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With all the news about personal cloud storage I decided to venture into my own personal local cloud storage with the POGO Plug device. I purchased the POGO Plug Classic at Best Buy for about $50. I’m only limited by the size of my existing external storage devices and right now I’m pretty happy. In addition to my new personal cloud storage I’ve got a Box.net account, Dropbox.com account, iCloud (which is very disappointing), and many places that I can store various content such as a premium Flickr account and a free Screencast.com account, Vimeo and Youtube. I’d like to reduce the use of these sites because I have so much duplication of data on many of them. Oh, and least I forget my own FTP server space on my hosting provider. Surely there is one or tow that I’ve missed.

There is just something I like ab0ut hosting my own content in a cloud type setting. Easy access is one of the advantages but I thing that even more than access is knowing that my files are secure and I don’t mean secure as in locked down security but in the sense that I will not lose data if the other servers go down or even worse eliminate their “free” service.  The reality is that those servers have redundancy built in and I do not so web based cloud storage may be the more reliable of the two options. What I really need to find is a place to back up about 500 gig of data (for free) and have it accessible in a cloud environment.  Right now POGO Plug is doing that for me with their uploader app.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments.

I’ve enjoyed checking in with Foursquare over the past year so today’s decision to delete the app from my phone was certainly a turn around for me. After all I checked in at a number of places yesterday and was just a few check ins from being number two for the week.  So why did I delete the app?

I realized today that my check ins with Foursquare were not so much about where I was at but was  a competition of who can be number one for check ins for the week. It was a game that I was willing to play but did not realize that if I was going to be first on a particular week with the most check ins I was going to have to play the “check in game” if you will. That game became an obsession. The short story is that if I was going to be “first” at check ins during the past week I was going to have to go to many new places and check in. I found that I really am a creature of habit and I don’t really mix things up that much. Yes, when I travel, and I travel a lot, there are many new places that I visit and checking in is sometimes not the most important thing on my “to do” list. However, over the past few weeks I have been determined to have the most check ins and be #1 for the week.

So now the real reason I deleted my Foursquare app.  I would check in at all the locations, stores, etc. that I would visit but I could not get above number two or three on the weekly check in list. I started following those that were playing the game and realized why they were ranked high in weekly visits. Those that were number one for check ins were “checking in” at ridiculous places like bridge openings (yes.. when a bridge opens someone made a check in for that location) and were getting extra points for that location.  If I was going win I had to be willing to check in at the most ridiculous places such as intersections, multiple locations of the same business, park benches, and subway/train stops were just an example of what I was going to have to do to have the most check ins and be number one for the week.

Bottom line, I just don’t have the time to play the game. It was fun but not for me…

I’ve been trying to decide which iPad2 I want over the last week or so and now I’m ready to purchase. Yes, I will have to wait, but I think the wait has been worth it. It’s been a fun process of learning about the differences between the two and more specifically how does the 3G model acquire map data.

I first started with an honest evaluation of what I was going to do with my new iPad2. Many thanks go out to my friend Jerry who has an iPad and asked probing questions that made me look deeper into the purchase. I’ve worked through the early reports of a “sub-standard” camera and decided that while a camera comparable to the one one the iPhone 4 would be a great option I would not let it be a “deal breaker”.

Since I had already decided that I would purchase the iPad2 based on its improvements over the reduced price iPad and I had come to terms with the camera issue there was only one more consideration for me and that was the GPS capability.

The biggest question was whether or not the iPad2 needed the 3G access to get map data for my favorite GPS navigation app, MotionX GPS Drive and my Geocaching app.  Other than these two apps I could not think of any other application for me, at this time, that would require GPS on the iPad2. So the question is simply a matter of the cost in an additional cost in the iPad2 WiFi + 3G and the data package from A&TT.

As it has worked out, not being able to find an iPad2 on the shelf and not willing to wait in line for one has worked out quite nicely for me. My friend Kim sent me this article (Wi-Fi iPad 2 Gets GPS With iPhone 4 Connection Sharing) that answers the question about creating a hotspot with my iPhone 4 and then I found this blog cross-posted at CNET that really helped me make up my mind. As the blog points out, the iPad2 can get its location data from the tethered iPhone and according to those that have tried (combination of iPhone 4 hotspot and iPad2) seem pretty happy.

As it stands right now I will be getting an iPad2 WiFi only.

I’ve decided to attempt to jailbreak my iPhone 4 instead of the AT&T option to create a hot spot. It’s my understanding that when I pay for the tethering option with AT&T I will give up my “grandfathered” unlimited plan. If it works well I’ll post my findings.

Actually I would have jailbroken the phone last night but I upgraded to iOS 4.3 BECAUSE I heard about the tethering option. I found out that there is not a jailbreak for that version yet…but there will be soon!

Until next time…