

Zumodrive Takes Cloud Storage And Syncing Up A Notch (YC S07) - drm237
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/16/zumodrive-takes-cloud-storage-and-syncing-up-a-notch/

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1gor
Can anyone enlighten me what's the difference between Zumodrive and
JungleDisk? I've been using the later for a year. It creates a 'limitless'
network drive on my MacBook with 1GB local cache (size can be increased),
while synching with my Amazon S3 account in the background is almost not
noticeable.

And by the way, JungleDisk simply passes Amazon S3 bandwidth/storage charges
to me, no caps there; I can bypass it to access my data on S3 buckets; it is
available for win/linux/mac etc.

~~~
jncraton
I think that JungleDisk would be much harder for an average user to install. I
haven't used it, but I did just install Zumodrive. I think that linking up
with an s3 account is something that an average end user would rather not have
to worry about.

~~~
NyxWulf
I'm a Jungle Drive user, and while I don't pretend to be an "average" user, it
was very easy to install. I'm not sure if setting up an Amazon S3 account and
then putting the key into Jungle Drive would be too technical for the average
user, maybe it would. Overall I've been very happy with Jungle Drive so far,
and the $20 one time charge is pretty nice, particularly since I can use that
on as many machines as I want with one Amazon account.

How does that compare with ZumoDrive?

\--Disclosure - not currently a user of ZumoDrive

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old-gregg
I'm not sure why I'm so eager to post something sarcastic, possibly including
words like "sshfs" and "already" mixed up with nasty stuff like "many years
ago".

Am I a bad person or what?

P.S. And seeing another person asking for "linux support" doesn't help me to
fight my sarcasm.

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mechanical_fish
The technology is rarely the big problem. The big problem is getting the
client to stop calling you multiple times per week.

"How did you set up that sshfs thing again? I lost the FAQ you sent me."

"I was following your FAQ, but I did something wrong and now I can't find my
files."

"I love that sshfs thing you set up for me; can you set it up for my ten
friends? I'll pay you five bucks!"

I haven't used this new thing, but I do use Dropbox, which solves these
problems by being gloriously boring. You set it up in less than one minute,
with no docs required, and then it just sits there, working.

~~~
bdotdub
Yeah, for us, sshfs, or even rsync is great for our uses. But what about the
regular people who wanted online backup and sync across multiple devices?

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RK
Having already, accidentally overwhelmed my netbook's drive while using
Dropbox, this does look interesting. My suggestion for Dropbox was the ability
to designate some machines/directories as online only.

Unfortunately, Zumodrive doesn't have have Linux support right now...

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jonas_b
I'm not sure what's with the people in here. Here comes a few guys, and
invites you to try on a really smooth service for free (just tried it on my
Mac, browsing the pictures with Cover-Flow; really slick) and all I hear is
people complaining.

Come on, what more can you ask for?

Really great job guys, I think I'll be using Zumo a lot.

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Tichy
This could at last be an easy way to play Spaceward Ho! over the internet (the
PC version). It "networks" via the file system, but didn't work with the
WebDAV drives...

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nuclear_eclipse
No support for Linux? :(

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dhughes
Dropbox is Linux friendly ;)

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dhughes
Actually I retract that, I'm trying it and it's buggy as hell.

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rscott
I prefer dropbox, more free space.

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zhyder
Where do Zumodrive and Dropbox have their storage cloud? S3 or own boxes in
colo?

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zvikara
Dropbox uses S3.

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gcv
One problem: Java. The installer didn't find Java on one of my Windows
machines, because I have the latest JDK installed in an unusual directory (and
might not have run the official Sun installer, either). Maybe inspect
JAVA_HOME before downloading and installing a whole new JRE, or better yet,
let me specify where to find it?

Two: If you guys want to install MacFUSE, at least warn me. :)

Three: Java UI. I know, I know, I'm sorry for nit-picking, but I prefer native
apps.

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keevon
Thanks, I've filed a bug for the java check. There isn't much we can do about
the Java UI though :)

~~~
durin42
You could do what dropbox did and make a real native UI for each platform.
Honestly, I gave up on Zumodrive in part because I couldn't get your menu icon
to not look selected. It always was highlighted, even before I clicked on it
the first time. Also, the menu behaved in a weird, nonstandard way.

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tdavis
Playing with ZumoDrive and already like it. I think this is going to be HUGE,
provided two things happen:

1\. The clients become less buggy. They have a very alpha/beta feel to them;
Mac client random crashes, can't remove dock icon, etc.

2\. Linux support is added. You know most of those netbooks you speak of are
running linux now, right? ;)

Good luck gentlemen, I will be keeping an eye on this one...

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jrnkntl
So, time for a Hacker News invite code then? :)

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mjr578
Yes please, I didn't get in on the TC invite soon enough :(

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davidz
There's a code for all news.yc readers (good for 200)

newsyc or <http://www.zumodrive.com/invite/newsyc>

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doodyhead
Sorry, ZumoDrive is currently not available for: Ireland

Any plans to internationalize?

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callmeed
So ... I have to be online to listen to my music?

Granted, I'm _usually_ online, but not all the time.

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sidsavara
Ok, maybe I'm a bit biased, but I always vote up TC articles about YC
Companies - good or bad.

~~~
bdotdub
just curious, why is that?

~~~
sidsavara
I see so much other stuff make the front page that I am not interested in, but
I am interested in seeing YC Companies succeed. For better or worse at TC
write up is still probably the best way to reach people who keep up with
startup/entrepreneur/vc news, so when one of them makes it onto TC, I like it
- and I vote them up =)

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dell9000
Anyone else having trouble downloading the iPhone App!?

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davidz
Dell,

We are going to be sending out the iPhone app shortly. This takes a bit of
time unfortunately, but you will hear from us soon.

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dabeeeenster
Wow it's kind of expensive!

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ajkirwin
Gotta love it. "Unlimited storage!", they say. "Access your stuff anywhere!"

Of course, you better not have TOO MUCH STUFF, or you'll run afoul of this
tasty provision.

General Conditions, 8. If your bandwidth usage significantly exceeds the
average bandwidth usage (as determined solely by Company) of other customers
of the Service, we reserve the right to immediately disable your account until
you can reduce your bandwidth consumption.

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davidz
David with ZumoDrive here. I hate bandwidth caps as much as you do. But
without this provision, we won't have a way to stop the guy that's
distributing pirated ISOs via the service. This is really so that we, and
indirectly our users, don't have to continue to pay for that. Other than that,
we have no intention from you using the service, so feel free to stream away
:)

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ajkirwin
So put in some kind of limits. I am EXTREMELY wary of using anything that
doesn't define limits. As I can have the rug pulled out from under me.

~~~
jwilliams
Yeah - I think there is going to be a natural wariness as people get used to
using cloud services. This kind of clause is only going to make people
nervous.

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shergill
Pricing is pretty expensive!

