I know, it sounds sort of odd doesn’t it? However, headlines about Google going offline were all over the tech news sites this week. I think it’s interesting that the world’s largest provider of web services recognizes that a key barrier to increased service adoption is customer concern about online service availability. After all, isn’t the web supposed to be there for us 24x7x365?
There will probably always be times that we cannot be connected to the web. Whether that’s in an airplane or simply some WiFi dead zone at a hotel, “no service available” is a message that’s still all too common. Google Gears is a good first step towards addressing these issues, but I’m not sure it means now is the time to discard our desktop applications altogether.
Perhaps there will soon be a time when web apps replicate on my desktop regardless of their connection status and that will be good enough. Today however, I find myself continuing to return to my desktop for programs that can respond acceptably and generally offer me a greater degree of control over how I manage my data. To be fair, I think this is also a function of the maturity of my desktop apps vs. newer web-based alternatives.
However, as my job leads me deeper into the world of rich media the demand for improved application performance multiplies rapidly. I’m already enjoying many of the new features in iLife ’09, but I recognize that even though they leverage web data more, there’s little chance they could perform satisfactorily as web services alone. So, while I applaud Google for addressing the offline challenge, I consider it to be a fast moving target they may not catch up with.
Larger and more complex data files demand faster microprocessors and more sophisticated software. As a result, I benefit from using the latest desktop software from Adobe and Apple while considering my sixteen-month-old Macbook to be somewhat obsolete. This became abundantly clear as I struggled to publish twenty minutes of HD video for our web sites this week.
I need a seamless online and offline connection from my desktop to web servers in order to publish and preserve my output. This is where Internet “bridge” technologies, like Xythos Drive make sense. Xythos Drive synchs my data locally for offline work and lets me perform those tasks with the applications of my choice, whether from Adobe, Microsoft or whoever. That’s the best of both worlds for me when we’re talking about rich media.
When we’re talking about more lightweight collaboration (Email, messaging, etc.) Google is definitely getting better at addressing my needs. However, I like Zimbra Collaboration Suite a lot too and they’ve offered an offline solution for quite a while already. Zimbra has also partnered with Xythos to integrate enterprise content management (ECM) into their popular Outlook alternative. I think that make plenty of sense, particularly if you’re collaborating around rich media!
Gmail continues to improve and I certainly feel like a beneficiary of that. Google could also benefit from considering how users would like to better integrate their desktop lives online and what better solutions their web services can offer in that regard. As a fan of Blogger, I have high hopes.
How are you bridging the divide between what you do on your desktop vs. the web? Please let me know.
Obviously, there’s more to it than that. Having anytime access to your data is certainly important, but knowing that you have control of it is even more critical. I suspect that is one of the reasons more businesses have not adopted Google Docs of Gmail. The fact that these services are still labeled “Beta” probably doesn’t help either.
If you want to make use of your Mac's Thunderbolt port, then this is the best external hard drive for Macs. It provides twice the speeds of standard USB 3.0 drives. Xythos Software. 2002 – 6/2008 6 let. Development of MacOS X filesystem driver with Java backend (prototype of Xythos Drive for Mac). The Xythos Drive is a desktop application that maps a lettered drive or Volume to your Xythos on Demand service. Quickly access and easily edit your online files and folders from your desktop. With Xythos Drive you use the Windows Explorer or Finder on your local computer to connect to Xythos on Demand – no Web browser is needed. Look at the folder structure of a typical OS X installation. Open a Finder window and click the icon for your hard drive (which is typically called Macintosh HD) in the Sidebar. You should see at least four folders: Applications, Library, System, and Users. Within the Users folder, each user has his own set of. Not all faculty and staff have access to Xythos X-Drive. For those who do have access, they can log into X-Drive via the software-based client installed on their Windows-based computer, or MAC. Clients can also access Xythos X-Drive via the web at xdrive.rider.edu.
There will probably always be times that we cannot be connected to the web. Whether that’s in an airplane or simply some WiFi dead zone at a hotel, “no service available” is a message that’s still all too common. Google Gears is a good first step towards addressing these issues, but I’m not sure it means now is the time to discard our desktop applications altogether.
Perhaps there will soon be a time when web apps replicate on my desktop regardless of their connection status and that will be good enough. Today however, I find myself continuing to return to my desktop for programs that can respond acceptably and generally offer me a greater degree of control over how I manage my data. To be fair, I think this is also a function of the maturity of my desktop apps vs. newer web-based alternatives.
However, as my job leads me deeper into the world of rich media the demand for improved application performance multiplies rapidly. I’m already enjoying many of the new features in iLife ’09, but I recognize that even though they leverage web data more, there’s little chance they could perform satisfactorily as web services alone. So, while I applaud Google for addressing the offline challenge, I consider it to be a fast moving target they may not catch up with.
Larger and more complex data files demand faster microprocessors and more sophisticated software. As a result, I benefit from using the latest desktop software from Adobe and Apple while considering my sixteen-month-old Macbook to be somewhat obsolete. This became abundantly clear as I struggled to publish twenty minutes of HD video for our web sites this week.
I need a seamless online and offline connection from my desktop to web servers in order to publish and preserve my output. This is where Internet “bridge” technologies, like Xythos Drive make sense. Xythos Drive synchs my data locally for offline work and lets me perform those tasks with the applications of my choice, whether from Adobe, Microsoft or whoever. That’s the best of both worlds for me when we’re talking about rich media.
When we’re talking about more lightweight collaboration (Email, messaging, etc.) Google is definitely getting better at addressing my needs. However, I like Zimbra Collaboration Suite a lot too and they’ve offered an offline solution for quite a while already. Zimbra has also partnered with Xythos to integrate enterprise content management (ECM) into their popular Outlook alternative. I think that make plenty of sense, particularly if you’re collaborating around rich media!
Gmail continues to improve and I certainly feel like a beneficiary of that. Google could also benefit from considering how users would like to better integrate their desktop lives online and what better solutions their web services can offer in that regard. As a fan of Blogger, I have high hopes.
How are you bridging the divide between what you do on your desktop vs. the web? Please let me know.
NOTE: Off-line functionality is currently not supported by Xythos for MAC
Configure Xythos so that files and folders are available offline
- Start Xythos Drive
- Press the button 'Work Online'
- Select first file or folder to be accessible Offline, (select it in the Explorer window that is connected to the server).
- Right-click on the selected file/folder and select 'Always Available Offline' from the pop-up menu
- Repeat step 3 and 4 for all files and folders that shall be accessible off-line
- Click on the 'Disconnect' button in the Xythos Drive window
- Select the 'Offline' tab in the Xythos Drive window and select the setting for how and when synchronization with the server should be performed.
- If you want to synchronize manually, click to deselect 'On connection' and 'On disconnections', synchronization are then made manually by pressing the button 'Synchronize Now', (if you choose this option there is no automatic synchronization).
Working with files and folders Off-line
Xythos Drive For Mac Pro
- Start Xythos Drive
- Press the button 'Work Offline', (Xythos driver connects to a 'virtual drive' with the same content, and with all the 'Remote configured' files and folders, (see above), available in an Explorer window, (it looks like you are connected to the server).
- Navigate to the file in the Explorer window and work with it as if it had been stored on your computers hard drive.
- When you have finished your work, click on the button 'Disconnect' in the Xythos Drive window, the 'virtual disk' is disconnected
Xythos Drive For Mac Download
Synchronize the updated files and folders Online
Xythos Drive For Mac Windows 10
- If automatic synchronization is selected, the synchronization and update of changed files and folders appears when you connect to the server (when pressing the 'Online' button in the Xythos Drive window).
- If manual synchronization is selected, the synchronization and update of changed files and folders appears when you press the button 'Synchronize Now' in the 'Offline' tab in the Xythos Drive window.
- If someone else has updated a file on the server so that the versions of a file is different a pop-up window appears where you can choose the appropriate action.