1. Homesteading

One of the first things that everyone thinks about when they hear “Geocities” is the long and memorable (albeit annoying) site paths, known as homesteading. When Geocities first started, there were a mere 6 neighborhoods, which included “Colosseum,” “Hollywood,” “RodeoDrive,” “SunsetStrip,” “WallStreet,” and “WestHollywood”. They were great, allowing newcomers of personal homepages to fantasize about the new cyber world they were about to enter. Within a year, 23 more neighborhoods popped up along with the terrible headache of explaining what neighborhood, suburb, and 4-digit number your webpage was located at. Luckily by 1999, Yahoo had taken over and switched the homestead URL scheme to the more modernly used vanity URLs. But even though the lengthy URLs have been long gone for 10 years, their association with Geocities remains remnant enough to be the first reason why the closing of Geocities is long overdue.

2. 15 Megabytes

Back in the 90’s, 15 megabytes was more than enough to store your 5 page website; not to mention the ten 640*480 JPEG pictures from your digital camera. It was even enough to host MP3s for your friends to check out before deciding to download this thing called Napster for themselves. It was a much simpler time back then, when data exchange would still often occur on 3.5″ floppy disks. But in this day and age of broadband and Hi-Def streaming, running a website off of 15 megabytes of webspace is barely enough to host a decent Wordpress blog for a month. I mean, let’s face it, even emails have had larger space limits for years now. 15 megabytes just doesn’t cut it anymore.

3. SPAM

I haven’t actually experienced much Geocities spam sites personally, as Gmail filters my spam mail pretty robustly. But many users have complained about a large number of Geocities webpages hosted purely to bypass spam mail filters which block out dangerous links. These Geocities pages would redirect users to a target URL, by using cleverly encrypted javascript. (source: Spamtrackers.eu)

4. Color Choice

While nobody really got the hang of webpage design in the 90’s, Geocities site owners seemed to master the art of amateur design. One of the requirements for starting a page that I must have missed was having no sense of color coordination. For some reason the use of multicolored neon text on busy tiled background images were a popular choice. This usually turned out to be better, letting you know that the content wasn’t worth reading anyway.

5. Abandoned Webpages

I’ll admit that I was part of the cause for this reason, but Geocities became infamous for abandoned webpages in the early 00’s. People such as myself, would create accounts and build webpages just to host pictures and MP3s for friends to download (as mentioned in Reason 2: 15 Megabytes). This type of abuse led to thousands of empty webpages and parked sites that lead to much wasted google indexing and disappointing clickthroughs.

6. Under Construction

This one sort of relates to Reason 5: Abandoned Webpages. Chances were, if you didn’t stumble upon an abandoned webpage, you probably came across a webpage forever under construction. Many users new to website building only made it far enough to make a new site with the obligatory “This is my site.” text. Soon after, that website would be long forgotten while the owner moved on to LiveJournal or Xanga.

7. Splash Pages

Sometime toward the end of the century, people discovered the ease of Flash, allowing simple animations of images and text. Then *BOOM*, you suddently could no longer visit a webpage without having to sit through 15 seconds of bouncing images and scrolling text. Fortunately, this trend only stuck around for a few years.

8. Homepage Banners

Webpages of the 90’s really only had two main layouts: navigation on the top, and navigation on the left. But the one thing that both layouts would share was a big rectangular homepage banner placed at the top.

9. MIDIs

Though this is probably more of a Xanga “thing” these days, Geocities was one of the first to start the use of using MIDIs as background music for homepages. Before the popularity and accessibility of MP3s, MIDIs were the popular file format for music due to their small file sizes. However the tones of synthesized horns and keyboards got old and annoying very quickly. There’s nothing that opitomizes Web 1.0 for me than a happy birthday midi playing.

10. Animated GIFs

If there was only one reason the closing of Geocities is long overdue, it’d definitely have to be the animated GIFs most associated with the Geocities name. Love them or hate them, you can’t help but remember the once trendy craze of pixelated animations. They’d slow down your browsing to a crawl, and really test your patience. From the rotating 3D text to the dancing clipart images, Geocities was flooded beyond belief with these lagging monstrocities.

Farewell

Without further ado, we bid you farewell, Geocities. As we push your cardboard box into the sea, let’s take a look at some especially awful Geocities sites. (Be sure to leave a comment with yours, and I’ll update the posting!) – Jeffrey

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Last week Adobe asked us to change our name and URL so that it would no longer contain the term ‘Flash’, which is a registered trademark of Adobe. We know that the success of our sites is about the community and content, not the names. So here at Envato HQ we’ve been busy thinking up new names and we think we’ve found a great new home for both our marketplace and our Tuts+ blog on Flash.

As of today the two sites now live at ActiveDen and Activetuts+.

The new names amend the use of the word Flash, open us up for adding other technologies and are short and memorable! To kick off the new names I thought I’d round up a few of the best tutorials and items on the sites:

Kick Ass Flash Files – ActiveDen

Without a doubt the leading marketplace for Flash files, ActiveDen has some really popular files. Here are a few of the latest:

More Popular Items on ActiveDen

Killer Flash Tutorials – Activetuts+

Though it’s one of our newer Tuts+ sites, Activetuts+ is already brim full of quality Adobe Flash, ActionScript, Air and Flex tutorials and gaining momentum with every passing week. Here’s a few of the standout tutorials:

1. Build a Fluid Website Layout
   A fluid web layout uses 100% width (and height) of the browser, floating all the contained elements into certain positions. This is opposed to fix-width layout where contents remain fixed no matter what the browser size is…

2. Create an Attractive Digital Clock in Flash
   ActionScript 3.0 is a very powerful language, capable of creating anything from simple and light utilities to full-featured desktop applications…

3. Build a Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0
   In this tutorial I´ll show you how to create nice Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0. We´ll work with Event Handlers, Functions and also the Timer Object which is a really cool feature in AS3…

4. Build a Dynamic Flash Gallery with Slider Control
   In this tutorial, we’ll create a gallery which displays all image files in a given directory. A slider is used to browse easily through the images…

5. Create a Shuffle Gallery in Flash Using XML and ActionScript 3.0
   In this tutorial I’ll explain how to access and use the Display List whilst creating an XML based image gallery with ActionScript 3.0 …

6. Create a Glowin Mouse Trailer in Flash
   Mouse Trailers are objects which follow the mouse cursor as you move it. In this tutorial, I’ll help you create a blue and shiny mouse trailer using ActionScript 3.0 …

More Flash Tutorials on Activetuts+

More About The Change

You can read more about the change on the ActiveDen Blog or on TechCrunch. There’s also a super long discussion thread on the ActiveDen Forums.

I’d also like to take a moment to say thanks to everyone for helping us with the transition and supporting FlashDen through three years of amazing growth and community, here’s to many more as ActiveDen!

Though not specifically related to web development, the huge majority of us use Photoshop on a daily basis when designing – which makes this video more than applicable.

How Much Longer?

According to reports, the CS5 suite is expected to be released April 10, 2010.

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In this tutorial I’ll show you how to setup and use Amazon’s Web Services S3 and CloudFront to decrease website load time as well as show the performance differences.

What is a CDN?

A CDN is a Content Delivery (or Distribution) Network. It is a network of computers with each system placed at different points with the same data on each. When someone accesses the network, they can access the file on the system nearest them or the one with less current load. This results in better lower latency and file download duration. To learn more about CDNs see “Content delivery network” at Wikipedia.

In the example image above, visitors access the server nearest them that will provide the best possible performance. The network of servers would be the CDN. A regular web host would have one central server in which all those visitors would have to access. That one server could be located only in the US or maybe Europe and would result in longer latency and load times for visitors farther away.

Using more than one server, even on just one continent, will make a difference in performance.

Why & The Proof

I’ve had quite a few people ask me why a CDN is important, even for smaller websites, and why they should bother paying for yet another web service. The simple answer is, the faster–the better. And why not offer your customers (visitors) the best you can?

The smaller the website, the less of an impact a CDN will make. Although, if your visitors translate into money for you then every little bit helps.

• In 2006 Google’s tests showed that increasing load time by 0.5 seconds resulted in a 20% drop in traffic.
• In 2007 Amazon’s tests showed that for every 100ms increase in load time, sales would decrease 1%.
• This year (2009) Akamai (a CDN leader) revealed in a study that 2 seconds is the new threshold for eCommerce web page response times.

It’s cheap. It’s easy. And it can translate into more money in terms of customers and saving on your regular web host expenses.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon provides a whole slew of fantastic web services. We’ll be using Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) and CloudFront. S3 is a data storage solution in the cloud which can be tied to CloudFront, Amazon’s CDN.

If you’re looking for a slightly simpler, all-in-one solution, Rackspace Cloud Files is another great option. They’ve partnered with Limelight Network’s CDN which has slightly better performance than Amazon’s CDN currently. However, their service has a few drawbacks you won’t find with Amazon. I won’t get into all these but one of the bigger ones for me was the lack of custom CNAME support which is supposedly coming at some point in the future. With CNAME support you can setup a custom sub-domain to access your files such as “cdn.yourdomain.com”.

To see recent performance comparisons, visit http://www.cloudclimate.com/cdns/

Pricing

Here’s Amazon’s S3 pricing for the US. For other areas, click the image to see full pricing.

Here’s Amazon’s CloudFront pricing for the US. For other areas, click the image to see full pricing.

Use Amazon’s monthly calculator to get a better idea of your end bill. Last month, my total bill was less than $5, with the majority of that incurred from 20GB+ of data storage. As you can see, it’s very, very cheap, especially when you take into consideration the performance and flexibility benefits.

Setup S3 & CloudFront

To get started, we need to sign up for Amazon’s S3 and CloudFront services. If you already have an account with Amazon you’ll just need to login and finish the signup. If not, you’ll need to create an account then proceed to signup for S3 and CloudFront. The signup is simply adding the service to your account. There’s nothing complicated involved.

Click each image to go to the service’s information and signup page.

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll get an Access Key ID and Secret Access Key which can be found under “Your Account” > “Security Credentials”. This is basically your username and password for accessing S3.

Setup S3 Bucket For Files

First we need to create a bucket to store all our files in. For more information on “buckets” read “Amazon S3 Buckets Described in Plain English“.

To do this, we’ll first log into our S3 account using the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key with an application like Transmit (OS X), which is what I’ll be using. To see more apps or browser add-ons for accessing S3 see “Amazon S3 Simple Storage Service – Everything You Wanted to Know“.

Once signed in, we’ll create a bucket to put our files in. I’ve named mine “files.jremick.com”. Buckets must have unique names, need to be between 3 and 63 characters and can contain letters, numbers and dashes (but can’t end with a dash).

By unique, they mean unique on the AWS network. So it’s a good idea to use something like a URL or something similar.

The files we put in this bucket can now be accessed at “files.jremick.com.s3.amazonaws.com”. However, this URL is pretty long and we can quickly setup a shorter one. We’ll setup a new CNAME entry at our web host to do this.

Setup Custom S3 Subdomain

To shorten the default URL we’ll create a CNAME entry as I’ve done below (this is at your web host). I’ve chosen “files” as my subdomain but you could use whatever you like.

Now we can access these bucket files at “files.jremick.com”. Much better! Then simply upload the files you want within the “files.jremick.com” bucket.

Once your files are uploaded, you’ll want to set the ACL (Access Control List) to allow everyone to read the files (if you want them public). In Transmit you simply right click, select get info, under permissions set “Read” to “World” and click “Apply to enclosed items…”. This will give all the files within this bucket read access to the world.

By default, files uploaded to your S3 account will only allow read and write access to the owner. So if you upload new files later on, you’ll need to go through these steps again or apply different permissions for just those files.

Create CloudFiles Distribution

Now that we have setup S3, created a shorter URL and uploaded our files, we’ll want to make those files accessable through CloudFront to get super low latency to reduce our load times. To do this we need to create a CloudFront distribution.

Log into your AWS account and navigate to your Amazon CloudFront management console (under “Your Account” drop down menu). Then click the “Create Distribution” button.

We’ll select the origin bucket (the bucket we created earlier), turn on logging if you would like, specify a CNAME and comments and finally either enable or disable the distribution. You don’t have to enter a CNAME or comments but we’ll want to setup a shorter URL later like we did for S3. I would like to use “cdn.jremick.com” so that’s what I’m setting here.

As you can see, the default URL is pretty ugly. That’s not something you’re going to want to try to remember. So now let’s setup a CNAME for the pretty, short URL.

Setup Custom CloudFiles Subdomain

To setup the custom CloudFiles subdomain, we’ll go through the same process as we did for S3.

Now we can access files through CloudFront using “cdn.jremick.com”.

How It All Works

When someone accesses a file through your S3 bucket, it acts just like a regular file host. When someone accesses a file through CloudFiles though, it requests the file from your S3 bucket (the origin) and caches it at the CDN server closest to the orignial request for all subsequent requests. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea.

Think of a CDN as a smart network that is able to determine the fastest possible route for request delivery. Another example would be if the server closest is bogged down with traffic, it may be faster to get the file from a server a little farther away but with less traffic. So CloudFront will deliver the requested file from that location instead.

Caching Problems

Once a file is cached in the CloudFront network servers, it does not get replaced until it expires and is automatically removed (after 24 hours of inactivity by default). This can be a major pain if you’re trying to push updates out immediately. To get around this you’ll need to version your files. For example, “my-stylesheet.css” could be “my-stylesheet-v1.0.css”. Then when you make an update that needs to go out immediately you would change the name to “my-stylesheet-v1.1.css” or something similar.

Performance Testing

Our content is uploaded to our S3 bucket, our CloudFront distribution is deployed and our custom subdomains are setup for easy access. It’s time to put it to the test to see what kind of performance benefits we can expect.

I’ve setup 44 example images ranging in size from approximately 2KB up to 45KB. You might be thinking that this is more images than most websites will load on a single page. That may be true but there are many websites such as portfolios, ecommerce sites, blogs, etc. that load just as many and possibly more images.

Although I’m only using images for this example, what’s important is the file size and the quantity for the comparison. Today’s websites are loading several javascript, CSS, HTML and image files on every page. 44 file requests is probably fewer than most websites actually make so a CDN could have an even greater impact on your website than we’ll see in this comparison.

I’m using Safari’s Web Inspector to view performance results, I’ve disabled caches and shift + refresh 10-15 times (about every 2-3 seconds) for each test to get a decent average of total load time, latency and duration.

• 45 Total files (including HTML document)
• 561.13KB Total combined file size

Regular Web Host

Here are the performance results when hosted via my regular web host. Sorted by latency.

• 1.82-1.95 Seconds total load time
• 90ms Fastest latency (last test)
• 161ms Slowest latency (last test)
• ~65% of the images had a latency of less than 110ms

Sorted by duration.

• 92ms Fastest duration (last test)
• 396ms Slowest duration (last test)

Amazon S3

The exact same files were used for testing S3. Sorted by latency.

• 1.3-1.6 Seconds total load time
• 55ms Fastest latency (last test)
• 135ms Slowest latency (last test)
• ~90% of the images had a latency of less than 100ms

Sorted by duration.

• 56ms Fastest duration (last test)
• 279ms Slowest duration (last test)

S3 is faster than my regular web host but only marginally. If you didn’t feel like messing around with a CDN, S3 is still a great option to give your website a decent speed boost. I still recommend using a CDN though and we’ll see why in this next test.

Amazon CloudFiles

The exact same files were used for testing CloudFront.

• 750-850ms Total load time
• 25ms Fastest latency (last test)
• 112ms Slowest latency (last test)
• ~85% of the images had a latency of less than 55ms.
• Only one file had a latency of more than 100ms.

Sorted by duration.

• 38ms Fastest duration (last test)
• 183ms Slowest duration (last test)

Comparison

Here’s a quick breakdown of the performance comparison between my regular web host and the same files on Amazon’s CloudFront service.

• 1.82-1.95 seconds vs 0.75-0.85 seconds total load time (~1.1 seconds faster)
• 90ms vs 25ms fastest latency (65ms faster)
• 161ms vs 112ms slowest latency (49ms faster)
• CloudFront: Only one file with latency greater than 100ms and 85% of the files with latency less than 55ms
• Regular Web Host: Only 65% of the files had a latency of less than 110ms

Duration comparison

• 92ms vs 38ms Fastest duration (54ms faster)
• 396ms vs 183ms Slowest duration (213ms faster)

50ms or even 100ms doesn’t sound like a very long time to wait (0.1 seconds) but when you repeat that for 30, 40, 50 or more files then you can see how it quickly adds up to seconds.

Visual Comparison

Here’s a quick video to show just how noticeable the increase in load time is. I’ve disabled caches and do a forced refresh (shift + refresh) to make sure images aren’t being cached.

Other Ways To Increase Performance

There are several other ways to increase website performance when using a CDN.

• Create different subdomains for different types of files to maximize parallel downloads. For example, load images from “images.jremick.com” and other files like scripts and CSS from “cdn.jremick.com”. This will allow more files to load in parallel reducing the total load time.
• Gzip files like JavaScript and CSS
• Configure ETags

See Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site for more.

Serving Gzipped Files From CloudFiles

One of the options above for increasing performance even more was providing gzipped files. Unfortunately CloudFront isn’t able to automatically determine if a visitor can accept gzipped files or not and serve up the correct one. Fortunately, all modern browsers support gzipped files these days.

Create & Upload Your Gzipped Files

To serve gzipped files from CloudFront, we can give our website some logic to serve up the right files or we can set the Content-Encoding and Content-Type on a few specific files to keep things a little simpler. Gzip the files you want and rename them so it doesn’t end it .gz. For example, “filename.css.gz” would become “filename.css” or to remind yourself that it is a gzipped file, name it “filename.gz.css”. Now upload the gzipped file to the location in your S3 bucket you want (don’t forget to set the ACL/Permissions).

If you’re not sure how to gzip a file, see http://www.gzip.org (OS X can do this in terminal)

Set Content-Encoding and Content-Type

We need to set the Content-Encoding and Content-Type (if it isn’t already set) on our files so that when requested via browser it knows the content is gzipped and will be able to decompress it properly. Otherwise it will look like this.

We can do this easily with Bucket Explorer. Once you’ve downloaded it, enter your AWS Access Key and Secret key to log into your S3 account. Find the gzipped file you uploaded earlier, right click and select “Update MetaData”.

As you can see, it already has the Content-Type set to text/css so we don’t need to set that (javascript would be text/javascript). We just need to add the right Content-Encoding. Click “Add” and in the popup dialoge enter “Content-Encoding” in the Key field and “gzip” in the Value field. Click OK, then Save and you’re done! Now the browser will view the file correctly.

Gzipping a file can greatly reduce the file size. For example, this test stylesheet was around 22KB and was reduced to approximately 5KB. For my blog I’ve combined all my jQuery plugins with jQuery UI Tabs. After minification it was reduced to 26.49KB, after being gzipped it was reduced to 8.17KB.

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways to increase the performance of your website and in my opinion they’re worth trying. If visitors are only 0.5 seconds or even 1 second away from leaving your website, a CDN could keep that from happening. Plus, most of us are speed freaks anyway so why not crank up the performance of your website if you can? Especially if it could save you money in the process.

If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments and I’ll try to respond to them. Thanks!

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It’s our last day of this fun screencast competition! Don’t forget that voting is still open for the previous days as well. In this final day, you’ll learn about CodeIgniter, creating private WordPress pages, and progressive enhancement with JavaScript! Show your support and vote for your favorite one below!

1. How to Save Time and Code Less in CodeIgniter with Doctrine

2. Create Private Pages on a WordPress Site

3. Retrieving Data From YQL using jQuery

4. How to Add Beautiful Captions to Images Using jQuery

5. Progressive Enhancement with JavaScript

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With only two days left in our fun screencast week, we’re getting down to the wire! Today, we have video tutorials ranging from applying the DRY programming technique to your templates, to some nifty tricks with jQuery!

1. Applying the DRY Programming Technique to your WordPress Templates

2. A Quick Intro to CushyCMS

3. How to Implement a Hidden Captcha

4. Validate your Forms with Ease using jQuery

5. How to Turn a Boring Search Input into a Snazzy Search Suggest with jQuery

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As we move into the third day of this screencast competition, we have new entries on topics ranging from querying WordPress to submitting forms with Mootools to using custom fonts with CSS!

1. Submitting a Form with Mootools

2. How to Add Custom Thumbnails to Your WordPress Posts

3. How to Parse XML in PHP Using SimpleXML

4. How to Query WordPress

5. Custom Fonts Across all Browsers Using CSS

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For the second day of this week-long video competition, you’ll learn about basic closures in JavaScript, using the Flot plugin to create graphs, building a content slider, and more!

1. JavaScript Disabled, no Problem!

2. Basic Closures in JavaScript

3. Plotting Graphs with jQuery and the Flot Plugin

4. Create a Content Slider with jQuery

5. Create an Automatically Updating Envato Comics RSS feed using Yahoo Pipes

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Today, you’ll learn everything from setting up your first Django project, to simplifying the beginnings of a jQuery plugin, to applying guides in Photoshop. Each video is less than or equal to five minutes.

1. How to Get a Django Project Up and Running in 5 Minutes

2. How to Test CSS Rules with Firebug

3. Jump-starting your Next jQuery Plugin

4. AWS S3 CloudFront Performance Benefits Versus a Regular Host

5. How to Use Guides in Photoshop for Web Design

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In this roundup we’ll take a look at 10 online data backup, storage and sharing solutions to meet everyone’s needs.

Mix and Match to Fit Your Needs

For many of us, one service won’t meet all our needs or our budget. Finding the right combination of services isn’t always easy but is a necessary evil to protect our important and growing collection of data. Remember that you’re most likely not going to find one service that does everything you need within your budget.

1. Amazon S3 + JungleDisk

Jungle Disk

Jungle Disk (the desktop application) is a desktop data backup and storage application that allows you to connect to Amazon’s S3 service as a network drive. Here are some of the major features.

• Network drive acts like a hard drive (drag, drop, copy, delete)
• Optional data encryption using a personal key that you set
• Supports Windows, Mac and Linux (and can run from USB drive)
• Automatic backups

Jungle Disk also provides an online service with additional features to manage and access your data.

With Jungle Disk you’ll be able to access your data via the web, view backup and usage reports and even setup additional accounts should you need for a workgroup environment.

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Amazon S3 is a pay as you go data storage service focused more towards developers than the average user but is easy enough to connect to and use that we can all take advantage of the flexibility it offers.

Not only can you use Amazon S3 as your data storage service with Jungle Disk but most FTP applications connect to the service as well. This makes it easy to store web files for cheaper (bandwidth and storage) than using a traditional, high quality web host.

Here are some other uses for it.

• Use with Jungle Disk as a network drive with automatic backups.
• Use as a static file web hosting service.
• Use with the Amazon S3 WordPress plugin.
• Use with S3Sync to make automatic web server backups.
• Use with Amazon CloudFront CDN service.

For more information on ways to use Amazon S3, read “Using AWS S3 to Power Your Digital World“.

Amazon S3 + Jungle Disk Conclusion

Jungle Disk will run you $2/mo and Amazon S3 runs $0.15 per GB/mo data stored, $0.10 per GB data transfer in, $0.17 per GB data transfer out and $0.01 for requests (all US based). See the AWS S3 pricing page for more info.

It sounds a little complicated, but it’s a pretty cheap, very high quality solution. If you backed up 30GB of data using Jungle Disk, it will cost about $9.50 the first month (due to uploading the data) and about $6.50 + data upload/download each month after. Jungle Disk only backs up new and changed files so your monthly data upload/download will likely be pretty limited. Plus, you can use it to save money on web hosting costs.

Pros:

• Only pay for what you use.
• Infinitely expandable space and unlimited bandwidth.
• Flexible enough to be used for backups, storage, web hosting and plenty more.
• Multiple user workgroup options.
• Multiple platforms and no computer limits.
• Jungle Disk is a very good backup application with lots of features.

Cons:

• Not the easiest solution.
• Limited sharing capabilities.
• No mobile access.
• No trials.

2. SugarSync

SugarSync takes a different approach to storing and backing up data as well as offering many features that are pretty appealing. Instead of transferring your data to another location, off your computer, SugarSync copies the data you select on your computer(s) and makes it available to you where ever you are.

From the SugarSync manager application you can access synced files from your other computers, manage your sync folders and files, share files, etc. It has a “Magic Briefcase” which is like a single shared folder between all your computers.

Initially I didn’t like SugarSync because I didn’t just want to access data on my computer, I wanted most of the data off my computer. About 30 seconds later I noticed the Web Archive, which does just that. So, you can access your specified data (once synced online) on all your computers and have the ability to move that data to the online only Web Archive.

SugarSync also has mobile access including apps for the iPhone (and iPod Touch), Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

I can access all the same files on my phone that I can at my computer. You might have also noticed the “Mobile Photos” directory in the management app above. This makes it easy to upload my iPhone photos to SugarSync for storage, sharing, etc.

Of course no service like this would be complete without web access to all your files. You’re given a unique domain from your username to log into your web account and do everything via the web that you can with the desktop or phone applications.

Pricing: 2 GB Free (not a trial), plans start at $4.99/mo for 30GB of space up to $24.99/mo for 250GB of space. Sign up Storage Bonus

Pros:

• Very affordable.
• Lots of data storage and sharing options.
• Easy to use software and online access.
• Multiple platforms and no computer limits (as far as I can tell).
• Mobile access on multiple platforms.
• Sync application works well.
• Free 30-day trial.
• Free 2GB storage plan.
• Sign up storage bonus

Cons:

• Paying for space you might not be using.
• Sync application doesn’t support bandwidth limiting.
• Doesn’t offer some of the more flexible features like Amazon S3.

3. Dropbox

Dropbox is very similar to SugarSync but with fewer features. Instead of syncing folders and data you select, you set a Dropbox folder on your computer and place your files there. It’s basically the same idea as SugarSync’s “Magic Briefcase” feature.

You don’t have the option to select each computer Dropbox is running on and see its files. All files stored on Dropbox will be located within one main folder (optional sub-directories).

The desktop application runs in the background and doesn’t actually provide any helpful features for data backup but it does allow you to set bandwidth limiting. The only real interface you have is the Dropbox folder on your computer and the online file manager.

Dropbox does support mobile access but there are no mobile apps for it. You just navigate to their website www.getdropbox.com and login.

Pricing is more limited and more expensive. They also offer a free 2GB storage account.

Pros:

• Very simple and unobtrusive.
• Multiple platforms and no computer limits (as far as I can tell).
• Mobile access via web browser.
• Free 2GB storage plan.

Cons:

• Paying for space you might not be using.
• More expensive.
• Limited features online and via desktop software.
• Limited sharing capabilities.
• Doesn’t offer some of the more flexible features like Amazon S3.

4. Syncplicity

Syncplicity is the same idea as Dropbox and allows synchronizing files between computers but not at the same level as SugarSync. Syncplicity however, adds the ability to open files in web apps such as Google docs, Scribd, etc.

Pricing is basically the same as Dropbox (2 GB free account, $9.99/mo for 50GB). Unfortunately Syncplicity is currently Windows only.

Pros:

• Simple and easy to use.
• Free 2GB storage plan.
• No computer limits on $9.99/mo plan.
• Very limited pricing plans.

Cons:

• Paying for space you might not be using.
• Windows only for now.
• No mobile access (that I can tell).
• Limited computers on free account.
• Doesn’t offer some of the more flexible features like Amazon S3.

5. Drop.io

Drop.io is a service focused more on collaboration and sharing than providing lots of storage space. If you need to share files with other people, provide an easy place for your clients to upload files for you, etc. Drop.io is going to be your best choice.

There are so many different ways to store and share files on Drop.io it would take an article of its own to cover them all. From email, rss and Twitter to mobile, SMS and even fax (yes, you can send and receive faxes). View essentially all your media online (images, videos, documents, etc). You even get voicemail, conference calling and online chat in your “drop”.

The downside to Drop.io? The price of storage space. You can quickly and easily create free 100MB drops but it will cost $10/yr per GB of storage space up to 25GB (that’s $250/yr for 25GB or almost $21/mo). Drop.io is very, very helpful but will be more of a project storage/collaboration service than backup service. Freelancers, this is definitely a service you want to check out.

Pros:

• Unlimited free 100MB “drops”.
• An amazing array of sharing and collaboration features.
• Multi-user options.
• Customizable “drop” site design.
• Google analytics integration.
• Charge users for access (”Paywall”).
• Supports tons of media formats for online viewing.
• iPhone App

Cons:

• Expensive for the storage you get.
• Limited to 25GB of storage (contact them if you need more).
• Limited desktop integration.
• Not a backup solution.

6. Mozy

Now we’re going to take a step back from the services that integrate all the sharing and flexibility features and cover services focused on providing computer backup solutions.

Mozy is a $4.95/mo unlimited data backup service. However, I learned a long time ago to be wary of services that use the term “unlimited” as it generally means poor service quality. The first time I used Mozy was about 7 months ago to backup my iTunes library. It didn’t go well. It had trouble handling my 100+GB library, was taking far too long and wasn’t utilizing my internet connection as well as other applications did.

The software also wouldn’t resume where it had left off if the computer was restarted. The software seems to have been greatly improved since I used it last.

The backup software supports backup scheduling, bandwidth throttling and automatic updates. You can restore files from the web (up to 20GB) or get a DVD restore via FedEx (I’ve read they have sent people external HDD’s instead of DVD’s for large backups). If you order a DVD restore, it costs extra.

Mozy doesn’t let you access your files except for restoration purposes–meaning Mozy is purely a backup solution, not a file storage solution. At $4.95/mo, this is probably the cheapest backup solution you’re going to find that gives you unlimited storage.

Pros:

• Very affordable backup solution.
• Software is easy to use and setup.
• Supports Windows and Mac
• Optional restore via mailed DVD’s
• Free 2GB storage account.
• Live support included.

Cons:

• Doesn’t support Linux or mobile devices.
• $4.95 per computer.
• Not a data storage solution.
• Expensive for Business use.
• No real file browsing features.
• Limited software backup features.
• No drive mapping/mounting.
• No data sharing.

7. iDrive

iDrive is similar to Mozy except it isn’t unlimited and uses a different pricing structure. An iDrive personal account is $4.95/mo for 150GB of storage (up to 5 accounts). They also provide Pro business accounts up to 500GB for $49.95/mo. You can get more storage if needed at a price of $0.50 per GB/mo.

For $49.95/mo you get 500GB of business data storage for 100 (or more) accounts with central administration. Mozy would cost $253.95/mo for the same amount of storage with one desktop license ($3.95 per desktop license, $6.95 per server license).

iDrive’s backup software has many more features than what Mozy offers as well. For example, the iDrive application lets you browse your iDrive files, schedule backups, sync your backups with your computer, take snapshots, etc. You can also enable Continuous Data Protection which will automatically recognize changed files and back them up every 10 minutes.

One major aspect Mozy fails with is deleted files. Mozy will delete a file from your online backup if you delete it from your system and run the backup. iDrive however, will only delete files when you sync your backups with your computer. Not only that but iDrive lets you restore up to the last 30 versions of all files backed up along with a time-line restore feature (without taking up extra space).

There are also plugins for Mac and Windows to view your files within Finder or Explorer. If you’re away from your computer? No problem, you have a web interface as well. iDrive isn’t just a well done backup solution, it’s a data storage solution as well, just without all the spiffy sharing features you get with SugarSync and Dropbox. Click the image above to see more features.

Pros:

• The most affordable backup and storage solution.
• Software is easy to use and setup.
• Supports Windows and Mac.
• Free 2GB storage account.
• Support included.
• Supports drive mapping/mounting.

Cons:

• Doesn’t support Linux or mobile devices.
• No sharing features.
• No option for DVD or HDD mailed backups.
• No data sharing.

8. Backblaze

Backblaze is another service like Mozy that offers unlimited data backup for $5/mo. They offer restoration via web, DVD’s or a USB HDD via FedEx (extra charges). Its software appears to be easy to use, includes backup reports and they provide a web management console for file viewing and restoration. It seems to be dead simple with enough features for most people (though I haven’t used it).

Pros:

• 15 day trial.
• Very affordable backup solution.
• Supports Windows and Mac.
• Optional restore via DVD’s or HDD.
• Includes a web management console.

Cons:

• No free version.
• $5 per computer.
• Not really a data storage solution.
• No support for Linux or mobile devices.
• No business plans (that I could find).
• Doesn’t include the same feature set as iDrive.
• No data sharing.
• No drive mapping/mounting.

9. Elephant Drive

Elephant Drive is yet another service similar to Mozy and Backblaze but still not at the level of iDrive. For $4.95/mo you get unlimited data backup for one computer with 30 day version history but with a 1GB maximum file size limit. To increase that (to 2GB) you have to move up to the $9.95/mo plan which also covers up to 4 computers and gives you no limit on version history.

Both home plans give you web access, file sharing and an optional 15 day trial. If that’s not enough, you can bump it up to their pro accounts for additional computer systems, sub-accounts, etc. at an additional cost of course.

Pros:

• 15 day trial.
• Very affordable backup (possibly storage) solution.
• Supports Windows and Mac.
• Supports driving mapping/mounting.
• Option to cover more than one system cheaper than Mozy or Backblaze.

Cons:

• No free version.
• No support for Linux or mobile devices.
• Not as feature rich as iDrive.
• Doesn’t appear to be a DVD/HDD restoration option.

10. ADrive

ADrive brings some new features to the table but is last on our list for a reason–the quality level isn’t on par with the services we’ve already covered.

ADrive offers 50GB of free data storage with limited features. Upgrade to the next level at $6.95/mo and you get FTP access, file history (and recovery), ADrive desktop for Windows, Mac and Linux, SSL encryption, WebDAV, 24/7 support and no advertisements.

The next level is $13.95/mo for 100GB, and increasing plans up to 1TB. You can contact the sales team if you need more than that though to setup a custom solution. The advantage with paid accounts being that you get FTP and WebDAV capabilities which aren’t supported by services like iDrive, Mozy, etc.

ADrive web access isn’t as nice or feature rich as other services covered here but if you’re on a budget, 50GB of free storage is pretty nice. Or 50GB at $6.95/mo with FTP access and file sharing.

Pros:

• 50GB free storage.
• 14 day trial.
• Access files via FTP/WebDAV.
• A little cheaper depending on your needs.
• Multiple platform support (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Cons:

• No mobile support.
• Not on the same level as other services here.
• Very limited backup software and web access.
• Limited data sharing and feature set.

Final Thoughts

While some of these services have more to offer than others, some are more affordable than others. Each service has at least a few differences from every other one so you should be able to find the right combination to fit your budget and your needs.

If you’re in the market for data backup and storage services, take the time to dig a little deeper into all these services to find all they have to offer. If I reviewed every aspect of each service, each one would be a full article in length.

My Choices

Here’s the combination of services I’ve chosen.

1. Amazon S3 + Jungle Disk (~$7/mo)
2. iDrive ($4.95/mo)
3. SugarSync ($4.99/mo)
4. Drop.io (Free 100MB drops)

Total backup costs: ~$17/mo

For about $17/mo I get a little over 30GB/mo data storage with Jungle Disk and AWS S3 which I use for my blog, clients, CDN and data storage. iDrive ensures my entire iTunes collection is safe and secure. SugarSync gives me quick access and sharing anywhere I am (via iPhone or web) to my most used files and Drop.io makes it super easy for me to provide an easy upload location for freelance clients. In total, over 210GB of data backup and storage.

I hope the article has helped and if you use or know of a great service, please let us know in the comments below.

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