I had figured that only running my TC with my MBP would let it run at it’s fastest speed but today I looked through the settings of the TC in the Airport utility and noticed that I had been running in 802.11b/g/n mode. I switched to 802.11n(5ghz) mode and saw that I was now connected at 270-300mb/s. There was also a 802.11(2.4ghz) only mode and I tried that – found that I got ~145mb/s from the same location in my home.

It looks like I’m getting significantly better performance from running in 802.11n(5ghz) mode and this is fine since I don’t have any need to support other protocols like 802.11g

I just saw today that a company called Stardom is offering a device they call the Safe Capsule.  It’s basically a USB based dual bay hard drive enclosure that offers RAID 1 and JBOD.  It is styled to look like a Time Capsule, so you can stack them and keep with Apple’s fancy looking theme.  It also provides 3 USB ports that you can use to add more external drives, printers, etc to your Time Capsule system.

Sure the Time Capsule has a USB port that will accept any external USB hard drive, but there aren’t many out there that offer RAID to reduce the chance of data loss due to drive failure.  That’s one of the big things that attracts me to the Safe Capsule.   RAID 1 is a system that creates mirror images of drives, so if either one fails the other one is exactly the same.  JBOD, or Just a Bunch Of Disks, isn’t truely a RAID type since it offers no redundancy.  It takes two disks and combines them so they appear as one.  Files are written to one or the other.  It’s appealing to some people since you get all the storage you pay for.  With RAID 1, when you buy two 1TB hard drives you get 1TB of storage that is protected by a redundant drive.  With JBOD you get 2TB of storage from your drives.  I don’t see a benefit to this for my use since I want the redundancy.

The Safe Capsule is sold without drives so you can use your own SATA drives and pick whatever capacity fits your budget.  Even thought it’s a fairly new product, I did find that it is available already from NewEgg.  I’m really considering adding one to my Time Capsule to have some redundant storage.

Dropbox’s website describes their service in a tour they offer on their site.  The site describes the synchronization it offers by saying, “Let’s say you’re editing a document at home. As soon as you click ‘Save’, Dropbox will sync this same file to all your other computers (and now your iPhone!) instantly and automatically. It’s as if you saved the document to all of your computers. This gives you the freedom to work on any of your computers and always have the files you need.”

It describes the sharing function by saying, “You can easily share entire folders or photo albums with Dropbox. Simply put the folders you want to share in your Dropbox, and invite people to them. You can also send people links to specific files within your Dropbox. This makes Dropbox perfect for team projects.”

The site describes the use of their service as a backup solution by saying, “Every time you put a file in your Dropbox folder it is automatically backed up to our secure servers. If your computer has a melt-down your files are safe on Dropbox and can be restored at any time. Our free 2GB account is perfect for backing up your documents. We offer larger accounts (up to 100GB) for backing up your music and video collections.”

They describe how you can retrieve early versions of files that you have changed and saved over or files you deleted by saying, “Every time you save a file in Dropbox, Dropbox syncs it to our secure servers. Dropbox keeps a history of every change made so that you can undo any mistakes and even undelete files. By default, we keep the last 30 days of undo history for all your files. We also have an unlimited undo option called “Pack-rat”.”

They also discuss how you can replace the need for flash drives, ftp sites, the practice of emailing files to yourself, renaming files to keep version histories, and backup systems by using their service.

I’ve used by Dropbox storage to store utilities I often need – I can access those utilities from any computer I’m working on and even send other people links to those utilities so they can use them as well.  I used to keep all these sorts of software on a USB flash drive but now that sits, collecting dust, on my dresser.  I also use Dropbox to store backups of some of my important documents.  Finally, I keep documents that I’m working on in my Dropbox so I can continue working on them from other locations.

While Dropbox offers an app for the iPhone and doesn’t really offer one for the Blackberry, they do offer a mobile website that works great on the Blackberry.  There is an OTA app for the Blackberry that will add an icon to your device that accesses the mobile site, basically giving you a web based app, so to speak.  Regardless, I can access my dropbox files from my Blackberry

I’m sure that I’m not alone in having multiple computers that I own and use. I also have friends and relatives that seem to need occasional assistance with something.  It never fails that I am away from home with my laptop and want to work on something that was on my desktop computer or have someone call me with a problem.

I’ve been using a free, web-based, remote control tool called LogMeIn to address some of these issues.  You sign into LogMeIn’s web site from any computer with internet access and the page offers you a list of computers that you have added to your account.  You can select one and have remote control of that system within the web browser.  You can view and control the desktop, reboot the computer, shut down the system, etc all through the web page.  One limitation of the free LogMeIn is that you need to preinstall the software onto the computer and add it to your account.  I believe there is paid versions that will allow you to email a link or remotely install the client component which would be handy if you often support different systems or can’t preinstall the software.

I have personally found a few uses for LogMeIn’s service.  I’ve added my parents computer into my account so I can connect in and help resolve problems they have.  I don’t bring my work laptop home at the end of the day anymore since I can connect in and continue working with it from home using my home computer.  Imagine working from a low cost, low power netbook on a big video encoding project that is stored and processed on your powerful desktop computer with all it’s expensive, licensed software.  You could be sitting at the beach with an aircard and using that high horsepower machine to do all the work while you are remote controlling it and lounging in the sun  It’s helpful to note that it isn’t necessary to install anything on the computer your using to remote control another.  It just requires internet access and a web browser.  Therefore, you could gain access to your computer from a friends system, the public library, your school’s computer lab, etc.  I’m sure nobody has thought of using the home gaming PC while they are at work >:)

Security is always a concern, especially when allowing access to data from the internet.  I’m happy with LogMeIn’s security features.  The web session runs on 256-bit encryption and the system can be configured to email you whenever someone logs in or tries to log in to your account.  There are a variety of other conditions you can set to notify you via email as well.  Selecting a highly secure password for your account is a great idea.  These days it seems that the user is the biggest security hole and weak passwords are a good example of this.

Don’t plan on using LogMeIn to spy on your home computer – the system you are controlling or viewing has a big alert that pops up warning that the system is being controlled.

I found another free service that nicely compliments LogMeIn to make file storage and access more portable.  An online file storage service called Dropbox gives you the ability to easily drag files into a folder on your computer that automatically syncs them to their online storage system.  Imagine logging into your home PC with LogMeIn from a lab computer at school, dragging a file for a research paper you wanted to work on into a folder on your desktop, and having it show up in a web browser for you to open, save to the lab computer, etc.  I’ve started writing a bit more in depth about Dropbox in a different article.