DanLin.net

Ever since Amazon launched it Web Services products people have been raving about its power and flexibility as well as reasonable pricing. But it is not until now has it been easy and practical enough to use for individuals thanks to services like JungleDisk.

Here is the description of their service from their own Website:

* Store an unlimited amount of data for only 15¢ per gigabyte
* No monthly subscription fee, no startup fee, no commitment
* Your data is fully encrypted at all times
* Data is stored at multiple Amazon.com datacenters around the country for high availability
* Access files directly from Windows Explorer, Mac OSX Finder, and Linux
* Automatically back up your important files quickly and easily

A friend of mine turned me on to the service last week and I have been playing around with it for a couple of days. So far it has worked very well but it is certainly in beta status. It is essentially a front-end for Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) that makes the storage-in-a-cloud concept as transparent as possible. It literally looks like a local hard drive when it is connected. Locally cached files makes the file appear instantly on the drive while it works in the background to push it all up to Amazon’s servers without you sitting and waiting as in other services. Even if the computer crashes the service is smart enough to resume the upload when it reboots.

Where it shows as a beta product is in the feature set. Currently there is no easy way to map multiple drives using the same or different accounts. There are no privileges you can set for others to have limited access to your files or even make some of your files live on the internet via regular HTTP. Supposedly all of that will come in time at a fair price of a dollar a month or $20 a lifetime. Of course you will incur Amazon S3 charges for the storage and transfer fees but Jungle Disk isn’t seeing any of that.

Amazon S3 Pricing Structure

A typical scenario where this is extremely useful would be for someone who has a home computer as well as a work PC. You can map your Jungle Disk to both machines regardless where they are in the Internet. Files will appear in both locations just like magic. Or if you have a company with virtual employees across the world you can simply enable access to a Jungle Disk and suddenly everyone will be sharing and working on a network drive as if you are in the same network.

As a backup service it is not the cheapest around. Personally I will need close a terabyte of storage to backup my digital life and Amazon S3 will cost me around $150 a month whereas Mozy offers an unlimited backup service at $4.95/month. Where services like Mozy lacks is the transparency of file access.

I’ve been using it for just a couple of days and have been very impressed with the app. To access multiple Amazon accounts and S3 buckets I’ve even written a little script that allows me to ‘one-click’ swap between them. Let’s just hope Amazon hasn’t patented that as well…

Its over. All 6 seasons of The Soprano’s came to an end last night and the controversy is just starting. If you TiVo’d it have not watch it you should stop right about here.

Having waited patiently this past year to see how it will all end, last night’s series finale was brilliantly executed. and broke all the boundaries of dramatic television series finales. The HBO forums are still buzzing from last nights big event which was titled Made In America.

I’m not going to go through what has been going on in the last episodes but I have not felt so tense while watching a television show in maybe ever. David Chase, the creator of the show, wrote and directed this last episode which ended with Tony and his family in Holsten’s, a modest italian family restaurant, about to have dinner. Suspicious characters are dotted all around the room as Carmela, AJ and Meadow all showed up individually giving Tony some time to queue up the 1981 power ballad by Journey, ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ on the jukebox.

Chase has become a master at creating so much tension in a scene that makes you want to vomit. You get the same kind of feeling while watching a horror movie when you think the killer is going to jump out and scare you in any second. The last scene showed Meadow running late while struggling to parallel park her Lexus across the street from the restaurant. Without any indication, the screen cuts to black as she opens the door and enters the restaurant. No video, no audio, just a black screen that seem to have lasted forever but in reality was merely seconds. The first thing that came out of my mouth was, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”. I didn’t know what had hit me and I started to think maybe my TV died during the most anticipated scene of the series of this entire year. Of course that was not the case. David Chase had intended to end the show in darkness and silence. As the credits started rolling, a million thoughts were going through my head. What happened? Who is the suspicious looking guy at the counter? FBI? A hit man? Does he take out Tony? What’s the significance of the song? Do I like what just happened? Does Silvio survive? So many unresolved issues yet the show is over. Man, it’s over…..

As of now there are many theories and interpretations of how this show ended. The one that makes the most sense to me but not necessarily how I wanted it to end is that Tony was whacked by the suspicious guy at the counter as he exited the restroom. Their table was right next to the restroom door and as Meadow walks into the restaurant, you see Tony’s perspective and real quickly the audience’s perspective of Tony just before it all goes black and silent. In episode 78 named “Soprano Home Movies“, Tony and Bobby were sitting in the boat on the lake when Tony tells Bobby what he think it’s like when it happens. He says and I paraphrase, “I don’t think anything happens, it just all goes black.”

Obviously this show ended this way so people like myself will interpret and conspire about what we think the ending might be. I don’t think Chase will ever tell people what his intentions were or if there even were any. I can’t wait to watch it all over again…

Just a small town girl
Living in a lonely world
She took the midnight train going anywhere
Just a city boy
Born and raised in South Detroit
He took the midnight train going anywhere

CUT TO BLACK

MySpace today (actually the time is dated in the future at the time of this post. interesting) is alerting their users that YouTube.com seems to be running ’slow’ today. Ummmm. I’m not so sure its true. Especially went the recommended fix by our friend Tom is to REMOVE ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS. Good one. I wonder if anyone got suckered into this one…

Watch the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher in its entirety from the All Things Digital Conference. Videos below are in order top to bottom. Sorry about the Brightcove player and embedded ads. I guess they have bills to pay…