1) Host a set of files somewhere in the cloud that’s at least semi-secure (Amazon S3 comes to mind)

2) Have a client which sits on the PC’s receiving files that will periodically check this file store and make sure their local copy of the files is perfectly synchronized to it. Bonus points if it does this at a block level or any other methods to reduce data transfer. Double bonus points if it will do this all-the-time, in the style of a “Dropbox” type solution.

Dropbox was the inspiration for thinking something like this could exist. For those who do not know, Dropbox is a tool for synchronizing files across multiple computers as well as into the cloud, but it’s based about the needs of a single user across more than one computer, not as much one-to-many. Surely though someone has had to have this thought and used it in a different environment like this.

(Yes, that’s a referral link, but if you do sign up you get extra free space too, so everyone wins.)

Know of such a tool? Send it over in the comments.

The iPhone App Store has become a breeding ground for some wonderful games, and both big and small companies are realizing that a way they can get people to buy their game is through offering  a demo version, or as it’s always referred to in the App Store world, a lite version. This is fine to do. In fact, I enjoy that they do.

The problem arises from how the rankings system works. Because these are free downloads, they get dumped in with all of the other free downloads, and thus are viewed as strictly free, they take up almost all of the spots for the free downloads! Demo and lite versions really are different than truly free!

So, in the next iteration of the stop especially with the 3.0 OS, I would love to see a differentiation somewhere. Ideally, I would love a demo section, but would settle for breaking out “free apps” and “free games” as two separate entities. I think it would allow people who are genuinely making a free app, or a gateway to their web service (like Evernote) more recognized, as they should be, compared to the demo of the game they want you to pay for.

Thus came the want to find something even more feature-packed. Orb so far has been my solution! It has worked perfectly for music, allows me to view all of my computer’s files from anywhere, and does so with a snazzy interface and a ton of customizability. It can just as easily be your homepage for the day as it could be your ultimate media player.

Cell phone integration isn’t a problem either. They have a special interface for phones that works perfectly on PocketPC and Smartphone devices like my BlackJack, and since it can output to Flash formats, you can use it on your Wii AND PS3! They also throw in the ability to stream natively through an XBox 360 on your local network (just for kicks I guess). I’ve tried the Wii and 360 customizability, and it does work nicely.

The only bug I have right now is that it’s not putting M4A (iTunes AAC Format) songs into my Library, but I can still access them and listen to them by browsing the files.

I have yet to try a lot of what this program can do … TV tuning ala Slingbox, DVR style recording, and audio recording and accessing Internet Radio feeds, but so far, I am really really happy with it, if for nothing else, because I now no longer need to “pre-load” music onto my Blackjack. I just get it wherever I need it!

Now there have been some other options out there … Lifehacker has an article on using a web server program named Jinzora, and ArsTechnica has a feature on MediaMaster and MP3Tunes, a couple of very nice hosted media solutions, and how they work. It’s also worth noting that the article that turned me onto Orb was on Lifehacker here, and offers some of the other options mentioned here too. It’s well featured and talks about lots of choices. Well worth your reading, and not hard to set up this stuff … why not have your music wherever you want it!

Check out the links for adding content without iTunes, fixing a non-bootable iPod, copying DVD’s to your iPod (or TV Shows), two nice bits of access and encoding software (one for Mac, one for PC), and an easy way to wrap the headphones (I need this).

All good links, an excellent site all around.

I am seriously thinking about trying out some of the online spreadsheets soon for an upcoming tournament, as I think they can do just as good of a job as Excel can, and can be web browser compatible too. Both Zoho and Writely (and Google Spreadsheets, which I now seem to have access to) can do those basic tasks for me now, provided I do back them up every now and then, because as great as the web is, having something on YOUR disk and not theirs is nice too.

But I digress … the full web suite is truly the next step. There’s four such groups of apps that I’ve seen be thrown out there: Glide Effortless, Goowy, YouOS, and DesktopTwo. All four should work in Firefox or IE, and I’ve played with them all. While I’m undecided on whether or not they will take over my standard desktop usages, they all do offer a nice set of applications built in (one of them even has OpenOffice in its full form through Java, nice touch!) that will allow for productivity anywhere … although maybe not on my iBook G3. Since they’re all heavy on Flash and Java, my older G3 will choke on these badly.

Sign up for these, and let me know if you do, I’m all for trying out some of the collaboration pieces of these apps. (Links are forthcoming. In the meantime, read this article from CNet)

As a follow up, my Anchordesk e-mail had more on cool Web 2.0 tools today, so this may be worth checking out too! LINK

My favorite utility for making small private VPN’s that will stretch through anything just got bought out by the company that brings you logmein.com. Nothing against their new owner, but nothing on this new site is free, thus the fear that soon, there won’t be a basic free version of Hamachi either (the program does have a premium subscription model, but but people who don’t need more then 16 people per network, free is just fine). So far, the forum chatter suggests little will change, but who knows.

Should this awesome program die, I will be more then happy to help everyone find a new cool program ASAP!

The first commenter did point out that there is LogMeIn Free. I must have just missed this (or more likely, saw the registration and Flash Demo of it and thought all that was free was the demo, which wasn’t right). I’ll have to give this a shot and review it here soon. 

Enter, the world of Internet Calling.

My Skype Credit the other day, which magically went from $10 to $50 due to some fortuitous offers, and I used it for like 50 cents of phone calls back when I thought it would work well as a cell phone alternative to call Danielle. I got an e-mail saying that the credit was close to expiration recently, so instead of letting it go to waste, I decided instead to use it to buy SkypeIn for the next year! This means, I have a 614 phone number for both in and out calls for the next year, which is great now that I am living in Columbus. And renewing it next year is $40 for the entire year, and hopefully US calls will remain free, or pretty close to it.

This brings up another possible problem. What’s the best way to make calls? While I knew I could use a headset of some kind, the solution didn’t seem like the best for me, especially for taking the headset with me on the road. So, I went looking for a good cheap USB phone, and I found one. The US Robotics 9601A Internet Phone. For $30, it looked far nicer then the model $5 cheaper at Wal-Mart, and when I got it home, I found it had OSX compatibility too, a major plus.

So now, when I use Skype, I just put this phone in my bag, and I can use my work PC, or my home PC, or my iBook Laptop to make phone calls with a phone that feels real. And, I’m working on getting it setup in Yahoo! Messenger, AIM Triton, and any other utility that I feel would be helpful for keeping in touch with people (Gizmo Project maybe?) I’m open to suggestions for the programs that people are using for this purpose right now.

The other thing that I’m posting this for is that I want to find friends to test this with. Text chat is nice, but darnit, now I can do real voice chat, so send me a message and let me know if you have a headset or phone and want to try this cool feature.

Why not a cable that links 2 iPod’s together!

Why would you want this? Well, you could use it to transfer files from one iPod user to another. NOT music (although I’m sure someone would hack it), but instead the general files that you place on one like a disk drive, contacts, maybe even things known to be free like podcasts. It would certainly be cool if I could give someone who never knew about Game Junkie a copy of their podcast as proof of the things they do.

That’s the main thing I could see being cool. I can also see why most companies would shy away from such a thing … piracy concerns mostly. But, like any product of this type, while you can think up many unauthorized uses, there are just as many good legitimate uses of being able to transfer back and forth from large hard drives on the go.

The cable problem? Simple … I’ve never seen a cable with a dock connector on either side of it.

Thoughts? Ideas? Am I nuts or would this actually be cool?

Best purchase I’ve made in a long time!! Even though I’ve used it for maybe 3-4 hours so far, and I’ve only been catching up on the GJ Podcasts (yes, I still haven’t listened to the podcast I helped create, I admit it!), it’s definitely a quality piece of hardware. I also bought a silicon jacket for the system that came with a screen protector, which unlike the DS and PSP varieties, I actually got onto the system without bubbles, so I have some confort now of keeping my iPod in a shirt pocket and knowing it will come out of it in one piece.

Came with space for an armband too. I’ll test that tonight as I’m going to the health club (yeah, I’m gonna try and start working out regularly. More on that soon!)