Pogoplug

Pogoplug is a really great concept. Essentially, it’s a box in which you plug in your home router and then one, or more, USB drives. The Pogoplug then connects these drives to “the cloud” where you can instantly access their contents wherever you are – via their website or using desktop software.

Up until now I’ve been using Dropbox – this doesn’t require any hardware and is simply a free storage area which you can freely access. However, this only comes with 2GB of storage, without having to pay a monthly fee.

Now, I have a 500GB USB hard drive connected to a Pogoplug, on which my daughter can backup her Laptop and I can backup my Netbook, wherever we may be. I can share files and allow others to send files to me.

Pogoplug started off a number of years in the US. Their first Pogoplug was literally a plug – it’s a large white box, with some status lights on the front, and an ethernet and USB socket underneath, which plugs into the mains. More recently they’ve launched their newest offering, including into Europe. The new Pogoplug is a bright pink standalone box with 4 USB connectors. Otherwise, though, it works just the same.

I have the original version (all you need to do is swap out the figure 8 power lead to a UK equivalent). For the sake of simplicity we’ll call the original “v1″ and the new one “v2″!

So, I plug it in, run the supplied ethernet cable from the Pogoplug to my router and then plug my USB drive in (you can use USB hubs as well, so whatever number of USB sockets your Pogoplug has, you can always add more devices). I go to the Pogoplug website to setup my profile and it automatically detects and registers my device. Immediately I’m shown the content of the drive via their web interface. As well as the usual access options, I can also set up sharing options so that I can allow other users access to my drive contents.

There’s also desktop software (which includes 64-bit versions), as well as apps for the major phones OS’. Naturally, I have the Android version, and that allows me to save phone content to my drive as well as access the contents.

The desktop software maps your Pogoplug to a drive letter – I often find after a PC reboot that I have to select the option to “Reload” the Pogoplug for it to be picked up again. Hopefully this will be rectified in future program or firmware versions - firmware updates to the plug are handled automatically, so this isn’t even something you have to worry about.

But that’s about it. And that is what’s so good about it – it’s so simple to use. It was my youngest daughter’s Christening last weekend – I was so busy during the event I hardly got chance to get any photos. I knew other guests had, so I emailed everyone for them to send me copies. Of course, full size versions are going to be many MB each, so if somebody had taken lots of photos it was going to be difficult to share that. Pogoplug stepped in and I easily set up a shared folder and distributed links. In no time at all I had a folder full of photos.

Are there any downsides? Well, unlike Dropbox, which copies all the files onto your PC for quick access, all file access on Pogoplug is done directly with your attached drives. When you’re connected to your home network it goes directly and, therefore, quickly. However, when away, it works slower as all reads and writes are done directly back to the Pogoplug attached drives. I’d post access speeds, but my only remote access point away from home is at work, where I can only use the public wireless network. And that goes so slow to be near unusable. None-the-less, it is (and it’s to be expected) noticeably slower than when on your own network.

Also, I don’t appear to be able to access it from work (the non-public network) – I’m guessing it’s a firewall config issue, but I can get to Dropbox without any problems.

For the more technically minded, Pogoplug provide an API so that anyone can write code to access Pogoplug content – you can be sure they’ll be some WordPress plugins coming soon to do this (although I don’t as yet have ideas on what exactly they would do – if you have any ideas yourself, let me know!).

Summary

Simple to use, yet incredibly powerful. A little slow at times, but this means all files are held at a single repository. Why pay monthly fees for fixed cloud storage where, for a one off hardware cost, you can have all the content you could want (or plugin)? Dust off those old hard drives, stick them in caddies and plug them into your Pogoplug!

You can see why this has been a hit with students in particular - leave all your data in a single, safe location and access it wherever you want.

Right now, Dixons have an exclusive £10 off, making it now only £69.99. An absolute bargain.

Gallery

The Belkin Mini Bluetooth Adapter (which I bought from from Amazon for £6.98) is a tiny USB device that barely sticks out of the size of your PC/laptop when plugged in. What it does do, though, is provide your computer with Bluetooth capabilities.

It has a 10 metre range and uses Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) “to provide optimal performance”. According to WikiPedia, EDR provides secure simple pairing (SSP) which improves the pairing experience for Bluetooth devices, while increasing the use and strength of security. It also includes features which reduces the power consumption in low-power mode. Essentially, less power and easier to connect.

The package includes instructions and a drive disk, neither of which I used. Simply plugging the device into a Windows 7 machine, drivers are automatically installed. Which is probably a good thing – the packaging doesn’t state that it supports Windows 7 and the latest drivers on the Belkin website doesn’t suggest it either. Indeed, as far as I can tell, no Belkin Bluetooth adapters are officially Windows 7 compatible. But, then again, trying to find where Belkin hides Bluetooth adapters on its products pages is an art in itself.

None-the-less, it works well with the default drivers.

Summary

It works as fast as you’d expect a Bluetooth device to (not very) and does, well, what it should. And in a tiny package, which is very convenient.

I’ve made changes to two of my WordPress plugins today…

Simple Draft List

Yes, I know I only changed this yesterday, but I’ve now made an improvement to the date ordering (otherwise scheduled posts would always appear at the top of the list, as they have a future date). Now it’s based on the last modification date, meaning that changing a draft will move it back to the top again.

YouTube Embed

I’ve added a  transparency option so that videos won’t cover up layers on your site. The original problem would only have affected some people, but it’s a worthwhile change (which I haven’t made switchable, but can do if there is a need to do so).

Thanks very much to Daniel at optincrusher for finding it, reporting it and even checking over my changes!