5 Online Services I Cant Live Without
Those that are members of UKAPU will know that one of newsletters monthly articles is a 5 Items You Cant Airsoft Without. I thought I’d add a similar feature to my site.
I toyed with what software but decided to make the first one an article on online services I cant live without. So without further ado, I give you my list of services in no particular order. You might be able to argue that some of these are software services as well, which may well be the case but I’ll class them as online services here!
So everyone should have heard of the excellent Dropbox service by now (if not, have you been hiding under a rock?!).
Dropbox 
is an excellent, simple syncing tool and it just works. No hassle, no problems. In all the time I’ve been using it (probably nigh on over a year), I’ve not had an issue. Conflict with syncing files? It creates a conflicted copy and tells you and lets you choose the conflict. No internet connection? No problem, Dropbox will reconnect when it can and upload the work.
Built into a lot of mobile applications (such as the excellent Writing Kit and Day One now as well, mean that’s it’s use is firmly set in my daily work flow.
I’ve briefly paid for a 50GB account but currently I’ve dropped down to the free account. The price is worth it but at the minute, my referrals and extra space mean I have an account that is currently 8GB and I don’t need to sync my music so much that I’m willing to pay (though if they brought in a smaller service or started charging for the space I’m currently using, I’d happily pay as the software is invaluable)
Spideroak is another online hosting/syncing/backup service (well, mainly backup when compared to Dropbox). Initially I tried to run one service or the other but came to the conclusion that I couldn’t. Why? Various reasons.
- Dropbox is primarily syncing – it does it well. However, to keep changes to files for more than 30 days, you need to pay extra. Spideroak does that in it’s price.
- Spideroak’s syncing is a bit hit and miss. It’s difficult to see what has finished syncing and stay on top of what’s been uploaded etc.
- Spideroak gives a lot more space for the money, double what Dropbox offers.
So after trialling Dropbox and Spideroak together, I came to the conclusion that I’d use Spideroak for the excellent and cheap offsite backup – I backup all my documents and my music, as well as some odds and ends, such as my eBooks that I purchase from the Black Library and my GPS tracks recorded when cycling and running.
The lack of being built into mobile applications isn’t really a concern thanks to Dropbox but it’s nice to know that this is constantly updating my offsite backup of my files. Teamed with Dropbox, I’ve got a tool that will sync all my important documents to all my devices and then back them up to the cloud safely.
Evernote is a note taking program. Any notes added to it are synced to the Evernote servers and then to all your devices, be it PC, Mac or phone so you can have access to the notes anywhere, anytime. You can also add images, files and other items to it (if you have a premium account) and can store items for offline use on your phone.
Very quickly I paid for a premium subscription to this. $5 a month is a small price for the indexing, searching mind space that is Evernote. Dropping a thought into Evernote means I can pick it up at a later date and time. It’s a massive help to my PhD and all my notes are stored within it on the papers I’ve read, my thesis plans and ideas and my research notes. Extremely helpful.
iCloud is a new addition to the list and replaces the Google services. As a Mac user, with iPhone, it made sense to move to Apple’s offering, rather than Googles, especially as the new Google themes and updates have basically killed the service for me (the new theme is utter terrible and trying to use Google Reader without the use of desktop software like Reeder is a painful process). As such, it seemed to easy to move over to iCloud.
Since doing so, I’ve had no issues (other than my documented attempt to try and use Sparrow with iCloud here which is still occurring). Being able to sync all my calendars, contacts, reminders, bookmarks and emails to all my devices is a great help and fits nicely into my workflow.
I’ve yet to pay for the service as the current 5GB seems plenty for my current use (I don’t use photostream or the Pages/Numbers/Keynote storage).
Last.fm may seem like an odd one but over the past year, it’s been a fantastic source of insightful information on the music I listen to (I guess I like VNV Nation a lot!! ) and for finding new music based on what music I already like.
This ability to find more of what I’m interested in is great and the ability to listen to a radio station based on similar artists to what I’ve already scrobbled is great for times I don’t have access to my music but do have access to my Last.fm account.
That rounds up the 5 best online services I cant live without. However, there are a few that probably deserve a mention here that didn’t make the top 5 for some reason.
Imgur
This service is a great phot sharing service. I spent ages considering how I could spend money on some hosting to get a Imgur style site for personal use and decided I’d just pay the Imgur hosting price for the benefits it gives me as it’s so easy to use that I couldn’t replicate it elsewhere. It’s how I host images for this blog!
Tumblr
The host for this blog, Tumblr has been an excellent online service, allowing me to write this drivel and share images of cats. The ease of customisation and the ability to add your own domain name for free is a nice touch. Thanks Tumblr and keep up the awesome work!
Wordpress
Ok, so a competitor to Tumblr that I left for this site. However, it’s main use to me now is that Wordpress acts as my OpenID identifying service. Which I use on a fair few sites (normally, all that allow OpenID!) so I have to give a shout out for that.
So there we go, my top 5 online services. Hopefully that’s given people an idea of what’s out there and of the different services.
Spideroak Vs Dropbox
Intro
Ok, so I’ve been a fan of online backup now for probably over a year or so. I never used to like the idea of my data being stored off-site but then after reading various backup methodologies, I realised I needed an offsite backup solution to be truly safe from data loss.
So I tried the various different options at the time and basically played around with two options, Spideroak and Dropbox. To make it clear, I bought paid for subscription to each over this testing to make sure I was getting the full service.
I’ve now come to the conclusion on each now I think.
Dropbox is a fantastic service. Easy to use, simple and clean. However, whilst it says that it’s data is private, it’s only a very small note in the terms and conditions. And it’s track record for privacy isn’t untarnished.
It’s connivence cant be denied. Simply drop a file in and wait for it to upload and then access on any device you own that’s connect to Dropbox. Pretty sweet.
The main downsides are that you need to mess about moving folders and files into the Dropbox folder to get them to sync (or use Symlinks, something that might be over and above that average users want to learn about). Whilst Dropbox offers versioning of files for 30 days, you cant get an extension to this unless you buy the Packrat extension which adds to the monthly charge.
Overall, the simplest service for syncing and sharing data is great but potential privacy issues are worrying – especially to myself where I want to sync data between my Mac’s and some of that data is personal data such as scans of drivers license, bank statements etc. However, Dropbox support built into web apps, mobile apps and desktop apps allowing easy syncing of non personal data, such as code snippets in Codebox and settings such as Alfred app mean that Dropbox is a great tool.
Spideroak’s main draw is privacy. It’s screams it at you from the very beginning. It’s webpage mentions 2 factor authentication (should you want it), they make sure you know that they don’t store your password. it’s quite clear from the start that Spideroak’s privacy features are a top priority.
Like Dropbox, you can add whatever you want to Spideroak but unlike Dropbox, it can stay where it is on the disk drive – you open up the software and select what you want to backup. Syncing is done via sync option which is a bit more in depth than Dropbox which can be a pain for new users. However, it’s not so hard once you figure it out. it does mean you can select only the folders you want to sync between machines which is quite good (in more detail at least than Dropbox’s selective sync features).
Spideroak offers a better value for money in terms of storage. 100GB of storage is $10 a month ($5 if you’re a student) compared to Dropbox’s $10 for 50GB. Unlike Dropbox, Spideroak offer de-duplication. Meaning if you upload the same file on one computer linked to Spideroak and then upload it on another, upload will be fairly instant (as it’s already on the server – which Dropbox do as well) – however, Spideroak only count it once towards space used on your account.
However, after using for a while, the cracks have started to appear in the sync feature. In the event of a clash of updated files, Dropbox will create a conflicted copy – Spideroak silently updates both files to the newest version and keeps the previous version. Not entirely good to see as often you wont notice. And it seems that sometimes sync actions seem to fail for no reason – good reason that I found today was that I access a file yesterday, made a change and saved. Spideroak uploaded it. I went to access it today and the changes from yesterday hadn’t synced across (sync and backup set to instant and the laptop was on all day yesterday to allow sync) – Spideroak even showed in the software that the laptop version had uploaded yesterday but no reason was given why it hadn’t downloaded to the Macbook.
The uptime of Spideroak is lacking slightly behind Dropbox as well. It’s been quite often that I’ve found that Spideroak is having trouble uploading whilst Dropbox is having no issues.
Conclusions
Overall, both bits of software are great. However, both are lacking. Dropbox is lacking privacy and Spideroak is missing out on sync functions that work all the time and desktop notifications. It’s a shame.
I feel that Spideroak is an offsite storage medium, rather than a sync tool. It compares fairly well to other services like Crashplan+ as you can add unlimited devices without paying extra. Dropbox is unrivalled by Spideroak as a syncing program – it’s ability to sync documents easily, quickly and transparently is great -it’s greatest flaw however is the privacy issue.
At the end of the day, you pay your money and take you’re choice. For me, it looks like a potential return to the hard drive for syncing private data, however, should I want to download a file – I know the Spideroak will have the latest version on it’s website to download securely.
Of course, there’s always the option of running my own SSH server…
Spideroak
Spideroak backup service - Like Dropbox but better. Considering trying it - 2GB free and if you click my link and sign up, you and me will get an extra 1GB free. :)
