Having a windows folder online

Yes, I use a dedicated server.
You can get it for about £30 a month, maybe cheaper.
You can also split the costs with friends if anyone is interested.

Could you give me a link to the service Investor?

Does windows just recognise it as another drive?

LiveDrive.com

Sounds expensive?

I find a USB pen drive is better and cheaper.

www.dropbox.com gives you 2 GB for free and you can access your files through a folder in windows.

Windows Live Skydirve gives you 25GB for free. Windows doesn't treat it like a regular folder but it's still easy to use.

Thanks for the replies.

i use a VPS (Virtual Personal Server), which costs about £21 per month.

For my purposes its ideal, just liking having a new superfast pc with a new superfast Internet connection!

You just connect to it via Remote Desktop Connection which is already installed on most Windows pcs and you have a Desktop very similar to Windows XP / Windows NT (it's actually Windows Server).

You can install more or less any software you like on it (so long as you have the appropriate licence), and you can copy and paste to and from your pc and the VPS etc etc. and, if you install the appropriate software you can run your own website from it.

and, of course you can use it via your laptop from anywhere on the planet that has a broadband connection.

So far (i've been using it about 3 months) i haven't hit a single snag

Mine is from http://www.tagadab.com and you can get a 1 week trial for £1 (or £2 for Windows, which is probably what you'll want to use).

On weekdays it takes about 30 mins to set up (dunno about weekends) and you can do it all online.

No I don't work for them :)

is that you dan

Betfairy, the point is what happens if the house goes on fire and you forget the PEN drive in all the excitement. You could sleep with it round your neck.

Thanks Gus, that sounds like what I'm maybe after. I want a couple of other people to be able to access my form database and correct errors / update the data for me so I then just download any changes made to the database. Is it all fairly secure as in password protected? Would it be fairly simple to encrypt so hackers or the hosts themselves can't access the data?

Feck

Basically when you set up the account you become the administrator for your VPS, so, via Remote Desktop Connection, you can connect to your VPS, and then you LogOn, using the Password the VPS company has supplied you with ... so it's just like logging onto your home computer.

As Administrator you can set up other User Accounts and their permissions, so you could give your pals their own Usernames and Passwords to access Files / Programmes that you had given them permission for (have to admit i haven't actually done that in practice, but i know you can do it).

As to security / encryption etc, I'm not really qualified to say, but I'd guess its as secure (or not) as Remote Desktop Connection is ... probably best to ask the company ... i don't want to appear to be pushing one particular company (again i'm not qualified to since i've only tried the one i'm using), but on the one occasion i needed to ring them to ask a question they were very helpful ... anyway, as previously stated you can try it out for £2 !

i use dropbox.com too v good

Thanks again gus. Cheers Jammer.

Zstilig, I signed up for skydrive but if I remember correctly the first file I tried to store there I was told it was too big. 50 mb limit I think.

it's a case of microsoft want to say 25 GB free knowing fine well no one wants to store 500+ files of 50 mb or under. i.e., a massive 25 GB free knowing no one will use anything near their allowance.

Aparently, the people at LiveDrive cannot buy hard drives fast enough.

There's a review f LiveDrive here http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/249423/livedrive

and a review of a few here

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-live-skydrive-3-alternative-storage-services/

ADrive has good limits and is free but seemingly isn't particularly secure.

On that second link there's a response from the ADrive team (from 2008) that suggests the security may no longer be a problem.

2008-04-17 13:31:19

ADrive Admin Heads up from the ADrive Team. Right now we are in Beta version. However, keep your eyes open for a new release in the next month or so. Our plan is to release paid services which includes but is not limited to larger account sizes, WebDAV, client backup, and SSL encryption. Keep in mind that a free account now will always be a free account. We do not expire data or accounts. Our only upload/download limits are 2GB per file. That is an ISP industry standard for their protection. Thanks for all your support. -ADrive Team

I'm leaning towards gus's solution though as it means I could update a programme on the server and my workers would always be using the latest version without having to make a large download to their own hard drive and, as gus says, any of us could access the programmes and data from any computer with a broadband connection.

You can install more or less any software you like on it (so long as you have the appropriate licence),

Gus, I take it if I've got a pirate copy of e.g. ms office that installs OK on my local hard drive I'll be able to install it on their drive?

i couldn't possibly comment Feck ...

in fact, i forgot to mention that all the programs i have on my VPS are downloads (e.g. OpenOffice, Java, php, mysql + my own programs) and mostly Open Source (i.e free)... i'm not quite sure how you would go about installing a program from e.g. a CD ... it's probably possibe, e.g by copying and uploading a .zip of the installer + sourcecode, but you'd need to either ask the VPS company (in which case i wouldn't use the word 'pirate') or look it up on google or wait for some genius on here to tell you.

aha ... this is probably the answer to installing stuff from the CD drive of your local pc:

http://stevenharman.net/blog/archive/2006/10/22/Mapping_Drives_via_Remote_Desktop.aspx

Cheers Gus, you've been a great help.

On weekdays it takes about 30 mins to set up (dunno about weekends) and you can do it all online.

Gus, what do you mean by this? Do you mean initial set up or every time you access it?

No, just the intial set-up, and 30 minutes is probably an overestime ... with the company i mentioned you just register online then they do their stuff (probably automatically), then you get an eMail telling you what to do next after about 15 mins, then about another 15 mins for yout to read the instructions and follow them.

Once set up then every time you want to Login it takes about 10 secs ... it's probably quicker than firing up your own pc.

Thanks gus, I was a bit worried there.

Feck, if you decide to go ahead and you hit any problems you can drop me a Private Message via the BDP Forum:

http://forum.bdp.betfair.com/

My username is gus in there too

Will do gus, thanks. It may be a while before I join up though as I've not finished the programme the others will be using.

Sounds interesting, Feck. You joining forces with artie and / or Adam Heathcote ;)

Muqbil, the bouncy castle one and the man who thinks traders supply all the liquidity are unemployable (IMO). I'm just thinking of putting my brothers to work on weeding out data inconsistencies.

Feck N. Eejit 29 Nov 14:45

Gus, I take it if I've got a pirate copy of e.g. ms office that installs OK on my local hard drive I'll be able to install it on their drive?

Considering your stance on the **s and thieves on here Feck, it's a bit rich you're running your online empire on 'dodgy' software ;)

My sympathies don't extend to giant corporations Joe. As the old saying goes, fk them.

Cheers Feck, glad to see your 'theft' is based on moral rather than financial gain ;)