness (yes, I made this word up) when working with non-smartphone version.  There shouldn’t be major changes or differences between the app on the phone and the other devices I’ll use it on (my ubuntu netbook, my office pc or a friend’s mac).  I started this article stating how for me the importance was being able to back up my important photos, and I want to ensure that I can get to those as easily as possible.

Cloud ‘computing’ is something that I’ve grown quite fond of over the years and had adopted quite early on using the Google Docs.  Wish I could convert my office to Apps, but it’s not for me to decide.  But sure would be neat.  I think that the appearance of all these cloud storage/syncing options is a great start to where we’ll be heading with the new style of computing.

Okay, I know these aren’t the only ones, so here’s some other options to consider:

• Photoshop.com – I signed up for this when I got the Photoshop Express app.  I’ll admit I haven’t touched it all that much, as I don’t really find myself using the photoshop app all that often.  You get 2GB for free, but if you want more it’s $20 for 20GB (easy to remember the pricing).
• Amazon Cloud – I’ll admit I haven’t even looked at this as any of my dealings with Amazon have ended in “nobody but the US allowed” it seems… racists I tells ya
• Documents to Go – From my Palm days, I had used Docs2Go forever.  I haven’t been entirely sold on the Android version quite yet.  The Google Docs inclusion was a nice touch, but my biggest fault was that it would strip away alot of the formatting when it would pull it in.  Like in spreadsheets I would format the cells based on values.  These formats would disappear if I opened it on the phone, and wouldn’t show up again when I went back to the web app.  Poor poor form.
• FTP – I’m sure there’s apps that do FTP, but FTP seems like a total… retro approach.  Why not go and learn the DOS prompt code again?
• Picasa – This is built in, and works in conjunction with the above Google storage.
• Social Media – Where else do you put your photos but online for others to see them, or so it seems these days.  Being able o upload them to facebook or twitpic etc.. is a very common step in sharing, but not really for storing, as often it’ll reduce the image size of the photo.
• Sorami – I’ll admit I’ve bought into Google, but I’m a recent convert.  And like all converts, I haven’t really ditched the old habits yet.  I still keep my hotmail account as my primary email (tho’ it’s slowly shifting).  And Windows Live has done a lot of cool stuff lately (have you played with the Windows Gallery, and how easy FUSE is?).  But what’s really cool is their use of the SkyDrive lately as a full storage area, as well as functioning doc editor to compete with Google.  On the major plus side – YOU GET 25GB for free!  But there’s no official app to take advantage of it (which is really tempting me to try WP7 and see how that works).  Closest we come is Sorami – which… works.  Pretty simple.  I like to use it – but you have to keep in mind that it’s not the ‘intended’ app for it .. but it works.  Downside is you need a doc viewer/editor to be able to work with the files that are there.
• ThinkFree Office – My Galaxy S came with this… and it’s said there’s Google Docs integration, but I can’t seem to find it.  The version from the market also says this, but I can’t install it because of the pre-installed Galaxy version.  But judging from how Docs2Go works, I think I’ll stick with just Docs.  Besides it’s free.
• WiFi File Explorer – This is my preferred option for desktop syncing… works pretty well.  Wireles connection, just turn it on and then go to your webbrowser on the right port and there’s all your files.  Upload or download as you need.  It may seem about as many steps and as just much as using the USB cord, but it doesn’t have any issues with the above stated post froyo condition.  I just wish I could figure out how to access it at work (none of the ports are working, even when I use a separate router… must be some IT security thing that I don’t know about).