Tag Archives: half-baked

SugarSync Review

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I tried out a new online cloud service called SugarSync this morning. I signed up for their free 5GB account and downloaded their SugarSync Manager for my Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.8 iMac at work.

Everything went smoothly until I installed the SugarSync Manager. It prompted me to share some basic folders, like my Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders. I didn’t want that. I wanted to create a folder off the root of my Macintosh HD Hard Drive called SugarSync and just sync what I put in that folder. After turning all the other options off, I couldn’t find a way to add a specific folder that I wanted to that part of the installation. I clicked “Add More Folders” thinking that might lead me to something, but then the app seized up, beach-ball-of-death, and about 15 minutes later I “Force Quit” the SugarSync Manager program.

I then tried to restart it, and it would not start. I gave it another 5 minutes and tried again, and that time it took. What I saw was a very friendly, very simple sync manager application and I can appreciate it’s simplicity. I went to “Add a Sync Folder” and couldn’t find a way to add a specific folder, it just wasn’t possible as far as I could see. I clicked on Help and then read about how you can right-click on a folder to add it to SugarSync. I did that, and it worked.

Then I went into the SugarSync website and looked at the “Email-To-Sugarsync” feature. Right along this feature it prompts you to read the Terms Of Service. I went through the TOS, mostly standard stuff except for the section about what kind of files you can store on SugarSync. That they reserve the right to cancel the account if they find the files upsetting in some non-defined way. Not that I would send snuff videos to my SugarSync account, but without knowing what the terms in their TOS actually MEAN, well, I might as well just give up now before I actually do anything with the account.

It was a combination of the TOS, the software failures, and a kind of “suffers from simple” approach that did it in for me. Software that is designed for Ma and Pa Kettle can sometimes lack the sophistication that a user like me expects from a service. It’s perfectly acceptable to me to stuff the “Advanced Stuff” behind a button and I don’t mind going a little further to get access to those settings because I know that the majority of people using this software are very new to computers and too many options can turn them off.

In the end, I can’t recommend SugarSync. The only way I could deal with it would be if I filled the account with a 5GB AES-256 encrypted DMG file and just used that. That would protect me from the TOS and give me the freedom to store what I wanted without having to worry about damaging some faceless persons sense of morality. This design of course doesn’t work when you try the whole email-to-service angle, so it’s all just a big pile of wreckage.

iOS 5

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Since October 12th at 1pm when iOS 5 and iCloud were officially released by Apple I’ve been toying around with both products. I have a first generation iPad and a iPhone 4 with Verizon. I was able to grab the update from Apple at work and begin my install.

To set this scene properly, I should also state for the record that I have on all my machines, both at home and at work, Mac OSX Snow Leopard. I have resisted Mac OSX Lion because of it’s radical change in interface, some security concerns, and a general sense that if Snow Leopard isn’t broken, and Lion doesn’t bring anything new to the party, why fix what isn’t broken?

So once the download of iOS 5 for both my iPhone and my iPad were complete I started to upgrade my iPhone. The entire process worked well, however here at work we all use multiple Apple ID’s to manage apps and ownership of devices. Apple has changed the policy, so it’s just one Apple ID now, which at first filled us with trepidation. Turns out it’s not as bad as it could have been, and for that we feel like we have dodged a bullet. The install for my iPhone worked acceptably well and I was back up and working about an hour later. The update for my iPad was a bloody mess. The iOS 5 updater hosed my iPad, emptied it all out of all the data and even hosed all of my backups! It wasn’t the end of my world since I’ve been slowly moving all of my data to other cloud services such as Box.net and Dropbox. There wasn’t any loss, really, only a loss of my time and general inconvenience. I was able to get all my devices up and running shortly afterwards to my satisfaction.

Then I started to experience iCloud and ran into some problems. Apple rushed all of these products out without having their most-installed OS ready for it. This boggles my mind. I can accept that Snow Leopard doesn’t have an iCloud app yet and that Lion does, but what I don’t get is how iCloud is under-represented on the web and for common services we all know are running in iCloud. Things like web access to every aspect of iCloud, it should be a drive, it should have a place to access the Photo Stream. There is access for mail and calendar and so on, but it’s only fifty percent of what iCloud stores. Then there is no reference to IMAP addresses for the mail, no CalDAV addresses for the Calendar, and no CardDAV addresses for Address Book. These are of course all workarounds to enable Snow Leopard users to access iCloud. What bothers me most is that Apple doesn’t care about Snow Leopard users anymore. I turned on Photo Stream and noticed that there really wasn’t any way for me to get the Photos I put there, out of there anymore using any of the technology I already have. So I turned the feature off. As it goes, I was initially very enthusiastic about iCloud, but as I saw what it was all about and how Apple treats it, it’s just so much inter-device glue infrastructure and frankly, between my iPad and my iPhone, the glue is worth a short smile and a shrug. So this entire “cymbals and fanfare” around iCloud turned out to be a teeny-tiny firecracker that once it ignited, sounded more pitiful than exciting.

What did I really get out of iOS 5? The new notification center is marvelous. It is way past time for this. Online backup to iCloud is certainly good, but I may never really need it, and since I’m poisoned by my last experience with “Apple iOS Backups” in regards to my iPad, you can excuse me if I don’t stand up and cheer. iMessage is just BBM on the iPhone, so Apple beat RIM to the punch. It’s okay, it works, but it doesn’t fill me with fuzzy feelings. Behind all these weak good vibes from iOS 5 stands my biggest beef with Apple. They took Siri away! A week before iOS 5 was released I downloaded the free Siri app for my iPhone 4. It worked acceptably well. Then Apple pulled a huge whammy, Siri was no longer available for my iPhone 4 and I would have to get an iPhone 4S to use Siri. But it worked well on my iPhone 4! Why not include Siri on the iPhone 4 iOS 5 update? Why Apple? I feel cheated. Cheated by the company that I root and rah-rah for and this is a rather jagged little pill to swallow. I don’t see how the Apple A4 chip can’t cope with Siri’s information and how the A5 chip can. I feel like it’s a gyp, a cash grab from Apple. A way for them to shaft all of us iPhone 4 owners. After I celebrated the iPhone 4 on Verizon, now I’m actively looking forward to upgrading my device and that rankles! It’s a dick move Apple, and you know it.

So, iOS 5 and iCloud. Lion. All said it feels like Apple is slipping into a funk. It’s very reminiscent of the funk they were in when they dismissed Steve Jobs, and then when he returned, the funk dissipated. Now that he’s dead, the funk has returned. It may have been that Apple was really great only because of Steve Jobs and now that he’s gone, Apple is going to tumble, aimless and full of dicks trying to all grab at the company rudder and making a general mess of things. I can’t really feel a lot of gee-whiz-rah-rah about iOS 5 or iCloud.

One thing that also just occurred to me, and is another bit of evidence of Apple’s dick moves is the lack of four-finger gesture control on the first generation iPad. There was a hack to turn this feature on and it worked, now it doesn’t and the hack is gone as well. Not being able to have this neat feature on my first generation iPad stings. It feels a lot like the whole case with Siri. It worked before, and now it doesn’t. What a dick move, Apple.

So, should you upgrade to iOS 5 and use iCloud? Sure. Why not? It’s free. You get what you pay for.