Tuesday, April 4, 2006
Network Folder Instead of a Memory Card?
Posted by Raphael Salgado in "THOUGHT" @ 02:00 PM
You might recall a few years back, a small company called Network Virtual File Systems came up with a rather ingenius product called Pocket PCDrive that created a "virtual" Storage Card on your Pocket PC device using a network, internet, or ActiveSync connection to a host desktop PC. Invisible to nearly all applications, you could read and write to this network-based file store as if it was a physical card in your device. Though the program was a bit tempermental, I believe the idea had a lot of merit.
Fast forward about four years. Though the company, its website, and its product have long since vanished, today's high-speed Wi-Fi, EDGE, EV-DO, and UMTS/HSDPA make it much easier and quicker to access files across the internet. Though the native File Explorer application and a few other programs such as z2 PocketLAN make network file access possible, perhaps an easy-to-use program like Pocket PCDrive needs to be recreated for today's devices? My Verizon XV6700 (HTC Apache) is a great Pocket PC, but like a few other devices, it occasionally suffers from the "Dark Screen of Death" (DSOD) syndrome which has been diagnosed by end-users as being an issue with the miniSD slot and standby mode (surprisingly, the engineers have not been able to duplicate the issue). Other device owners have lost their Pocket PCs with their accompanying memory card - and that card's data is usually not protected or encrypted by any means, making the the data more valuable and vulnerable than the device itself.
Could you benefit from a "virtual storage card" where your data is safe and sound at home or work, and your device being less prone to crashing (if applicable) and using less battery power in the long run? Would you think a program like Pocket PCDrive would be worth it when you don't have to spend for expensive little memory cards (not to mention having to go from SD to mini-SD to micro-SD), inadvertently ejecting from its slot and getting lost in the wild, or its data getting corrupted by some unforseen force? Do you think a network/internet-based file store is a good idea? How do you maintain your precious data and protect it from the evil forces of the world? :devilboy:
Fast forward about four years. Though the company, its website, and its product have long since vanished, today's high-speed Wi-Fi, EDGE, EV-DO, and UMTS/HSDPA make it much easier and quicker to access files across the internet. Though the native File Explorer application and a few other programs such as z2 PocketLAN make network file access possible, perhaps an easy-to-use program like Pocket PCDrive needs to be recreated for today's devices? My Verizon XV6700 (HTC Apache) is a great Pocket PC, but like a few other devices, it occasionally suffers from the "Dark Screen of Death" (DSOD) syndrome which has been diagnosed by end-users as being an issue with the miniSD slot and standby mode (surprisingly, the engineers have not been able to duplicate the issue). Other device owners have lost their Pocket PCs with their accompanying memory card - and that card's data is usually not protected or encrypted by any means, making the the data more valuable and vulnerable than the device itself.
Could you benefit from a "virtual storage card" where your data is safe and sound at home or work, and your device being less prone to crashing (if applicable) and using less battery power in the long run? Would you think a program like Pocket PCDrive would be worth it when you don't have to spend for expensive little memory cards (not to mention having to go from SD to mini-SD to micro-SD), inadvertently ejecting from its slot and getting lost in the wild, or its data getting corrupted by some unforseen force? Do you think a network/internet-based file store is a good idea? How do you maintain your precious data and protect it from the evil forces of the world? :devilboy:
