These days, I’m using several websites where I can safely store my private documents, share some photos with my family, send some videos to friends, or even send and receive email with my favorite email (Mail.app) client without having to deal with POP, and recently to organize myself with a calendar.
I chose FastMail.FM for my emails, because of the effectiveness of their UI. Then it was Box.Net to manage and share my files and Google Calendar to help me with my daily tasks.
FastMail is simply great. I took the Enhanced Package (about 40$/year) and now I get 2Gb of space to send and receive my emails. The main reason that made me leave the free-webmails’ clan is that I needed a reliable host (I need to access my mails whenever I want to) that provides IMAP with no taglines (adverstising) attached to emails when using the web interface. Believe me, you won’t find a free webmail with more than 150Mb providing both free IMAP and no ads to bother you (see this post). FastMail also provides many original options : you can park your domain name to receive your mail directly on your FastMail box (that’s what I’m currently doing, mail sent to user@samikhandali.com goes to FastMail), you can set up forwarding rules and you can even modify your sieve script to handle your mails in a powerful way.
If you don’t want to pay, you can signup for a free account : you’ll get 10Mb space (which is pretty enough if you store your files and attachements you receive in another place) with an IMAP Access (no SMTP although) and with a banner-ad when you login to the web interface. It’s still better than HotMail if you absolutely need IMAP (IMAP allows you to read your mails with an email client in several computers, all changes that you’ve made on the web interface will be applied in your email client), a very useful feature when you need to check your email from several places (at home, at work, when you’re in holiday …).
However, since I wanted to share files and store them on the web, I discovered that FastMail was not the ideal solution. FastMail gives you 1Gb of space (with the enhanced version) that comes with an FTP and WebDAV access (they’re both secured with SSL). But you can’t upload more than 50Mb at once (max file size is 50mb), that same 50Mb limit I found on the new SkyDrive (Microsoft) which offer you (only) 500Mb of web space for free … And there is lots of competition in this domain, according to Richard McManus, so I decided to look at other file hosting/sharing solutions.
A first look at the Box.Net interface shows us a lot about the work that have been done behind the scenes. And as opposed to FastMail, Box.Net has a VERY beautiful interface (i’m not saying that FastMail should change their very fast interface, no hell …). The web application itself is designed into a blue and very soft box. I tested the service from Europe (france), North America (canada) and Africa (morocco), and it has always been very speedy (i mean both downloads and uploads were very fast). Now, let’s see what we can do with that piece of software …
First thing you should now, Box.Net offers free 1Gb accounts with some horrible limitations (10Mb max file size + a 468×60 google ad shown to the people that will download your file + no direct file links). I have a Premium Account (5Gb of space and not bothered with any of these cons, about 80$/year) so I’ll normally talk about all the features that it provides (even the non-free ones). First of all, and that’s what made me choose Box.Net instead of Omnidrive, the live search feature is wonderful. It’s similar to the Spot Light feature you can see on MAC OSx or on the new Ipod Nano (2nd generations): the results appears when you type the first 3 letters and will be filtered as long as you’re adding letters (i know it’s pretty hard to explain, test it yourself). Another thing that worths a glance : the 3 way upload feature. Obviously, you can choose between : a) normally upload your files and select each one and upload it, b) use the Mounted on MAC OSflash 8 upload plugin that enable you to upload several files at once, c) use the Java applet to drag and drop your files into a windows ans see a detailled progression of your uploads. You can also use WebDAV (host=http://box.net/dav/) to mount your Box.Net account as a disk and then upload/download your files to/from it.
Let’s see how Box.Net deals with sharing. On the web interface, next to each folder or file icon you have a little arrow that appears whenHow to share you crossover it : a menu appears when you click on it. You can then easily publicly share a file, just click “Get a Web Link”. You’ll have a password-protection feature (if you chose to pay for the service) that is very useful for me, a public link [that points to a Box.net page where you or your friends will download the folder or the file] and a direct link if you selected a file (you need a premium account for that). All that is generated in less than a second. Ah, and when you share a folder, you’re also provided with an RSS link (even with the free version), neat gift from the team. You can edit your Word and Excel documents online (they use Zoho Editor), and last but not least, Box.net gives you a widget to share your files on your website - just see the example below and enjoy. The widget (which can plays pictures, musics and videos) is also available on the free version.
Box.net allow you to view your files on your mobile (m.box.net), on your iPhone (i.box.net) and using a NetVibes widget. There is also a workgroup feature with paid accounts so you can work with a group (each member will have a user and password to access a directory you chose, very useful). After all that, I needed a way to manage my tasks (when I’m on holiday for example or in week-ends) and to be warned, on my mobile phone and on my ipod, when I have a task to do.
I won’t write up that much on it, but I will try to present its main features. First, with Google Calendar, if you go to the Settings, you can add your mobile phone and be warned (10 mins before a task for example) that you have something to do by sending you an SMS message, wherever you are (it works even in Morocco …). And the best of all is that it’s free. Yes, I didn’t need to pay for it (phew). Always on the settings tab, I generated a private ICAL compatible link I put on iCal (iCal is the calendar manager installed on MAC OS Tiger) so that way my iPod is kept synced with the Google Calendar (iTunes automatically syncs the iPod calendar and iCal whenever I put the USB cable).
The only inconvenient is that I need to be always connected to the internet, because I need to do all my modifications online, using Google Calendar and not iCal because the syncing is not installed on both ways (data is not sent from iCal to Google but just from Google to iCal) … Did’nt find better.
These was the 3 webapps I am using, and I hope you liked them.Special thanks to Robert Mueller from FastMail.FM, to Dylan Smith and to Aaron Levie from Box.net.