Free Online Storage.

No aspect in technology has gone down so badly in monetary value as storage has. Storage space, which was once premium, is now mundane. 250GB hard disks have become the norm in laptops. External hard disks have become commonplace. Zip drives tread a similar path. But, as I keep referring to often, cloud computing is the next big thing and is fast catching up. There are many websites that offer free online storage; the maximum storage I have come across is 50 GB in A Drive. And all of them are ad-supported.

I found online storage immensely helpful, especially at work or when I am on a vacation. I seldom use Hotmail (and Live) services but found SkyDrive to be the second most useful application from Microsoft's stable (after, ofcourse, Windows). It offers 25 GB of free online storage space. This is pretty handy. Some good online storage sites include:

A Drive: It offers 50 GB of free space for Basic users. It also offers paid services that have more storage and more sharing capabilities but if you plan to use online storage for personal purposes, Basic plan will suffice. Ofcoure, you would have to bear the advertisements along the margins of the application. Who cares? There are no 'sharing' features in A Drive. Max file upload is 2 GB, which is the best I've come across. Check out the screenshot here.

SkyDrive: Microsoft's SkyDrive is very handy and is cosmetically superior to A Drive or for that matter, any other online storage interface. It builds on the already existing 'Live' brand. It offers a good 'sharing' feature on top of an excellent interface. Downside is that the max upload limit is 50 MB, which sucks. Screenshot.

4Shared: I like 4Shared the best because of its strong online presence. There is a lot of interaction going on and one can easily find good study material, songs, research papers that are available for download. You can also create an account and get 5 GB free online storage. And this private online storage interface is similar to that of A Drive. Max upload limit is 100 MB. And like with Google Docs, lets you share URLs of the files you upload. Screenshot.

Dropbox: Dropbox goes a step ahead and lets you sync your files across multiple computers. Downside is that you get only 2 GB of free space and syncing of big files (> 500MB) does take significant time. But, you can access this storage as an extended drive on your hard disk.

Zumodrive: I personally did not feel it is worth the effort I put in to install it. Installation was very easy. So, imagine how worthy it should have been to me. It is similar to Dropbox, with an added functionality; iPhone access. But for 1 GB additional space, I would not really go the stretch.

So, the next time you plan to go on a vacation or if you need to have a backup you know where to head to.

Puzzle 1: What's the sum?

I stumbled across this puzzle and felt it is worth sharing. 

The sums of the shapes are at the end of each row and column, except for one column. What is the missing sum?

Solving this in 2-3 minutes should mean you are quite sharp :)

Check the solution here.

Will IBM gobble up the 'Sun'?

Looks like the next big things in the tech industry is the 'IBM-Sun Microsystems' merger. IBM is in talks with Sun and has offered ~6.5 billion. And at the outset, Sun is worth every penny of it. But what does this mean to IBM? How will IBM benefit? 

Sun Microsystems offers an array of services. Its Java programming language for internet computing and Solaris for servers are market leaders. It has an excellent presence in hardware industry too. IBM, on the other hand, is a market leader in software services delivery and data-center technologies. There is an overlap, for sure, but is it complementary? I think so. 

A lot has got to do with Cloud computing. Cloud computing enables corporates purchase processing power as a service, over the internet instead of purchasing and maintaining own servers and services. Cloud computing has vast potential - lower operating expenses, efficiency - processing is left to organizations that specialize managing vast data centers. In spite of these advantages, increase in corporates using cloud computing isn't drastic or even significant. It could be due to security reasons - companies unwilling to share information over the net or to an outside company, and the fact that cloud computing isn't yet scalable to large organizations. 

And here is where Sun fits into IBM's scheme of things. Sun can help IBM in the transition to cloud computing. Sun has announced its cloud computing strategy, Sun Cloud, that has Solaris, low cost servers powered by AMD and open source MySQL. This platform will bolster IBM's standing in data center technology. HP and Dell already compete with IBM in this space. And Cisco is the latest entrant (March 16, 2009). Given Cisco's reputation to reshape the market it enters, IBM has to be cautious. But Sun's innovation coupled with IBM's solid technology packaging abilities and on-demand services definitely sound complementary. IBM can market Sun's innovations more effectively. 

As with any merger, there is certainly an aspect of risk involved in the IBM-Sun merger. Sun Cloud is untested water. But I feel IBM has lot to gain with little to risk going forward with the merger. I don't think any other company is as poised as IBM is to merge with Sun. May be Cisco. Let's embrace for a seismic shift in the tech industry.

Pocket Express

I came across an app and if you are a travel freak like I am, you will find it useful. It is not a finished product yet, but it isn't a half-baked cake either. At best, I will describe it as an app intending to be a one-stop-shop for Travel.

It has 9 mini-apps furled into the main app; News, Sports, Weather, Finance, Entertainment, Movies, Travel, Horoscopes and Assist. Of these, Entertainment, Horoscope and Assist are rudimentary. I don't use it for finance; there is Bloomberg. 

It is a good app for travel - native services for iPhone aren't ready yet and one gets directed to its web app, which I would say is pretty good. It has flight status, flight schedules, currency convertors under one tab. I haven't come across any app in the appstore that is this travel friendly. And the good part is, this app comes for free. In the end, this is a good app for travel, not perfect by any means but is useful. And has some bonus functionalities in the same window. Worth giving a try!

Renaming multiple files

Sometimes, I can't help the feeling that we (our generation) get so lost in this high-tech world that we lose track of small yet basics of technology. I came across an interesting situation today. 

I downloaded loads of podcasts (dated back to mid-2006) and archived them in my personal folders. I found it very difficult to go through each of those podcasts on my iPhone and so, I decided to burn these podcasts into CDs and listen to them on the road. Some of the podcasts were in mp3 format and made my job easy. But some of them, like Harvard Ideacasts, were in 'm4a' format. I renamed the file to have a '.mp3' extension and the file played seamlessly. And now, I wanted to change the extensions of hundreds of files. And this is when I, for a moment, was confused.

Like all other iPhone users, I am so used to iTunes. Editing the filenames, extensions or genres is a piece of cake in iTunes. And it is a piece of cake outside of iTunes too, but it doesn't seem to be so. Manually changing the file extensions of hundreds of files is monstrous and disastrous as well. That's when 'ren' (rename) in DOS comes into picture.

1. Open command prompt.

2. Navigate to the directory where the files reside.

3. ren *.m4a *.mp3

'Ren' saved my day!