Driveway.Com- Perfect? No, But a Good Choice!
Written: Sep 08 '00 (Updated Sep 08 '00)
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Although one of the better online storage sites that I've tried, using Driveway.com for large files over a dial-up connection can be hazardous to your mental health!
How Driveway Works
You can think of it as your portable hard drive, but across the Internet, allowing you to backup your files while allowing access from any location, including away from home. By uploading through your web browser and onto the Driveway site, it's possible to create, rename, and move files and directories.
Features
· Allotment of 100 MB of storage.
This claim is a little deceptive. You actually start out at 25 MB but can increase this amount by telling friends about the site, 2 MB per person, up to 40 MB. And add even more by taking online surveys, up to 30 MB. Maybe it's just me but when I add up the above, I only come up with 95 MB. Where did the 5 MB go? I guess you have to share a file to receive this extra bonus!
· Sharing Of Files
Unlike Yahoo! Briefcase, I have to create e-mail invitations to my shared file folders. Once you decide on who you would like to share files with, add their e-mail address and they'll receive the link to your files.
There is no general sharing features here. I found this to be a cheap way to collect potential Driveway members. It would have been nice to see an easy way to share files with anyone, but this is not the case here.
· Clip to Driveway
This is quite possibly the most useful of their features. By placing the Java "Clip to Driveway" link on your browser's toolbar, it's possible to save web pages to your account. The best part is it saves it intact without any future changes, unless you tell it to update.
This is similar to IE's feature that allows you to save web pages locally.
Now if I were able to figure out how to save files using this method, I would love it!
I would have liked to see an option to set the depth of each page to maybe two or three deep.
One problem though, using Netscape 4.75, it was a bit flaky at times. The pop-up window would only do just that, pop-up. Other times it would just crash. Why? If I knew why Netscape does the things it does, I'd be a wealthy individual!
One use I've recently found was to save my favorite Epinions reviews for future reference such as Quick Meal Recipes or good advice on anything from Kids and Family to Computers. This coincides well with the next feature.
· Categories
This allows you to separate your files into whatever categories you desire using a list of supplied icons and title of choice. This will not move the files from their original folder, but merely list them in specific categories.
For example: You may have 500 Mp3's in a folder. By making separate categories like Country, Rock and Rap, its possible to place the names of the files in each, making for easy sorting. After creating and adding files to your category, they can be easily accessed either through the "My Files" tab or category tab.
This is a much easier way to organize files if you have a mountain of them.
Interface
Very nicely done with easy to navigate tabs across the top to change between different features of your account. The Driveway Today tab gives you the recent activity to your account. This can come in handy to see what was accessed moved or deleted.
Works much like Windows Explorer with drag and drop features within the interface. If you use the java add-on, which I suggest, you can place a Driveway folder on your desktop and do your file transfers from there. I found this to be the easiest and most convenient way of doing transfers. Of course you'll have to be connected to the Internet to use it.
How Secure Is It?
Under their privacy policy, they state that your files are stored on a secure portion of the site and not accessible by the public.
Remember, your privacy is as secure as your login name and password. That's it! Anyone with the will and desire can attempt to infiltrate your account since your transfers and files are not encrypted by any visible means.
http://corp.driveway.com/corp/privacy.html Read #6 on the security of your stored files.
This doesn't make this site any less secure than others; it just proves a point that your stored files are vulnerable.
Keep this in mind if you wish to backup any personal information or data.
Overall
I've tinkered with this site since March '00 without many problems. The occasional glitches using Netscape were token problems, but with MS Internet Explorer I rarely ran into any mishaps. Some minor details were better used and viewed with IE. This is but one example of Netscape's impending demise. Programmers seem to direct their efforts towards IE and just try to appease Netscape users in the process. I guess that's what a large market share will do for you.
There are plenty of sites offering much more in the way of space but not the ease of use that I've found here.
If you are using a high-speed connection, I can see you getting some use out of this service. But if you're like me on a dial-up, you won't find much use for it outside of saving a few small backup files or web pages. But if that's the case, you can save them to floppy instead and save yourself the hassle.
The transfer speed reminded me of the good old days of saving programs to a cassette recorder since there were no hard or floppy drives available for my 4 K TRS-80 machine. Ahhhh! The good old days! ;)
Recommended:
Yes
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