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Live Mesh is Microsoft’s program for syncing folders between multiple computers and online storage, making your files available to you wherever you are.

I think Live Mesh is dead, and I think I know why: Microsoft is deliberately cutting back on what it could have delivered to protect the revenue it wants from Office 2010.

Live Mesh was built on promising technology and it fulfills part of its promise: once it’s set up, it syncs files accurately and quietly.

Its quirks were easy to overlook – for a while. Two examples:

• There is nothing intuitive about setting up Mesh.

[…] continued

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Windows 7 is a staggering achievement. Microsoft delivered exactly the right product at the right time and will completely dominate desktop computing for the foreseeable future.

Microsoft shows no signs of being able to do anything similar in any of the other areas that will be important to consumers and small businesses in the next ten years.

At some point in the next few months, Microsoft will roll out revamped versions of its Windows Live family – Hotmail, Messenger, Skydrive, and the main Windows Live portal. Some screenshots have leaked but very little information has been […] continued

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If you use more than one computer regularly, then you understand the need for an easy way to access some of the same files from each of your computers.

I want to add Dropbox to the programs you consider to accomplish that. At the moment, it combines simplicity and exactly the right features – and the basic version is free.

The idea is simple: after installing one of these programs, you have a magic folder on your office computer and your home computer or your laptop. Anything you drop in the folder at one end automatically appears […] continued

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Previously:
Jungle Disk Online Backups
Jungle Disk File Syncing

Jungle Disk has two more levels of service for businesses: the Workgroup Edition, $4/user per month for teams of 2-100 people; and the Server Edition, $5/server per month.

Small businesses might find a lot to like about the Workgroup Edition. Instead of a single login name and password, this version of the program lets each person have a separate login name and password and separate settings for access to synced files and folders.

Imagine that you’ve got employees in three locations.

• Each person

[…] continued

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Previously:
Jungle Disk Online Backups

For an extra dollar each month, Jungle Disk Desktop Edition adds features to help you share files between multiple computers.

There are two ways to accomplish this. The easiest one comes first during the setup: check a box to add a network drive that will appear next to your hard drive and your CD drive in Windows Explorer. Let’s call it the “J:\” drive.

Anything can be placed in the J: drive – files, folders, as much or as little as you like.

When you […] continued

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I’ve been hesitant to recommend online backups after some early poor experiences, but recently Jungle Disk introduced an upgrade to their online backup programs that is very impressive – I’ve had good experience with it personally and I like everything I see about the program design and the new features. I want all of you to consider whether you want to add Jungle Disk as part of your backup strategy. In most cases it should be in addition to backups on an external hard drive or NAS device, but some of you (especially Windows XP users) […] continued

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When I moved the bruceb news page to WordPress and opened it up to comments, there was an unexpected side effect: blog spam.

There’s a space at the bottom of each post for comments. I don’t have a big audience and there are few comments from real people. You, my family and dear friends and clients and any of the rest of my fourteen readers, you are always welcome to add a comment. I promise to read all comments, answer questions, laugh at your jokes, blush if you say something nice, and take criticism […] continued

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[Thursday January 28, 2010 – sent to MOS subscribers at 9:07pm]

Dear Customer:

Microsoft Online Services strives to provide exceptional service for all of our customers. On January 28, customers served from a North America data center may have experienced intermittent access to services included in the Business Productivity Online Suite. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and your employees.

We are committed to communicating with our customers in an open and honest manner about service issues and the steps we’re taking to prevent recurrences.

• What happened?  
  • Monitoring alerted us

[…] continued

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Some problems today with Microsoft Online Services, which leaves me feeling unsettled about it.

Microsoft has made a serious commitment to moving Exchange customers to hosted services. There are some real advantages for small businesses if someone else takes responsibility for the mail system – Exchange is a big, complex piece of work that needs regular attention and updates, and requires a high degree of expertise if something goes wrong.

Many third parties offer hosted Exchange mailboxes but in some ways, Microsoft’s own hosted mail service offered through the Microsoft Online Services program is the […] continued

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