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Multi-Cloud Storage Firefox Plug-In

The new version of the Firefox uploader for SMEStorage is now available. It has a number of new features, one of which is the support for Multi-Cloud Providers directly within the Plug-In itself. If you have a Lifetime Cloud or Organisation Cloud account, this means that you can change between using 9+ Storage Clouds when uploading files simply at the click of a button.

The number of Clouds that the Plug-In works with is Amazon S3, Mosso Cloud Files, Box.net, MobileMe, WebDav Clouds, Gmail-as-a-Cloud, Email-as-a-Cloud, FTP-as-a-Cloud.

firefox-multi-providers

Other new features include:

Obtaining file url’s from directly within the plug-in, and also sharing files with Twitter from directly within the plug-in (providing you have added your Twitter details to your account).

firefox-twitter-share

The Firefox plug-in also now shows the special folders that can be setup through the website i.e. shared folders (designated by a red square around the folder) and also Organisation Folders if you are using an Organisation Cloud Account.

firefox-special-folders

If you have thousands of files in your storage cloud then you will appreciate ‘Filter’ which allows you to filter the files viewed by either Alphanumeric values, string values or by range.

firefox-filter

Lastly, collaborative business groups can now be viewed and managed with the plug-in:

firefox-_groups

A SMEStorage Account is needed to use the plug-in. The help documentation for the plug in can be found here.

The Firefox Plug-In is another example of what can be achieved with the SMEStorage multi-cloud API.

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Using SME Multi-Cloud Explorer with Ubuntu

One of our users recently pointed out to us how they are using the SMEStorage Multi-Cloud explorer within Ubuntu. The explorer is one component of our windows tooling that is installed. The explorer itself is a dedicated .exe file so that makes it compact an easy to run when using virtualisation libararies such as WINE or Crossover.


Ubuntu provides support for WINE within its additional applications. To intalle support for Wine in Ubuntu you need to add the Wine Package:


wine_ubuntu


Once Wine is added Just double clicking on the explorer file will launch it using the WINE virtualisation.


ubuntu-s3


The Explorer can work with the Following clouds (depending on your package):


– Amazon S3
– Mosso Cloud Files
– MobileME
– Box.net
– WebDav enabled Clouds
– GMail-as-a-Cloud
– Email-as-a-Cloud
– FTP-as-a-Cloud (Private Cloud)


A single version of the explorer without having to install the entire suite on windows to extract it can be downloaded here.

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New Features added to SME

We’ve added some new features to the site. These are:

Favourites: You can now make any file a “favourite file” by clicking on the favourites star.

filemanagerfavs

Once a file is a favourite it is accessible on your desktop from the favourites tab and in your FileManager from the Favourites group.

desktopfavs

You can configure your Favourites tab to open on login from My Account -> Options tab.

We’ve also tweaked the file explorer based on user feedback so that it is larger and has a scrollbar on the directories making it easier to browse and use.

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New version of SME API Manual

We’ve updated our API manual and you can download it from Google Code. It provides a files system on top of one cloud or many.  The SMEStorage API is what is used to build all our client tools. You can use it to access any of the clouds we support (which is pretty much all of them) and you can use it to import/export between different cloud, in real-time or as a scheduled sync. You can use the API to backup email to any cloud, as it has specific functionality for this, or pretty much anything you can think of.

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SME now supports Apple MobileME, iDisk & any WebDav Storage Cloud

We are please to announce support for MobileME, iDisk and any WebDav compliant storage cloud from today. WebDAV is the Distributed Authoring and Versioning extension to the standard HTTP/HTTPS web protocol. It allows a client to browse a remote filesystem, usually with a graphical browser that makes it appear that your files are on your desktop. 

This means that anyone who uses these storage clouds with SMEStorage (and remember this does not stop you using them with your normal clients) will get access to our clients:


Web: Rich File Manager,  features integration with best of breed web 2.0 vendors and collaboration features


Windows: Virtual Drive, Shell Integration, Sync Features, Dedicated Explorer, Integration with MS Office & Open Office


iPhone: Web based iPhone client in which files can be viewed, shared, collaborated on, and also viewed offline


Facebook: Share your files on Facebook with your friends


iGoogle: Access your files directly from your iGoogle Portal Page.

Amongst ther storage vendors apart from Apple that support WebDav are Bingo Disk, FilesAnywhere, iDrive.


You can also create WebDav compliant folders in Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems and webdav can also be used to access email systems like Microsoft Exchange and also intranet systems such as Sharepoint.

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What happens to the data when an online storage site closes?

There was an interesting post on PC World recently that asks the question “What happens to the data when an online storage site closes?”. After all two of the main reasons for offline storage are for backup and for access.
What we are starting to see happen in the world of online storage is consolidation and of course the non sustainability of ‘free’ business models. As the article states, “Online storage services that have announced closings in the past ten months include big names in tech: AOL (Xdrive and AOL Pictures), Hewlett-Packard (Upline), Sony (Image Station), and Yahoo (Briefcase). Plenty of lesser-known online storage firms also have kicked the bucket, including Digital Railroad and Streamload MediaMax, which turned into The Linkup.”

One of the reasons we never used proprietary storage services for SMEStorage is that, ultimately, it is very difficult to keep up with the big guys in terms of price. Just look at Amazon. They are the 1oo pound gorilla of being able to sell at a high volume for low margin.

At SMEStorage we have concentrated on providing interoperability with best-of-breed Storage providers and building value services over and above this. For example things such as clients for different platforms, integrations with the best-of-breed Web 2.0, Desktop and social media tools. Innovations such as Email-backup-to-storage, and the ability to move data about from one storage provider to another. Or even have a real-time Cloud Data Backup which, if the primary provider disappears, will have kept the data in sync and available with a secondary provider. Key to this is that you own your data, not us.

If you are using our free Amazon S3 service we give you 250MB, but even using these you are free at any time to export it to any other provider you want at any time, including our other free services such as email-as-a-cloud or gmail-as-a-cloud, but of course you still own the account and therefore the data.

We believe that the most valuable thing is your data and we will keep doing all we can to help you keep it safe, accessible, and available.

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SME announces the Organisation Cloud File Server

Today we released our Organisational Cloud Package. This is specifically for businesses who want to take advantage of Cloud Storage.  The Organisational Cloud package supports Amazon S3, Mosso Cloud Files, Box.net, Email-as-a-Cloud, Private Cloud, and GMail-as-a-Cloud.

Specific features are:

– Mix and Match Cloud Providers and view all your files from all providers in one File System



– Use one or more Cloud Providers between as many users as you prefer. We offer 5 and 10 user packages but ask us if you want more than this.

– Administrator can invite and manage users, decide which clouds are used, is responsible for public organisation folders, and can monitor logs.

      

– Use your preferred client – Web, Firefox plug-in, Windows Virtual Drive (with explorer, shell and sync tools), iGoogle, iPhone

– Easily Backup or import from different Cloud Providers, which also includes Google Docs and Evernote.

– Integration with Microsoft Office and Open Office

– All Backups can be scheduled to happen in real-time or offline at a specific time each hour,day,week or month.

– Support automated emails backup using POP3 or IMAP with plug-ins available for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express.

– Encrypt your files at any time using SHA-1 secure encryption. Only you have the private key so your files can be absolutely secure.

– Incorporate your own Private Organisation Cloud using a simple FTP Server. This can be used to access files in the virtual file system or even backup from private to public cloud or vice-versa.

– Web platform offers integrations with Zoho Office (create documents directly in the cloud), Evernote, Google Docs, Picnik (inline image editing), ScribD (view PDF’s and other documents), and Twitter (file share using Twitter or be notified of users sharing files with you)

– Rich Collaboration, document workflow and file sharing features.

– Ability to edit HTML, PHP, C++, Ruby, Python, .Net, JavaScript and other languages inline using built in code editor in the web platform.



– Sophisticated Filter mechanisms to deal with large volume of files

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SME: over 10,000 users and 1 million files stored

We’d like to post a quick thank you to the people using SMEStorage. In the last year we have organically grown to over 10,000 users storing over 1 million files along the way. This is a huge achievement and it of course does not count the number of users who are using smestorage but storing their files on Amazon S3 direct, or Gmail, Box.net, Mosso etc.


We have some great new features and channels planned and also will be doing a lot more work on providing better documentation, including soon, the launch of an online Wiki.


Thanks for supporting us and we look forward to growing stronger over the coming year.

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Now create new office documents in the Cloud using the SME Cloud Platfrom

SMEStorage has integrated with Zoho online office for quite a while now to enable you to edit any documents stored in your Cloud providers directly from a web browser. We enhanced this service recently to enable you to save the documents back from Zoho to SMEStorage after you had finished editing.


Users then started to ask us if they could created new documents to edit with Zoho directly from the web browser. Well now you can. You will see a new icon in your File Manager toolbar which allows you to create a new blank document.


FMDocCreate


DocumentCreate

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Host your own public cloud using FTP !

We are happy to announce today that we now support FTP a a provider in our “Private Cloud package”. This means that if you have access to an FTP director or have your own FTP server you can use this as your Cloud Provider within SMEStorage. Once you have done this you can use our website to upload/download files, and also get access to all our integrations such as Zoho Office, iPaper inline PDF viewing, filters, file sharing, business groups / collaboration etc.


You can also use any of our tooling on top of this such as the iPhone web application, Firefox plug-in, iGoogle widget, Facebook widget, and also our windows tooling with virtual drive, and Microsoft and Open Office integration.


It is easy enough to host your own FTP Server and use cheap commodity storage. Also many users have access to FTP sites they do not use through web site or email subscriptions. Now you can turn them into your own premium cloud storage service !


To get started, first sign up for the Private Cloud package, and then enter your FTP details as below:


SMEStorage FTP


Once this has complete you will be asked whether you want to save your information (which is stored encrypted in our Database)


FTPInfo


If you want to use your home FTP Server you will probably need to open the ports on your router. A good site to step you through that is here.

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