So with the death of Windows Live Mesh, a service I use daily to sync my machines with work. I am on the hunt for another solution. More than likely it will be Google Drive or Microsoft Skydrive. But both are technically lacking features that Live Mesh did very well and that is an issue…like P2P syncing above and beyond storage limits.
Then I come across this article – where a private cloud folder had some nude images in it and in turn his entire account was suspended and was never reopened. Thus he lost his entire account and all apps purchased etc…This is a big issue – especially these days with so much riding on each of our cloud accounts. If my Google Account was closed I would be literally screwed… Very worrisome if you are not aware it can even happen.
http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/
This is a very interesting issue for many, but maybe not so many it matters to Microsoft… It just says I will not be using it to backup any of my images…
I guess the rule is – at least for the current moment in Cloud – what we upload is not really ours….
This makes me want to move toward a solution like the Transporter – http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transporterguy/transporter-a-new-way-to-share-access-and-protect
Something I think I will be backing in the next day or two.
I hope these issues eventually get resolved, but I cannot see how in some cases and still allow these big cloud service providers to cover their liability.
I see it as a very interesting issue that can be solved in some cases by multiple backups, or not mixing you most important "work" storage with your "private" storage. It might be the easiest solution to just maintain a firewall between what you store, where and how.
This post has been reshared 2 times on Google+
View this post on Google+
+Tracy Sloan it is – yet it is their cloud.. I just wish they would tell us all this above and beyond the Terms of Service…. the loss potential is so high for some of us I need to know that information up front and not stuffed into page 800 of a TOS
I keep a local backup and a 2TB drive at a friend's house that I swap out as often as I can. Between the sheer volume of space that I'd need, and yeah, not trusting the Cloud with what I consider critical data, it works out much better.
I'd highly recommend Dropbox. It is a cloud storage service in and of itself and it's definitely best in class in terms of syncing, sharing, and ease of use. If that account were to get suspended (which I've never heard of for something as innocuous as a nude image) you'd only lose your storage, not anything else.
+Olav Folland Have you seen the Transporter – local storage that is synced to multiple locations.. it is interesting…
+1 to +Clint Sharp. I just read Dropbox's Terms of Service and Privacy… there isn't anything like that here. The only thing they say you can't do… is use it for illegal stuff… which is obvious.
+Clint Sharp The problem is all of these services have issues.. if i use Office Web Apps I really need to think about Skydrive. If I use Google Docs (and i do) Google Drive is the way to go..
I have used Dropbox.. their policies scare me and they have changed them many times with quite a bit furvor from the community as a whole….
Also there is price.. right now 100gb on Skydrive is 50 bucks a year – Google Drive is about 55 ….
That all said – I need to be able to share out to many users, give each different rights per folder and read write access etc… i also need to be able to somewhat manage bandwidth use…
The really sad part is Windows live mesh also gave us the ability to remote back to home machines.. that is now gone unless we all setup remote desktops and I really do not want to deal with that at this time…
Clearly we will not have one service to rule them all… but we need one…
+Jeremy Davies I guess we need to ask if nudity is illegal.. because depending on where the servers are it might be…
I think we all know all these services are used for illegal file sharing, I just do not want to be blindsided by something that needs to be pointed out right up front..
I guess it back to only sexting and not sharing via cloud services…..
If I read it correctly (and I'm the farthest thing from a lawyer), they only specifically said no illegal pornography. Which I just assumed child porn. But, like you said, I guess it depends on where the servers are. I didn't think about that. I just figured it was the same for their entire service. Not dependent on where their servers operate.
+Brent Burzycki that looks neat, but I'd need a ton of space, or completely reorgainze my filing system. Between Kat and I, we're already using well over 1TB between photos and documents. The seed time alone would be in the weeks.
We could weed it down a lot by just doing off-site backups for the barest of essentials, but the logistics of maintaining a separate set of folders for processed images vs unprocessed images is stupefying :/
+Jeremy Davies I think the companies ability to need to keep within in most cases international laws will continue to give us issues… but honestly I am ok with not putting my porn collection in the cloud… as long as I do not find out by having my account closed and losing all my work services..
Thus i think for at least the near future it is imperative that we separate work and home materials if you have any materials that might be against a TOS.
I would also think – especially with instant upload, auto upload etc.. those taking naughty photos and auto saving them to the cloud so they are backed up better think again on how they use their camera phones…
Just something to be aware of more than anything… trying to get the word out so people understand their cloud life they think might be private is not really private..
Google is not free of this – if you read the TOS here it is the same.. even on private files…
I think most companies look the other way till there is an issue… where as microsoft might be running nudity filter of some kind on all uploaded files…. before issues are reported…. that is technically to most an invasion of privacy.. but I think most need to better understand that rented space is no different than your landlord showing up and checking out your rented house…
+Olav Folland oh I know… I have reuploaded to so many services in the past year I am sure i am on comcasts mega user list….
I have 100tb offsite already… it took 2 weeks of straight uploading….
And yes reorg is needed….. I am doing that today for my work files.. for now moving to Google Drive and try it there and see…
Also we all deal with the nightmare of Lightroom or libraries that cannot be synced without breaking them etc….
How normal everyday people do not break their stuff daily is amazing to me… most of my friends have no idea how to use any of these services or the issues related around them…
I've avoided libraries just for that – I use Bridge and PS so it hasn't been that big a deal there – I have a central server in the house that my photos are kept on once I've done PP on a folder. And I move the files back if I'm doing a lot of edits in a folder later just because of the network lag. It's inefficient, but it hasn't failed me.
I've thought about doing an overall reorg anyway, and trimming some of the folders down a bit, but that's going to take months just because of the sheer number of files.
Most people don't have anything complicated – a couple of folders with documents, and a bunch of jpegs of their kids. There's not much to break.
+Olav Folland Even on my NAS – I get a ton of lag… it is really annoying most of the time and honestly when i went to CS6 it is even slower…
I've got CS5.5 and just browsing on the network is a bother – even if I'm using a hard wired connection. Wireless is even worse. The pre-fetch in Bridge is pretty network intensive and it seems like it's trying to constantly update even though nothing has changed.
+Olav Folland Yep i have not been happy with speed in CS6 – or LR for that matter… even when the files are local…
Well that's good to know 😛
Maybe it's time to do a dual-boot and load darktable http://www.darktable.org/ Unfortunately there isn't a Windows distro 😛
+Olav Folland I have pretty much given up and just drink more while it loads…
+Scott Bourne wait.. you only have 124,197 reasons..
I hear you… the transporter is very interesting tech thou… just how we use each device or service has now become so much more important…
I use dropbox.