The Cloud Wars

A couple of years ago I reviewed some online backup solutions. The main contenders were Dropbox, iDisk and DriveHQ. Fast forward two years and Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft Skydrive, Box and Dropbox are battling to provide your online storage.

I have used all 5 services (free accounts) and have detailed the unique features, pricing and sharing capabilities of each here in helping you decide which product would be best for you. In most cases a combination of two or more services is the best option.

Google Drive

This year Google launched their long awaited cloud storage service, Drive. Their online office suite Google Docs is now part of Google Drive and with desktop clients available for Windows, Mac and Linux (soon) it has become a serious player in the cloud storage game. An Android app is also available with an iOS app coming soon.

Google Drive offers users 5GB of online space for free. Currently it is priced at $2.49/month for 25GB, $4.99/month for 100GB … and all the way up to 16TB for $799.99/month. I wonder how many accounts have 16TB :O

Sharing documents and folders is easy with Drive. Simply select the document and click the share button to allow access to another with an email address. You can even see changes as they happen if two or more people are working on the same document. Collaborators can add comments and there is version tracking so you can go back up to 30 days if you need to see a prior revision.

I rate Google Drive as a solid and flexible solution for cloud storage and online document editing. It is not limited to traditional document file types and provides real time changes to be seen by people working on the same document.

Microsoft Skydrive

Skydrive has been around since 2007 (known then as Windows Live Folders). In 2011 it was overhauled to be HTML5 compatible and now allows users to create word, powerpoint and excel documents from within a browser. It can also be synchronized with the 2010 Office software, allowing users to change a document at the same time.

Skydrive offers users 7GB of online space for free. If you had an account prior to April 20th 2012 you were offered a free upgrade to 25GB. If 5GB is not enough the pricing as it stands now for Skydrive is 20GB for $10/year, 50GB for $25/year and 100GB for $50/year.

There is currently an iOS and a Windows Phone app but no official Android app. Desktop programs are available for Windows and Mac operating systems. Sharing is can be done from the web browser and across social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Apple iCloud

iCloud consists of a few more features than file syncing. In addition, you will have access to Photo Stream, iTunes in the Cloud, Calendar, Contacts and Email and Find My iPhone/Friends.

This article will mainly focus on the file sharing side – Documents in the Cloud. Once you have Pages, Numbers or Keynote on your iOS 5.0 device or Mac you will be able to save your iWork, MS Office, and PDF documents to iCloud. As far as I know these are the only types of documents that can be saved to iCloud and this I feel puts Documents in the Cloud at a massive disadvantage compared to the competition. Sharing is limited to sending via email.

Every account comes with 5GB worth of storage for free. If you need more online storage from Apple it will cost (at time of writing) $20/year for 10GB, $40/year for 20GB and $100/year for 50GB. It is a lot pricier than the rest however the extra storage may be useful for backing up an entire mobile device or for storing photos in Photo Stream.

iCloud desktop programs are available for OS X 10.7 + and Windows Vista +. Personally I don’t like the fact Apple has now forced users to upgrade from Snow Leopard if they want to use iCloud on their Mac desktop.

Box

Box is another solution, which behaves much like DropBox. I signed up for Box a while back when I came across an article saying they were giving away 50GB free storage if you downloaded their app for iOS. Their free account now will provide you with 5GB of online storage.

One thing you cannot do with a free account is download multiple files. This was enough for me to stop using Box. Looking past that, Box can integrate with Microsoft 2010’s Office Suite, Google Apps, and a few other CRM software packages out there. It also has an app for Android and iOS and programs for Windows and Mac (Premium account required).

A lot of Box’s functionality is reserved for premium accounts. Currently a premium account costs $15/user/month and that will get you 1000GB of web storage and access to those documents offline on a computer.

Dropbox

Last but not least I am going to mention Dropbox again. Like two years ago I thought the way Dropbox seamlessly integrates with any computer or mobile device is perfect. Sharing a document or folder could not be easier and now you can even right click a file and get a public link to share it with another person.

I find being able to share files via Dropbox the easiest way to get them from my mobile to a computer and vice versa. The free account will give you 2GB of storage but referring friends and allowing automatic camera uploads can increase this up to 16GB. Paid accounts can get you 50GB for $9.99/month and 100GB for $19.99/month with referrals getting you 1GB per referral (500mb for free account).

I currently use all these services except Box and iCloud. I think for a business Box would be a good solution, however since there is no standalone desktop program and there are limitations on multiple file downloads for free accounts I have steered clear.

Out of all the services mentioned I think Dropbox is still the best despite not having as much free storage as Drive or Skydrive. By inviting a few friends you both can receive boosts to the data storage and I find their file synchronization flawless across all devices and computers I have used it on. I would use this in combination with Google Drive for times when collaboration on a document is needed.

Online Backup Solutions

Some people have a fear of spiders. Others heights. Up until a few years ago you could be excused for having a fear of losing all your important files. Sure, you can transfer them to a USB drive every so often and hope that drive doesn’t fail, but who has time for that? Well fear not. We live in an age where cloud computing is taking off and although I can’t help with arachnophobia or acrophobia, by using some online backup services, it might take the edge off any file loss related phobia you may have.

For the last year or two I have been using a service called Dropbox to automatically backup files and have them accessible on any computer or mobile device. Overall I’ve found it works perfectly. After installing the software simply drag and drop the file or folder you wish to backup into the special Dropbox folder. And that’s it; Dropbox handles the rest.

Dropbox syncs all files and folders in it's special folder

Whenever you change, add or delete a file in Dropbox the changes (not necessarily the whole file) are automatically sent and updated on the server. I no longer find a need to email myself attachments or put files on USB storage as the Dropbox client can be installed on Windows, OSX, Linux and even a mobile client such as the iPhone.

Security wise Dropbox is very good. They encrypt all data before sending and it’s stored on their server using AES-256 encryption. They also have big men with guns and lasers securing the perimeter of the data server, you know…just in case.
Currently (and for as long as I’ve been using it) Dropbox has been offering 2GB of storage for free. They also offer larger allowances for a fee per month.

So what alternatives are out there? I think the main contender is Apple’s iDisk. As part of their MobileMe suite of cloud computing software iDisk allows for up to 20GB of online disk storage and a nice browser interface to access the files remotely. Like Dropbox there is an app for iPhones and iPads to allow mobile users access these files as well as desktop integration. At the time of writing Apple are charging $99 a year for the MobileMe service.

The other which I have been testing out for a client is DriveHQ. What I like about this one is you can select individual files and folders to backup without moving or copying them to a designated folder. You can also specify your own passkey to further encrypt your files when they are backed up online. Unfortunately the desktop software is Windows only, however there is a web interface to access the files from a web browser. DriveHQ has a free account with 1GB of storage, or plans with pay per month or year if more storage is required.

All three previously mentioned solutions provide a way to share or make public some or all of your files. This can be helpful if you need a group of people working on the same files.

Cloud computing has become increasingly popular over the last couple of years and now more services, like Office 2010, are integrating these features to provide users with a secure and easy way to store and share documents and files.

Address Book and iCal Google Sync

This tutorial is intended to follow on from yesterday’s post on setting up a Google account to synchronise contacts and calendars automatically. It assumes you have contacts and/or calendars set up on a Gmail account.

It’s time now to set Address Book to automatically sync with this account. Open Address Book and click Address Book -> Preferences. Click the “Accounts” tab and check “Synchronize with Google”. Click configure and put in your Gmail address and password. Your online contacts will now be downloaded into your Address Book.

Setup a Google Account within Address Book

Configuring the calendar will be a similar process. Open iCal then go to iCal -> Preferences. Under the Accounts tab click “+” in the bottom left to set up a new account. Leave Account type as Automatic and put in your Gmail address and password. Your online calendar will now be downloaded into iCal.

Setup your Google calendar in iCal

If you have multiple calendars in your Google account you can select which ones to sync by going to the Delgation section of the account. Put a check next to the additional calendars you wish to synchronise.

Click Delagation to add multiple calendars

You should now successfully be synchronising with your Google account

iPhone Wireless Sync Contacts and Calendar

OK I won’t deny it, I’m lazy. I’m very lazy. Hell it’s been over a month since my last update. In fairness this is partly because nothing has impressed me enough that I wanted to write about. That is until a couple of weeks ago when I decided I couldn’t be bothered regularly plugging my iPhone into the computer anymore to manually sync contacts and calendar. Lazy, I know.

And so I decided to research ways of wirelessly syncing my phone contacts and calendar with my computer and possibly have them backed up online somewhere just in case. My search led me to MobileMe, Apple’s cloud service which for a fee per year the service would be provided, and Google’s mobile sync. Not being a fan of paying for something which I can can get for free I went with the Google option. And here we are.

To start one needs a Gmail account. If you already have one that’s great, otherwise head to Gmail and create one. With 7GB+ of storage and a nice user interface you’ll be wondering why you didn’t do it sooner.

In Gmail there is a link on the left hand side called “Contacts”. Click it. Now to import your existing contacts from your computer to Gmail. If you use Address Book for Mac click File->Export->Address Book Archive and save a file which will contain your contact data. Alternatively if you use Outlook or Outlook Express you can export in a similar way but choose to export as a CSV file so Gmail can read it. Back in the Contacts section of Gmail there is an “Import” link. Click it and upload the file you just created with your existing contacts. Hopefully you will see all your contacts appear in the All Contacts list.

As a side note – although Gmail can put contacts into groups, when you sync with an iPhone it can’t (as yet) mimic the groups.

On to Calendars. If you don’t want to sync any calendars you can skip this section.
There is a link to Calendar in the Top left corner of Gmail. Or you can access it from this link: https://www.google.com/calendar/

If you have an existing Calendar(s) in iCal or Outlook now is the time to export them to a file. Gmail can read iCal and CSV format. Like contacts use File->Export to make the file, or files if you use multiple calendars.

Under the My Calendars section of Google Calendar click Settings and then Import Calendar. Select the Calendar CSV or iCal file you created and marvel as the data gets copied into Google Calendar.

With contacts and calendars now stored in your Gmail account you are almost ready to (not so) magically wirelessly sync them with your iPhone….or Blackberry or Nokia or Windows phone. This is the link that will show you how to set up them up; although I am only going to be focusing on the iPhone version.

This page here will show you how to set up the iPhone Exchange account: Google Sync iPhone

As of the latest iPhone Software version only one Exchange account is allowed per device. This will change when software version 4.0 is released (apparently)

Right so now with the Google Exchange up and running, contacts, calendar and mail will now be synced to your iPhone. Every time you add, edit or remove a contact or event the change will be sent automatically to your Gmail account provided you have an internet connection available (3G or Wifi).

One problem I came across was not being able to sync multiple calendars. The solution is to open up Safari on the iPhone and go to http://m.google.com/sync
After signing in you can select the other calendars you wish to sync. This sort of thing is handy if you have separate calendars for work and home and you can also add predefined calendars from Google such as Australian Public Holidays.

This concludes the tutorial on wirelessly syncing with an iPhone. I will be preparing another post on automatic contact and calendar syncing using Address Book, iCal and Gmail shortly so check back in a couple of days….or months. I just remembered how lazy I am.