And here I was thinking it was about the collapse of the Internet should another World War were to break out...
Isn't the take away from the Google Reader et al issues is that we shouldn't leave our eggs in a single basket? And that we're better off not putting our faith in a single free service to do our bidding?
I don't think I'd recommend rsync as a replacement for Dropbox, as rsync isn't as elegant and doesn't replicate the functionality of Dropbox. (I use and like both tools.)
You might consider also recommending Unison as a Dropbox alternative rather than rsync. Unison is probably better at multiway synchronization.
Interesting. I thought Unison wasn't actively supported any more?
It does look like the better choice - although lacking in Android / iOS implementations from what I see.
I think it's supported, as there were updates for it last year, but just not actively developed. The developers are working on another project called Boomerang that's supposed to replace it(maybe?), but which hasn't seen an update in years last I checked.
Too true! But in this case, people were putting their eggs in a basket held by Google; they could hold the basket themselves, even though it would then still be one basket.
Perhaps most relevant to this issues is the social networking sites that are large data silos owned by private companies. There is much movement towards a more open, decentralized, and federated social web. Indie Web Camp is an interesting group of people (which I proudly belong to) who care about and are building tools to this pursuit - http://indiewebcamp.com
Maybe I'm just forgetting the pain of doing this, as it was so long ago, but here's my general remembrances:
1) Call your ISP and ask for a "business" account with static IP. This will cost more, but to some, it's a privilege worth paying for.
2) Setup a spare computer with $OSS_OS_OF_YOUR_CHOICE running a web server and put in the numbers your ISP tells you.
3) You're done.
Of course, it'd be nice if you would harden the server (maybe start with a hardened distro) and have email as well as a domain name, but those aren't that complicated these days either (and can usually be outsourced if you don't really care). Heck, you can skip all this and pay under $10/month for a web server of your own (virtualized of course).
That's definitely an option. Sometimes, though, the TOS or just general policy blocks that. Part of the reason to go with a "business" account with static IP is to tell your ISP that "hey, I'm not kidding, I want to serve stuff here.".
Isn't the take away from the Google Reader et al issues is that we shouldn't leave our eggs in a single basket? And that we're better off not putting our faith in a single free service to do our bidding?