I am officially an Amazon groupie!

I'm a pretty cheap date. Nachos and merlot, or some slick internet services that support linux, and I'm yours. Google kicked things off a couple of years ago with stuff like Google Earth and Picasa, all of which are cross-platform and run precisely as intended on my linux PC's. Google's online offerings like GMail, Google Chat, Google Docs, and YouTube are also deliciously O/S agnostic. In the span of about a year, linux users like me went from the back to the internet bus to the comfy "old people" seats up front! Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, Amazon drops in out of nowhere with a linux-supported MP3 store. And even better, it's DRM-free! Crazy, right? Now I can cozy right up next to iPod-owners so they can truly savor my cheaper, higher-quality, DRM-free MP3's from Amazon, on my cheaper, higher-quality no-name MP3 player.

And the Amazon just keeps on giving! Although I'm late to this party (hey, if it's new to me, it's new) by about four months, the Amazon S3 online storage service has been rated "The Bee's Knees" by the vast majority of the progressive linux community. Others have referred to it as the slightly less prestigious "Cat's Pajama's", although we're splitting hairs at that point. (Give me a break. I live in Wisconsin. I listen to this crap all day.) To be precise, Amazon provides the storage, but the real magic comes from the 3rd party interface. In this case, I'm referring to JungleDisk, my cross-platform interface of choice. Here's a quick blurb from their site:

"Jungle Disk is an application that lets you store files and backup data securely to Amazon.com's S3 ™ Storage Service.

* Store an unlimited amount of data for only 15¢ per gigabyte
* No monthly subscription fee, no startup fee, no commitment
* Your data is fully encrypted at all times
* Data is stored at multiple Amazon.com datacenters around the country for high availability
* Access files directly from Windows Explorer, Mac OSX Finder, and Linux
* Automatically backup your important files quickly and easily

Unlike other services, with Amazon S3 ™ there is no minimum and no maximum amount of data you can store. You pay only for the actual amount of storage you are using."

Seriously, this is the first time I have ever really looked at an online storage option. But now it's too cheap and too convenient NOT to use. For a few bucks, I can put my files in the cloud, and download or stream them whenever I want. Has anyone out there used this? How's the service? Good, bad or meh? I will soon try it and blog about my experience...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little about me...

So, for any new readers that I gain via G+ or wherever, here's a quick FAQ about me. 1. Where are you located and what do you do for a living ? - I'm Atlanta-based and I work in the consumer electronics industry (go figure).  I know that anyone who is anyone who blogs about tech needs to live in San Fran or NY, but I figure now is a great time to start bucking that trend.  Atlanta is a huge and growing city, all the major tech players have a presence here, tech startups are everywhere, we have 4G LTE coverage from all the carriers, the food is good and the cost of living is cheap.  You do the math. 2. Why are you blogging about "underground" tech? - Because there's a gap in the tech media right now.  Every other blog is talking about Apple this, or Samsung that.  They are reviewing the latest iteration of five-inch black slab of plastic after five-inch black slab of plastic.  But very FEW blogs are talking about cord-cutting and how the various programs, prot
Read more

Social media madness

Image
I hate Facebook.  I should just be upfront about that.  Back in 2007 I thought it was the coolest thing since Star Trek, but now I loathe everything about it.  From its ever changing privacy policies to how it actually shares data with your "friends" and friends of your friends, its a continuous source of irritation to me. Especially because I can't avoid using it!  My family and close friends are on it. My work peers are on it.  And if you ever meet anyone new, the first thing they want to do is Facebook you.  Nevermind that its only full of lolcats , internet memes, and people's TMI .  It's the juggernaut of social media, and if you want to have a presence online, you gotta be on Facebook. I thought Google+ would supplant Facebook at some point, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon.  Facebook has mastered one half of the law of social media inertia.  In short, once most regular folk are "at rest" on a social media property, they tend
Read more

2017 Guide to Cord-Cutting - Episode 1: The "Free" content

As a TV cord-cutter, I have gone mostly legit.  One of my G+ buddies Keith Wilson , posted an article recently showing the drastic reduction in bittorrent traffic over the course of a decade.  His question was, what happened to all the pirates???  I have never believed that content piracy was about a lifestyle or philosophy.  It's always been about ease of content acquisition.  The classic example is pre-2000 Napster vs post-2010 Spotify.  At it's peak, OG Napster was king of the pirate apps and there were virtually no legal alternatives.  Today, pirating albums is trivially easy, but the vast majority of music consumers buy from iTunes or stream from Spotify.  Why?  Because the legal options are abundant and pervasive.  Spotify works on my phone, car, home and work with zero friction and benefits like social sharing features, playlists and such. It's taken a while, but TV has reached a similar nexus.  Barely five years ago, cord-cutting was synonymous with piracy.  One of
Read more