Do you need move files from computer to computer? How about backing files up? Don’t we all. That’s why USB flash drives have become so popular. However, if you give presentations at your school or business you never know when you’ll run into a Windows 98 machine; rendering your flash drive useless. Or, what if there’s a fire at your house and all physical backups are lost. That’s why there are services like Box.net, which allow you to store your files offsite.
Online storage services have been around since the dot-com boom, however they have always just plain stunk. Uploading files was a pain, sharing your files required you to jump through hoops, or your account would be severely limited in storage. The new rereleased Box.net makes an attempt at excelling where other services have failed, the whole user experience.
To improve upon the whole crappy online storage problem, the new Box.net has jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. It has everything you’d expect from a Web 2.0 service. It has AJAX, tags, RSS feeds, Flash, and a beautiful interface. And, unlike other Web 2.0 services who add these features just because they can, Box.net makes perfect use out of each and everyone of them.
The Interface
The interface is what makes Box.net unique. Just look at it, it’s beautiful. The best part is, everything makes use of AJAX. Once you enter the website, you don’t have to refresh at all. You can pick up files and drag them around, and you can hide elements of the sidebar; everything you see is interactive.
Don’t think this interface is just for show; it’s perfectly functional also. Clicking the down arrow on any file will popup a menu allowing you to perform tasks, such as renaming or tagging. You can even switch between multiple views, allowing you to pick the view best suited for the types of files contained in the folder. For example, a folder containing images can be displayed with thumbnails, while a folder with documents would work better as a list.
The new tagging features of Box.net is a welcome addition to an online storage service, because it makes finding files so much easier. Let’s say I have two folders, which both contain school documents. One is named English while the one Calculus. I can tag the files all with the school tag, allowing me to quickly use the tag sidebar box to find all my school documents.
Forget to tag your files or just plain don’t know where you put them? Box.net has a live-search feature, which can be found in the upper left corner of the interface. As you type away in the box, your main file display window changes with the search results. Nice and easy, just how I like it. Oh, and did I mention it’s fast? Box.net’s live-search is just as fast as software based solutions like Apple’s Spotlight and Google’s Desktop.
Uploading
The biggest pain of previous services was getting your files onto them. Thankfully, this is not a problem with Box.net. Uploading is done through the AJAX interface, so you won’t have to go through ten pages until your files are uploaded. What’s also nice is you have two methods. You can upload by browsing for your files with your OS’s open interface, or you can use a Java applet which creates a drag and drop window. The drag and drop method is nice because you don’t have to hunt through folders on your system to find what you want to upload. You can just drag it from its current location into the window and Box.net handles the rest.
Both methods allow for easy uploading of multiple files. For the OS open method, you can select multiple files from within the open window. This is a lot better than some services which require you to click on multiple open boxes until all your files are in the queue. The drag and drop method works just as you’d expect. Drag a whole folder to the box, and all the files will upload. It’s that easy.
Downloading
When the time comes to take those files from the server, it’s a breeze just like uploading. You can click the arrow on any file in your Box.net account and select download. Your computer takes it from there. You can also click the ZIP Folder option in the sidebar. This will zip up all the files currently in view and start downloading them. Tags, folders, even your home directory can all be downloaded in a ZIP file in one click. Very handy.
Wait, you might not want to download the files. Why? Box.net has several easy ways to view your files while it’s on their service. For your audio files, they have a built in Flash audio player. For your photos, they have a handy slideshow view. Both features work great, and will certainly help make viewing your files easier.
Sharing
The standout feature of Box.net is its sharing. Just simply click any file’s menu and select the sharing option. Box.net will automatically create a URL to give to your friends. If you think that’s cool, it gets better than that.
Remember that RSS feature I told you about before? Here’s where it comes into play. Right click on any folder or tag and select the share option. A HTML page is automatically generated along with an RSS feed. As you add files to the folder or tag, your folder’s page and feed will be updated just like that. You can also assign a password to that folder or tag if you don’t want everyone snooping in on your files. To see how it all works check out this sample page I created. To make things even more interesting I added a password. When prompted use the password “box”.
Run a blog? Box.net loves blogs. You can configure your blog’s username and password from Box.net settings. Then whenever you want to post a file to your blog, you can just right click the file and select “To Blog”. Box.net will automatically post a new entry on your blog. Unfortunately WordPress isn’t supported yet, but I assume that will be coming in the future.
Now if you’re like me, you want to know how fast Box.net’s servers are. Well, I got great news for you then. I maxed my 3Mb/s connection downloading a 10MB file. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. Nice and fast, just how I like it.
Price
Since nothing’s free nowadays, you’ve probably been wondering this whole review how much this is going to cost. Well, for the most part nothing! Box.net’s base service gives you 1GB of storage for free. Now you won’t have some of the fancy features like public sharing, but the majority of the features are there. Need more space and public sharing? Box.net is reasonable, starting at $4.99 a month.
Conclusions
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m thrilled with the service. Everything is perfectly integrated and feature-rich. And, more is planned to come. Box.net has plans to add some more features in the coming months to make your online file storage even easier. You’re just not going to find a service like this anywhere else.
If you’re excited as I am about this service, go ahead and signup. You can try the free service first, then upgrade easily from your account should you decided you need more storage.
10 Comments
This is all true I am also a proud user of box.net. To sign up click here
Hey, that was an interesting post. You can also try IBackup, which gives great service for every penny spent.
IBackup’s flagship product is a href=’http://www.ibackup.com/ibwin_new.htm’>IBackup for Windows. I use it to backup and restore my most important files and folders, and to schedule them. The interfaces are great to work with and so far my data has been totally secure with them. None other than PC World has recently rated it as the `best all-round backup service’ in a review.
You can create sharable links and map the online account as a drive on your PC with IDrive. Also use Webmanager to create sharabale links and email them to your partners.
You also enable snapshots to restore the previous 10 days of backup without the need to pay for extra space. Also listen to your favorite mp3s that were backed up with IDrive multimedia. IBackup supports one-way syncing of files or folders from your computer to your IBackup account.
IBackup offers several schemes for both personal and enterprise users. I had found it very easy to upgrade my earlier account to another one without any hassles. You can safely backup Quicken files with IBackup for Quicken.
You should also check out Data Deposit Box for online data backup. It’s inexpensive and very easy to use. It takes about 2 minutes to install the online backup agent. Once installed it’s fully automatic with nothing to remember and no procedures to follow. You can access your online data storage easily with a web browser.
I had a security glitch while using box.net service. I was uploading some files into my account using the Java mode. The screen seemed to be freezed. So I pressed the Enter button. Bang! I was in someone’s elses account. The account’s email was kaka_moon07@yahoo.com
I emailed to box.net but my email got bounced. So I don’t know if this security flaw has been fixed or not.
Thank you.
hmm, I think Box.net is not really an online storage service website, coz the online storage is much weaker than other online storage services such as http://www.drivehq.com. The problem with Box.net is its weakness in client software. You can upload / download a few files, that’s fine. But for any serious use, i.e. when you have lots of files and lots of huge files, you need reliable software like http://FTP. DriveHQ.com’s client software go beyond that as it also offers folder synchronization, automatic backup and email backup features.
Try drag&drop java applet there. It uses only Http, so has no problems with firewalls and NATs, and still can upload many files and folders keeping folder tree. It also can resume uploads after network problems. You can try unplug network uploading some file > 1Mb
been using the box.net api integrated with a web based app to deliver large video and document files to my end users for a couple months now.
the service works great and lets me leverage its higher bandwidth pipe (5MB per connection) so my users dont have to download from my offices 1.5 MB (shared connection) slower connection.
havent used its desktop client tools, the web based UI is fine and has worked just as good as the api.
overall this is a great service.
I personally have nothing but problems with Box.net. Large file uploads almost always fail after the file has been completely uploaded. Customer service is good but the reliablity leaves a lot to be disired. I would suggest shopping around if you plan on uploading any files larger than 10 MB’s.
I think that Box.net has a great limit size storage: 1Gb free only. I found Memopal (www.memopal.com) that offers 5GB free. For now 250 GB free being in beta version. It has also very interesting sharing tools.
I have used box.net and agree that if you need to upload or backup a lot of files, a web interface doesn’t work well. You can try http://www.wwd.net which has a web interface like box, but also offers an FTP proxy application that let’s you use any FTP program.