So, just in case you weren’t aware – Apple and the amazing Steve Jobs, have just announced the new iPad 2. And for those who may not have heard of this….. click on the links to learn more. It’s pretty cool.
As it should happen, I’m in a position right now to spend some money on a new toy.
To be specific, I’ve been torn between a new laptop, a kayak, and an iPad. Of the three my heart was leaning towards the iPad, but it had a major problem (for me) it came with no hard-drive and expandable storage. Now for most people this shouldn’t be an issue. The iPad is really a consumption device more than a “work tool”, but I was feeling claustrophobic thinking about how limited my options might be in future.
A laptop can always be expanded easily just by popping on a USB drive, a Kayak…. well it’s got every river, lake, stream, sea, ocean in the world if I want it. It was just the iPad…. could I “live” with a measly 16 or 32 GB knowing that there would be no way to expand it easily for storage purposes? It has no SD slot, nor no easy USB ports…
I decided to see what was out there that would work for what I wanted ( unlimited storage space. ) I first decided to look at Cloud storage services. This is essentially other companies who offer storage space on the Internet that can be accessed by one or more machines. The data is secured by passwords and or encryption and backed up by the company itself. One of these I’ve talked about previously dropbox.
My problem was that while dropbox is great for temporarily sharing data I found it beyond cumbersome when it came to easy access and in most cases to use the data you had to transfer it all over to the machine you were working on before you could use it. This can be a real drag to a limited machine ( in my opinion).
What I wanted was something that looked and acted like a disk drive to the computer and data could be accessed when wanted, but not necessarily stored permanently within the computer itself… and I found such a beast. It’s called ZumoDrive and it works really well with Windows, Mac’s, iPhones, iPads AND Ubuntu! It sounded like a match in heaven…. Watch the video to find out more…
After installing it on 2 windows machines and 2 Ubuntu machines I am able to access any data within the ZumoDrive on any machine and it really does act and work like a normal disk drive! Problem solved!
So now I’ve decided an iPad2…. unfortunately I have to wait until the end of the month to order one (I’m not in the US. ) I just have to try and not buy any other toys until then…. By the way if you like what you see you can sign up for up to 2GB of free storage to check it out, and if you use this link here, and I’ll give you a little a bit more -> Click Here
Well that’s not quite the end of it…. by complete serendipity, I was given another solution by a friend of mine, which will work quite well for sharing media ( like songs, pictures, movies, etc). It’s called AirStash. This is another cool device that goes on my “want” list… The neat thing about this device is that it actually acts like a networked drive using your WiFi connection and SD Cards but you aren’t dependent on the Internet. Some examples on the website show using it in the car while traveling. This video will give you more info on it – the only thing that doesn’t seem clear is whether it can be accessed by other operating systems….. still it’s on my want list for my iPad ….
No deals available that I could find but I’ll let you know if I find one!
So check both of these solutions out! I think you’ll be impressed
Please Add Your Comment. PLEASE NOTE: Your comments WILL be held until authorized by the webmaster.