I would recommend this test to one & all. This one is very much like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test that helps you psycologically profile yourself
My profile is that of a Cautious Inventor & I must say that most of the observations made about me are bang on !
PersonalDNA | Your True Self Revealed – Fast Fun Free Personality Tests
It was about a week ago when I received an email from the good folks at Box.net with the details of how to sign-up for their new Online file storage service. While I have tried my hand at many of these Web 2.0-ish applications (Ajax, Ruby on Rails, Flash with a closed beta and a handsome dose of Tagging thrown in), I quite have not had the opportunity to test drive stuff Omnidrive or Openomy which seem to have made it to some popular blogs sometime earlier. So it was with a rather open perspective that I approached Box.net. The service attempts to provide Free (plus Paid for additional) storage for files which can be accessed from any PC on the net. You can also share files that you have storage online with others (stuff that you can’t email around). They also apparently have a Desktop sync tool, APIs to for extensibility and an upcoming Mobile access feature (I have not checked the Desktop sync part out yet but looks interesting). Here’s the list of features available & here’s a link to why these folks believe box.net rocks (as compared to various other services around) !
First impressions about Box.net were rather positive, the site has a pleasing
rounded-edges and Blue feel to it which gives it a rather comforting appeal. Sign-up was pretty simple … made it rather happy that I was supposedly one of the few to be exposed to the ‘Early Adopter preview’
All they wanted me to do was to not talk about it till Feb 22nd, which I respect and here I am blogging about it on Feb 26th
The landing page once you login is also well laid out and has a tips DHTML like pop-up that you can dismiss
OK, so here I am with 1 GB in file storage space to use. So, the first thing to do is get about creating some folders to help me organise my files. Funnily enough, even though box.net has a feature to Tag files & fodlers, it still allows you to create a hierarchical directory of folders, am not sure if there are too many services that allow you to do both (a bit like using a combination of Gmail’s lables with Outlook’s folders)
The landing screen rather sensibly has 2 key links, one to create a folder and the other to upload files
Creating a folder is a simple affair . A sweet looking layered pop-up in which to enter the name of the folder and you are done. Once done you get a familiar Windows Explorer like Icon view which can also be changed to a List view
What is rather not so intuitive is that the Folder icon has small little arrow that allows you to perform actions on the folder : Open, Share, Edit and Tag etc.
This is quite obviously not so obvious and it took me quite some time to figure out how to Tag my files for Folders
File upload has 2 options, one using a Flash interface and the other using a Java applet (for a large number of files). I used the Flash option and that works fine for me (but starts choking one you try to upload a large number of files … say 15 or more). The file upload status graph is neat and leaves you in no doubt. The Java applet never worked for me and would be something that I will keep away from. Given that the Flash option didn’t really scale for a larger number of files, the folks need to figure a way out of this issue
The List view looks neat and similar to the folder icon has an dropdown arrow that lets you perform additional actions
The highlight of Box.net is their Search feature. These folks have taken the concept of Inline auto-complete to another level and they actually filter out the list of files / folders in the main view as you type the keyword. Now, this is something that I havn’t seen before in a web application. Sure you have things like Google Suggest that use AJAX to auto-complete stuff for you, but to actually filter the search results, man … that is Cool ! I like it
The other truly cool, use friendly feature is the Help pop-up layers that show up as you mouse over the stuff on the left nav. For a newbie user, this would certainly help in exploring understanding various available features. You also have interesting features such as creating sub-accounts for multi-user access and the ability to share in public or in private, which for sure would have many takers
So, what does the balance sheet for Box.net look like :
Pros
Cons
But for a service that is free for 1 GB storage (minus some features), plus 5 Gig service at $ 4.99 per month and a 15 gig service at 9.99 $ a month with some discounting for annual plans [Pricing plans], I am sure there would be takers for such a service … but for most people 1 Gig ought to be enough (unless you are into mp3eez and warez and may be a few other things that I am not aware of !). If you want to sign-up … head out here
Net net, I’d rate them 3.5 – 4 on 5, if I had indeed seen desktop sync and mobile access work it could be better.
The much awaited Payments service from Google is finally upon us. Quite mercifully so, because the hype & myth surrounding this has been on for quite a few months now
So what does Google have to offer ? From this post on Google Blog :
Bill Burnham has a very interesting post when he examines the Terms of Service for Buyers for the Google Payments service and discovers that the payments made by Buyers are actually intermediated through Google before it is released to sellers, as compared to eBay’s PayPal which passes the money through to the Seller’s account. This essentially points to an Escrow like payment service wherein Google would process the payment for the Seller only when the Seller had fulfilled his part of the deal. Bill also questions how Google will deal with the additional risk of Fraud & Chargebacks
Quoting the relevant section from the T&Cs :
The Service facilitates the processing of Payment Transactions to complete a payment for a purchase between a Buyer and a Seller. The Service will store information from Buyers regarding, among other information, their Payment Instruments and shipping information. The Service will process the Payment Transaction on behalf of the Seller through the appropriate credit card or debit card network. The Purchase Amount is not processed until the Seller (i) completes the purchase transaction, (ii) ships or otherwise provides the purchased goods to the Buyer, or (iii) performs the purchased service. GPC may delay payment processing of suspicious transactions or transactions which may involve fraud, misconduct, or violate applicable law, this Terms of Service for Buyers, or other applicable GPC or Service policies, as determined in GPC’s sole and absolute discretion
But, any comfort that I am glean from this is nixed by another conflicting statement in the T&Cs where in Google disclaims any reponsiblity on the quality of the product (which is fair) and also the ability of the seller to complete the sale (I dont know about you, but for me this means delivering the product / performing the serivce), which seems to be contradictory to the statement which says that “The Purchase Amount is not processed until the Seller (i) completes the purchase transaction, (ii) ships or otherwise provides the purchased goods to the Buyer, or (iii) performs the purchased service”
GPC shall not be responsible for, and does not control, the quality, safety or legality of the Products advertised, the truth or accuracy of the description of the Products, the ability of Buyers to buy Products, or the ability of Sellers to deliver Products. GPC shall not be responsible for, and does not control, whether or not a Seller will complete the sale of Products to Buyer
It is interesting to note here that eBay is already using such an Escrow based payment solution in China & TaoBao’s AliPay payment solution in China is also Escrow based
Further, the T&Cs also go on to say that the Payment using the service can ONLY be made against a specific purchase of a product or a service, ie., there HAS to an underlying transaction for a payment to be made, which means that this service cannot be used a Peer to Peer money transfer service which is one of the reasons for PayPal’s phenomenal growth
Buyer may only use the Service to process a Payment Transaction for a Product that is purchased from a Seller through a legitimate, bone fide sale of the Product. The Service may not be used to process a Payment Transaction, or otherwise transfer money between a Buyer and Seller, that is unrelated to a purchase of a Product
While PayPal may not make any money out of such P2P transfers, this feature gives it a very strong network effect and is perhaps the single biggest reason why someone signs up for a PayPal account (and once signed out, uses it for all & sundry purposes online)
This post is incomplete … hope to add more to it as my thoughts get clearer
Disclaimer : The thoughts expressed in this blog are purely my personal opinion and not that of my employer
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