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Accessing OpenStack, RackSpace, Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox + more using Storage Made Easy and Transmit for Mac

If you have come across this post whilst researching how to access other storage clouds from Transmit then have a look at our Getting Started Guide to show you how you can register for a free account and get on with mapping your chosen Storage Cloud to the SME Cloud Gateway. When you are ready you can register for a free account here.

As many of you who use it know, CloudDav, from SME adds a WebDav layer over any Cloud, even if the underlying clouds do not support WebDav. SME does no however allow the native Mac WebDav client to connect direct because the performance of the native Mac WebDav client is notoriously abysmal for those with large amounts of files.

You can however choose to use other Mac clients to connect to the Cloud Providers that you have mapped to the SME Gateway. We highlighted Forklift as such a client in a prior post, and you can also choose to use Transmit from Panic.

Once you have CloudDav enabled you can choose to access your clouds, mapped via the SME Gateway, through Transmit. First choose to connect over WebDav as in the screenshot below:

Transmit DropBox

You can then choose to connect directly inside of Transmit or as a Virtual Drive that will appear in Finder.

Transmit  also has a very nice sync feature that will sync between folder structures. In this way you can sync files with Transmit and SME from different Cloud Storage Providers to your desktop.

Initial view before Sync

The Sync screen after choosing Sync

The Sync Simulation

SME CloudDav is available with every account, even free accounts, although on free accounts it is restricted to 150MB of use per month. The CloudDav protocol Adaptor is just one of the protocol adaptors that SME provides, the others being FTP, SFTP and a compatible S3 API. All protocol adaptors are available in the Storage Made Easy Enterprise edition as part of the Cloud Gateway which the SME Enterprise File Share and Sync is built upon.

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Version 2.11 of iSMECloud File Manager for iPad and iPhone now in App Store

The latest version of the iSMEStorage Cloud File Manager for iPhone / iPad is now in the App Store. There are a host of new features including a re-designed workflow for easier Cloud Files (and local flies) interactions, a new PDF component that supports large PDF files, and support for OpenStack and Google Sites Clouds.

The below presentation showcases the Cloud File Manager for the iPad:

iSMEStorage for iPad: Cloud File Manager

View more presentations from SMEStorage

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Windows Mobile 7 Support – Progress

Support for Windows Mobile 7 has always been on our RoadMap. We view it as a strategic handset client, and we’re happy to say that the App is close to being completed. The screenshots below give an idea of how it will finally look:

We hope to have an App in the Windows Marketplace by the beginning of July.

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Android SMECloud File Manager update to version 2.1

We’ve updated our Android App to version 2.1 The 2.1 update is a substantial update that beefs up the features for local transfer of files from PC’s and laptops. Now users can transfer files directly from their PC over WiFi using FTP clients or a browser. This makes very easy to take files with you that you have stored locally.

The update also adds a scheduler for automation of the synchronisation of files to/from the device and one or more storage clouds. This was a must requested feature from users so we’ve managed to get it into this build.


The third major part of the update is better integration with the Android Operating System so that all upload, download, and file event notifications are visible in the Android notification taskbar.

The tighter integration with the Android OS means that you can now take advantage of SMEStorage Cloud File Manager from many other applications. This is one of the particular strengths of the Android, as is the great notification features, and we are pleased to now be taking fill advantage of these.

This tighter integration means that all downloads and uploads are now processes as tasks that show up in the Android notification bar and the users do not need to stay in the Application for the uploads or downloads to complete

SMEStorage is available from the Google Android Marketplace at:

https://market.android.com/details?id=ta.smestorageg

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Mac Cloud Tools released !

We are really please to announce that we have released the first version of our Mac Cloud Tools.

The cloud tools encompass:

– A virtual Cloud Drive that works within Finder

– A Desktop to Cloud folder sync utility

– Cloud Files integrated into Spotlight indexing

Unlike other silo’d storage provider SMEStorage works as an abstraction layer above over 15 storage clouds and enables users to access and manage files from all the major storage vendors.

The Cloud Tools really bring the Cloud into the Mac desktop enabling users to witch storage cloud providers by simply changing directory, and editing files becomes as easy as double clicking on the file in question from within the Cloud Drive and saving when done. We’ve also integrated file actions into the Mac Finder on right click so that, amongst other things, you can easily get a URL of a file to share, or generate an email with a file link for example.

Our desktop to folder synchronisation tools makes it easy to keep files from different clouds in sync with different desktop folders. Just drop your files into the folder and the sync tool will pick up and ensure they end up on the relevant Cloud.

Lastly, we’ve integrated spotlight to work with all the Clouds mapped to a SMEStorage Account so that when Spotlight indexes the Cloud files are also searched

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How make your Cloud Data public but still keep it private

Being able to share data publicly via a website is very attractive for lots of different reasons, especially when you want to give the widest possible reach to your data, from an internet search perspective.

However, there are times that you wish the data to be visible, but also be able to control who has access to it. We had a good example of this recently from an educational establishment who uses SMEStorage with their own FTP Server to make available course content publicly to remote learning students. They wanted the course data and titles of files to be available and entered into search engines to attract future  students, but they also wanted to be able to control access to the data so that only students who were enrolled on the course could download the content.

One of the features of the SMEStorage cloud Gateway is that it enables you to work with your cloud data but overlays certain features and functions that you may not get from your provider. One of these is encryption. If you upload your data to your storage cloud via SMEStorage then you can choose to add an encryption key which then encrypts the data with an AES encryption cipher (key) that you choose and which only you know. This is the key private key you then need to share with anyone who wants access to the files.

Lets look at the steps of this in practice:

1. Upload your data to your cloud via SMEStorage and choose to encrypt it. The key is not stored on the platform and is known only by you.

2. When the file is stored you will notice that in the Web File Manager it has a key next to it that notifies you it is encrypted.

3. If you now set this file to be public in the File Manager then it is stored in your public files page which is of the format http://www.storagemadeeasy.com/username/files.

4. If a user then clicks on the file that you made public but which you also encrypted then they will be asked to enter the encryption key before they can download the file.

This works above all file storage clouds that SMEStorage supports, such as Google Docs, SkyDrive, DropBox, Amazon S3 etc. It is a great way to be able to limit access to files but still make them available.

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Multi Cloud Open Office and MS Word Plug-In Updated

We’ve updated both our OpenOffice and Microsoft Office Toolbar plug-In’s. Both Plug-In’s enable you to create, edit and save documents from any of over 15 storage clouds, including Google Docs, Microsoft SkyDrive, DropBox, MobileMe and more.

As well as bringing the plug-in’s up-to-date with all the current supported clouds, one of the major feature changes was to enable documents to be saved back to the same directory structure when saving back to the Cloud. So if you are editing a document and you save it, then save it again later. The Cloud Save icon will automatically take you back to the correct directory for the save, rather than having to find it yourself.

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iSMEStorage 2.0 is released

iSMEStorage 2.0 is now in the App Store. It has a ton of new features, which you can refer to from our prior post. There is unfortunately a bug that was picked up on release when using the folder actions when in the Cloud Files view which crashes the App. We’ve already issued a 2.01 release fix for this and this should be in the App Store around about the 5th November if Apple keep to their normal weeks approval timeline.

In the meantime we put together a short slide set so you can have a quick browse of the features in the 2.0 release:

iSMEStorage 2.0 multi cloud and local file manager for iPad & iPhone

View more presentations from SMEStorage.

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Edit your Google Docs, SkyDrive, S3 or DropBox files using iWork and CloudDav !

Apple recently updated iWork to support WebDav, which is great news if you are a SMEStorage user because it means that you can edit your Storage Cloud files even if the underlying storage clouds does not support WebDav as is the case for DropBox, Amazon S3, Microsoft SkyDrive, and DropBox.

CloudDav is our implementation of WebDav that overlays all the storage clouds we support, whether the underlying storage cloud supports it or not. This is another value add of our Cloud Gateway appliance which tries to fill the holes left in some of the silod storage clouds and lets you get access to your files the way you want rather than the way that is prescribed.

CloudDav is a $5  paid add-on but it is available to any user, free or paying. You can choose to purchase it from the sidebar after login.

If you intend to be a new (or are an existing) iSMEStorage user, send us a screenshot of the login screen with your username and we’ll enable CloudDav for you for free ! (available until the end of 2010).

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Using SME with Zimbra Briefcase on the Android Phone

We’ve put together a short video showing how you can use the SMEStorage Android Application to work with your Zimbra Briefcase files on the move. This is just one mobile client, you can of course choose to use the iPad/iPhone or BlackBerry Client to achieve the same thing. You can also choose to use other clouds that we support either on their own or in conjunction with Zimbra briefcase depending on your package options.

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