I've been meaning to write up piece about my experience with the
Pogoplug since
I got it last Christmas as a gift to myself. But this thing works so well, it just fades into the background and I keep forgetting about it.
What is a Pogoplug? Its basically a garish pink and white box that lets you connect and access a USB drive from anywhere you have a computer on the internet. Actually you can connect up to four drives - either USB flash drives or hard drives. Call it network attached storage, call it a file server, call it whatever you want, I call it dead simple. Being able to access my stuff form anywhere has always been something I've wanted, but until the Pogoplug, it seemed like that was something reserved for folks a lot smarter than me and knowledgeable in all sorts of arcane network stuff.
Not so with the Pogoplug. The steps are as follows:
1. Plug it into your router,
2. Plug in a USB drive (or three or four - can you say
terabyte?)
3. Plug it into the wall.
4. Log onto the pogoplug web site, let it find your little pink and white box and set up a password for access.
That's it.
From now on, you can access those drives from any other computer on the net. Just go mypogoplug.com, enter your e-mail and password that you signed up with and you will get a web browser view of the folders and files on your drive. From there, you can do all sorts of things. Pogoplug will let you
- Download files to your local computer.
- Share files or even whole folders with others by specifying their e-mail address. They get a note with a link in it to go to the file or folder via the mypogoplug web site. They don't have to sign up for anything, get an account or give up any personal information. This share feature can either be limited to viewing and downloading or can give the other person full access to the file or folder (or even the whole drive), allowing them to make changes. This has been particularly useful for me where I need to exchange numerous large files with others in my work. Instead of sending them an e-mail with a bunch of 200 page PDF files to clog up their Inbox, I share a folder with them where they can download the files at their convenience. Give them full access to that folder and they can upload other files and changes they need to share with me. And remember, all of this takes place on my drive, not from a remote server that I don't have control over.
- Stream audio or video media over the net from the drive attached to the Pogoplug. Yep, all 50 gigabytes of your music collection and all of those YouTube videos you've saved, all of those movies you've ripped from DVDs (you know, the ones you own) are available anywhere in the world where you can hop on the net. All without any complicated set up.
And you don't even need a PC to do this. You can access, share and stream your stuff from an iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc.
If you are using a PC (or Mac) download the utility that integrates the drives attached to the Pogoplug into your Windows Explorere (or Mac Finder). This lets you access the files and folders from within other applications on your computer directly.
And the service and support provided by the Pogoplug people has been great. Send them an e-mail with your question or problem and you get back - usually within hours - a personal response from a real person that gives useful helpful information. And I've asked some stupid questions (Couldn't find the power cord when I unpacked the box - look under the packing tray was the answer that came back in literally minutes). I've even had them follow up with me several days later to see if I had sorted my problem out on one occasion.
And how much does all of this goodness cost? After all, there are all sorts of online storage services that range from free to $$$, usually the $$$ is a recurring annual fee. Well, with the Pogoplug you pony up your $$$ once - the garish pink and white box runs about $100. And that's it. There are no other annual fees to the Pogoplug people to keep things running smoothly. (yeah, I know, there's the cost of the drives, but you probably have a bunch of those laying around anyway) I guess the one danger to all of this is if Pogoplug goes out of business and they are not around to route the requests to the appropriate drive. So go out and buy one and help keep them in business. Seriously though, they have put the Pogoplug system software in escrow, to be released as open source in the event they go away.
One last caveat - I don't work for them, am not an investor or connected with them in anyway, except as a very happy and satisfied customer!
Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....
