Siyah Online

DropBox.com – A Unique Referral System For Online Storage

// April 16th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Reviews

There a many online file hosting sites and most of them offer many great features. But the one that has really caught my attention is DropBox.com, but for a very different reason.

What is DropBox?

DropBox is an online file storage solution that allows you to store your important files for safe keeping and easy access. I myself have lost many documents and files because my PC’s hard disk broke down. Yes I know, you’ll probably tell me to keep copies on different hard drives. Well, I did. They were on two separate hard drives. But when the PC went up in smoke it took both my Hards (including a 1.5TB drive) with it. Now you’ll tell me to keep copies on an external hard drive. You can tell that to the thugs who broke into my office and stole my office laptop from my drawer. Lucky for me, and for some inexplicable reason, they did not take my external hard.

As I said before, the second reason for having an online backup is for easy access. If you have it online, you don’t need to carry your PC or external hard everywhere. For instance, even if you go abroad and then suddenly need copies of all your certificates, you can get them easily if they were scanned and stored online. If you were like me and like to use the same Avatar on all your online profiles, you can store your avatar in DropBox and access it from anywhere every time you make a profile.

Why DropBox?

The best thing about DropBox is that they offer a client that will automatically sync all your computers so you have all the files on all your PCs and even your mobile. And of course if you were on an alien PC you can get them from their website. Check out this video to see how it works.

So what about this referral system?

We all know how referral systems work. If I sign up for a service they give me a referral link. When I use that link to get other people to sign up for their service, I get extra features or even get paid in cash. But the people who sign up because of me get the same basic package and nothing more.

Many times I might go to a service through a referral link but not sign up in that instant. Later I might go directly go to the site and sign up. That means that the person who introduced me to the service lost a referral. And I really don’t have any reason to go through the trouble of making sure that I used that referral link.

This is where the DropBox.com system is better.

Dropbox offer all users 2GB of free storage space. You can earn more by referring people to the service. For every person your refer, you get an extra 250MB of additional storage to a max of 10GB. As an incentive to the people being referred, they get a 250MB bonus as well. In other words, if you sign up for a Dropbox account at Dropbox.com, you get 2GB of free space. But if you sign up through me, you’ll get 2.25GB of free space.

So now you have a reason to sign up through my referral link. Don’t miss this chance. Get your free 2.25GB of online file storage.

Speed Dial Addon For Firefox

// September 29th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews

Like the increasing multitude of internet users I too almost exclusively use Firefox for all my browsing needs. Firefox is supposed to be more secure than Internet Explorer (IE) but I really can’t be a judge of that. Neither have I done any qualitative/quantitative tests on whether Firefox or IE renders websites faster. As far as render speed is concerned my best experience has been with Opera.

The reasons I use Firefox include

• It starts up faster than IE
• Tabs work smoother than IE
• Most importantly, I am able to extend the use of Firefox by using the thousands of Add-ons available for free. At the time of writing they claim that there are 138,548,328 add-ons in use and they have been downloaded a whopping 1,590,522,455 times.

I use several add-ons but one which I use daily and that has really made my browsing easy is the Speed Dial for Firefox. The add-on puts boxes in new windows or new tabs to which I can assign any website that I want. I can specify how many boxes should be displayed. There is also an option to make groups so that one box will link to several websites. When I assign a website the box will display a mini screen shot of the website. But I can also assign images to display.

Well, you can check out more details of the add-on from it’s page in the Firefox add-on directory. I’ll just leave you with what my Speed Dial looks like. What does yours look like?

What my Speed Dial looks like

Dhiraagu Internet Home Unlimited Review

// September 14th, 2009 // 18 Comments » // Reviews

I am using the Dhiraagu Internet Unlimited Package as a home user. I don’t know if it is just me but Dhiraagu seems to be limiting my usage although it is supposed to be an unlimited package. Of course I am aware that as a package for the home users there is going to be more sharing of resources among users. But that is not what I am talking about. I thought I’ll just review the dhiraagu internet home unlimited package and maybe get some idea from other users on your situation.

To start with let’s take a look at what Dhiraagu promises for this package:

• Monthly subscription: MRF 690 (US$ 53.69)
• Speed (download/upload): 512/128 kbps
• Usage (bandwidth) allowance: unlimited

When I applied for the package I needed to install a new line to my place. I was told that Dhiraagu aims to complete 95% of installation requests within 10 days and indeed I got my connection within that time even though the weather was pretty bad during those days. A point to note here is that when you are getting a new connection you might need to get an ADSL Router. You can either get a router from a shop elsewhere or get one from Dhiraagu itself. Well, the routers from Dhiraagu are about twice as expensive.

With a download speed of 512kbps I would expect a steady speed of at least 20 to 30 Kb/s after giving allowance to loss in the data line and sharing among users. I admit that I do get peaks of around 90Kb/s but these never last more than a few seconds. I w0uld say usually the the browsing speed is below 12Kb/s.

A lot of users take the unlimited package to download stuff and therein lies the issue. The problem is that when i try to download anything from the popular file sharing site rapidshare, my download speed never goes above 10Kb/s even though I am using a premium rapidshare account. I have been able to download from rapidshare at 300Kb/s on some other limited Dhiraagu package so I know the issue is not with rapidshare but with Dhiraagu. This video of me trying to download a file from rapidshare shows how the speed peaks at 10Kb/s.

The other reason I believe Dhiraagu is limiting my rapidshare downloads is because when I download torrents using the uTorrent client I can get sustained speeds of around 50Kb/s. I know that torrent speeds are dependent on the number of people sharing the file but the point here is that the Dhiraagu unlimited package is capable of giving it’s users a sustained speed of 50Kb/s but it doesn’t. This video shows the download and upload speed of uTorrent client at the bottom a Bandwidth Monitor window above. As you can see, the speed holds steady at around 50Kb/s and even goes higher sometimes.

I am not a really big techy but I smell something fishy here. And this speed limitation is not limited to just rapdshare downloads. Other http downloads such as documents and software also rarely go above 15Kb/s.

I have been told that the RoL Internet Unlimited Package gives rapidshare download speeds sustained at around 40Kb/s. I am yet to see that and that would be another review another day. But as for now, the Dhiraagu Unlimited Package sucks when it comes to downloading, watching online videos or streaming any other kind of media.

What has been your experience?

BYET Internet Services Byet Host Review

// September 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Reviews

As I start another iteration of my blog I want to start with a review of my previous web hosting provider Byet Host. I was with them for the past couple of years. In fact my first experience was with their free hosting service and that was so good that I stuck to Byet Host when I opted to go for a premium hosting.

I took their standard annual package which cost $35.88 per year. For this low price you will now get:

• Unlimited Disk Space to keep your files
• 250 GB per month of bandwith
• 20 Addon Domains
• 20 Sub-domains
• 20 MySQL Databases
• No Advertising
• 1 free TLD

These might seem limited compared to other web hosts that give unlimited everything now-a-days. But this is more than enough for the casual blogger who wants to host a couple of blogs and forums. But what you get from Byet Host is quality of service. Their server speed is visibly faster than my current web host which is ranked as one of the best around these days. They also have outstanding up-time.

What I appreciated most about Byet Host is their online Technical Support. Usually I get a response within half an hour at the most. And they always helped me with any problem with the same level of courtesy and technical knowledge until the issue is solved. I guess I should specify here that most problems I had were usually caused by myself and not on their end.

Byet Host might not be among the biggest web hosting companies in the world. Recently I saw somewhere that they claim to have 400,000 happy customers. This might seem really small but it is better to have a few happy customers than bite more than they can chew. What this means to us users is that since they have less customers their servers will be less overloaded. Which means better service for us. In fact when I signed up they said that they have put me on the server with the least load among their over 15 servers.This kind of attention and care to their customers is rare in today’s globalized corporate world.

Before I end this review I guess I should explain why I left Byet Host. Well, it was completely my fault. I don’t want to get into how I messed up but believe me even to the last moment the Tech Support at Byet Host were willing to retain my costom. I can’t praise their tech support enough.

There are many reasons why you should host your own blog. Domain names are just $10 a piece these days and in fact signing up with Byet Host means that you will get the domain for free. Hosting your own blog gives you complete control to customize the blog. And for the casual blogger Byet Host is an ideal partner.

Visit Byet Host and Sign-up Now