Page 4,320«..1020..4,3194,3204,3214,322..4,3304,340..»

Top Cloud Storage Reviews | Best 10 Website Builders

1

Description: Top security features, unlimited storage space and 24/7 support.

9.8

2

Description: Competitive prices, automatic backup, and easy setup process.

9.7

3

Description: Includes user friendly interface with top-notch Blowfish encryption.

9.3

4

Description: Multi-device sync capability, unlimited storage, and high quality tech support.

9.2

5

Description: Powerful recovery options and smart compression set in place.

9.1

6

Description: Offers any size business optimal storage and simple file sharing services.

9.1

7

Description: Unlimited storage and back up solutions. Also has external drive backup options.

9.1

8

Description: Secure and easy to use browser interface and restore manager

9.1

9

Description: Best for sending large files and storing a lot of data in cloud storage.

9

10

Description: Unlimited plans and synchronized filing available for multiple devices.

8.9

When you start building a new website, integrating cloud storage is probably not something youve considered, but the truth of the matter is that cloud storage services are useful for everyone. There are plenty of options when it comes to web builder hosting plans, and cloud storage is something you should take into consideration when deciding which plan to choose. The primary goal here at Best 10 is to make it easier and less stressful for website builders to find exactly what plan works best for their project.

Cloud storage is an alternative option for storing documents, photos, and other files. Cloud storage allows you to save and access your files from nearly any location, as long as you can access the internet. Fromthis standpoint that you no longer have to worry about losing files from your computer if you encounter a virus, natural disaster, or damaged hard drive. By using remote servers outfitted with the best encryption software, your files will always be safe and secure.

Lets face it; cloud storage was not originally developed with website building in mind, but it can be one of the best tools website builders can take advantage offor the additional piece of mind. For instance, owning aserver doesnt necessarily guarantee that youll be optimally set up or provided with all of the services. For example, the server company that you may be using may not provide backup capabilities for your server. By using cloud storage, you can create the redundancies you need as well as backups for your server and any projects you are working. By choosing a cloud storage company that fits your needs, you can ensure that you are getting the security and safety features that are necessary to keep your business running as smoothly as possible. It also makes it much faster and easier to access any and all of your files from virtually anywhere, as long as youre able to connect to the internet.

Cloud storage services can be directly linked to your server very easily. This makes it incredibly easy to automatically back up any projects you are currently working on, as well as creating backups of any websites that you have created that have already gone live. Some things to consider when choosing a cloud storage provider are compatibility with your server, as well as the amount of storage that is available. Youll want a plan that has enough storage space to back up your entire server in case disaster strikes. One of the biggest fears with website builders who have their own servers is something happening to that server. This could be anything from a simple hard drive failure,virus, or something more severe like a fire or other natural disaster destroying the device. By syncing your server with a cloud storage system, you will always have the backups that you need should you face unfortunate circumstances.

Weve made it easy for you to view the 10 best cloud storage providers for website builders right here, as well as providing links for you to see full reviews on each of them. There are different criteria for which they are rated; from technical support and customer service to cloud storage space and features. Take a look at the overall score to get a general idea of what each company is all about, and take a look at the reviews and forum to get more detailed information from actual customers as well as experts in the field about each provider.

We use a very thorough ten-point system to check the quality of each and every review before we post them onto our website. By using this process, were able to maintain consistency, helping to ensure that we provide all of our readers with the information that they need to choose the best cloud storage in the most efficient manner possible. In addition to the reviews given by experts in their field, we also have an open forum for any customer who has used the service so that they can provide their own personal review. This not only gives you a look at what is presented from both a technical standpoint and user-friendly guide but also acts as a way to give an entirely unbiased opinion. Also, we have an easy to use comparison tool that helps you look at several different cloud storage providers at the same time. This allows you to see how much space you get for a price, as well as the reliability of the cloud storage company. An overall five star rating, with five being the highest, is used for each cloud storage service, which means a quick glance can give you a general idea of what each company can provide.

Lets take a closer look at the different categories that are covered in our reviews

Weve all heard the phrase you get what you pay for, and its no different with cloud storage. There are plenty of free cloud storage options, but you wont get much storage space with these and may miss out on all kinds of great features that can help with website building. And if you choose to sign up for one of the less expensive plans, you may not be getting your moneys worth. When calculating the best value for your budget and projects, you must not only consider how much storage space you are allotted but also take into consideration the companys reliability and thinks like safety and security as well.

The uptime and reliability of a company are determined based on statistical data. Most of the time, a cloud storage company will have a 99.9% uptime. It is not uncommon for some companies to fall below this level on occasion, as unexpected circumstances come into play. This is something that should be considered when choosing a cloud storage company, especially when incorporating this data into website building.

If you ever have a problem or need a question answered, its imperative that youre able to reach a customer service representative. All cloud storage companies are rated in how quickly someone responds, whether or not a problem was resolved, as well as how fast this was completed, in addition to the helpfulness of the representative. This test is conducted using phone calls as well as with online chats.

Technical support and customer service are often lumped into the same category, but we understand the difference between the two and how important it can be to your site to have the best of both. Technical support is the team you want to talk to when you have a more complex problem and need to speak with someone who knows the ins and outs of the programs and services. These people must not only be knowledgeable and efficient, but friendly and helpful as well.

The number of features offered by any cloud storage company is not as important as the quality of each one. You dont want to sign up with a company that offers a lot of different features if those features arent any use to you. Instead, choose one that focuses on the features you need while still being a good value. Some things that you might want to consider are the ability to change your storage space amount, as well as the encryption software that is used to maintain privacy.

Cloud storage space is one of the most important categories to take into consideration when determining which cloud storage company is the best for your website building needs, especially when considering the value. Its always better to have more storage space than you think you need, especially when it fits into your budget. Many companies will allow you to move to the next tier if you unexpectedly fill up your current plan, but you may incur extra fees by doing so.

Cloud storage should not be an overly sophisticated service to use, even if you are not very technically proficient. To determine a services ease of use, we evaluate them from both a technical standpoint as well as from that of a general user.

The overall rating given to each cloud service company is calculated based on the individual scores of the previously mentioned categories. This allows readers to quickly weed out any service that may not fit their needs and can make it simpler to look more closely at a few companies to determine which would be best.

Follow this link:
Top Cloud Storage Reviews | Best 10 Website Builders

Read More..

Preakness winner Cloud Computing to skip Belmont Stakes – FOXSports.com

NEW YORK (AP) Preakness winner Cloud Computing wont run in the Belmont Stakes, leaving the final leg of the Triple Crown without the winners of the first two races.

Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming also wont run in the 1+-mile Belmont on June 10 in New York.

Trainer Chad Brown confirmed Sunday that Cloud Computing would skip the Belmont, which had been expected.

Brown will still have a starter in the $1.5 million race: Twisted Tom, who won the Federico Tesio on April 22. Because Twisted Tom wasnt already nominated to the Triple Crown series, it will cost $75,000 to get him in the race. He will try to become the third gelding in history to win.

Other confirmed Belmont runners are Classic Empire, Japan-based Epicharis, J Boys Echo, Lookin At Lee, Senior Investment, Tapwrit and True Timber. Irap, Meantime and Multiplier are considered likely.

Also possible are Conquest Mo Money, Gormley, Hollywood Handsome, Irish War Cry and Patch.

The Belmont field is limited to 16 horses.

FOX Fantasy Auto Form a Racing Team, Compete for Prizes

Read the rest here:
Preakness winner Cloud Computing to skip Belmont Stakes - FOXSports.com

Read More..

Microsoft’s weapon in high-stakes cloud-computing battle with Amazon? Freebies – The Seattle Times

Microsoft isnt banking on snazzy marketing or technical chops alone to make its Azure service a winner in the critical cloud-computing market. Its also offering freebies, betting that discounts and free technical support today will produce paying customers down the line.

DefinedCrowd, a Seattle software startup, had a choice to make when it was developing its first product last year build on the cloud-computing foundation offered by the dominant Amazon.com, or Microsofts upstart competitor?

For founder Daniela Braga, the competing services seemed about even in terms of features. On price, Amazons tools were a bit cheaper than Microsofts. And more developers were comfortable working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud-computing pioneer and now the markets largest player.

But Microsoft held the trump card: an offer of $500,000 in credits to spend on Microsofts Azure cloud services over three years, a benefit DefinedCrowd had earned by participating in a Microsoft startup program. That kind of sum can pay for the entire technology-infrastructure cost of getting a software companys first products off the ground.

That was kind of hard to refuse, said Aya Zook, business-development manager with DefinedCrowd, which makes tools to train software how to recognize speech or images.

The startup would build its software on Microsofts Azure.

Microsoft has staked its future on the cloud, the range of on-demand computing power and software services bundled into Azure and other products.

But Microsoft isnt banking on snazzy marketing or technical chops alone to make Azure a winner. The technology giant is also offering bargains and freebies, including discounts to large businesses, free trial offers to all comers, and grants of cash for startups and nonprofits that try the service.

The programs are part of a broader, companywide effort to gain market share. The bet is that discounts and free technical support today will make paying customers down the line, ideally bringing thousands of dollars a year to Azure and boosting awareness of Microsofts offering in a highly competitive market.

Its an old tactic for a company that has long had plenty of cash to work with. Exactly where Microsoft has deployed that money to lure software developers offers a window into the companys shifting priorities over the years.

In the midst of its unsuccessful smartphone push a few years ago, Microsoft was shelling out a reported $100,000 (and up) to application makers who built tools for Windows Phone. Before that, Microsoft made similar deals to get developers and corporate partners interested in Bing, the fledgling search engine. And to a generation of technologists years ago, Microsoft offered ample support to get businesses to plug into the new Windows Server.

Those programs have yielded mixed results, said Michael Cherry, who worked at Microsoft in the late 1990s, and today tracks the company with analysis firm Directions on Microsoft.

Grants to use products dont tend to make a big difference on their own, he said. But when you can add feet on the ground to help a developer that had a problem? Theyll be loyal to you forever.

For Microsoft, the cloud is the priority today.

It was the focus of the companys recent Build developer show in Seattle, where the company kicked off the proceedings by staking out a virtual claim to the city, and the market.

A promotional video showed the Space Needle topped by a flag with the Microsoft logo on one side, and Cloud City on the other. Never mind that Amazon, with a much bigger cloud-market share than Redmond-based Microsoft, has its headquarters just a few blocks away from the landmark.

When choosing between Amazon and Microsoft, Braga concedes she had a soft spot for Microsoft. A linguist and speech-software expert originally from Portugal, she had spent seven years at the company. Zook, her colleague, is a fellow Microsoft alum.

Were ex-Microsoft people, she said. Its an environment that were comfortable with.

Still, she said, There are a lot of incentives, and pressure, to go on AWS.

Amazon, which pioneered the business of selling software and developer tools delivered over the internet, built its lead in that market, in part, by touting an easy-to-use product that offered room to experiment without paying. Adding to the appeal, technologists say, was the absence of complex, negotiated software-licensing deals of the sort Microsoft relies on.

A free tier of AWS services, introduced in 2010, can add up to thousands of dollars a year, a benefit available to all customers regardless of size. The company has bolstered that in recent years with credits aimed at researchers and educators, as well as standard startup grants ranging from $15,000 to $100,000.

The combination, on top of a technologically impressive set of products, has given AWS an enviable list of customers at the cutting edge of technology, including Netflix, Airbnb and Slack.

To counter AWS lead, No. 2 Microsoft has brought to bear what some see as its greatest asset: a giant base of corporate customers, and a sales force of tens of thousands built to sell to them.

In contract talks with corporate customers of Windows, Office and other software, Microsoft recently has been offering discounts on those products in exchange for a commitment to buy thousands of dollars worth of Azure cloud-computing services, according to consultants who advise those companies.

The company has also lent customers its own engineers.

Mojio, a Vancouver, B.C.-based software maker, participated in a Microsoft program called BizSpark, essentially a boot camp for technology startups eager for Microsofts counsel and connections. The program comes with complimentary Microsoft software, and, in the last two years, up to $120,000 in cash to use on Azure over two years (though some companies, including Mojio, have received larger grants).

Mojio, which builds software for connected cars, had just about run out of free Azure credits when it caught its big break: a deal with wireless carrier T-Mobile.

Mojio signed on to supply some of the technology behind the Bellevue companys new car-mounted Wi-Fi hot spot and diagnostic data gathering tool. The product went live the Friday before Thanksgiving.

By Monday, Mojio was in crisis mode.

The stream of data being thrown off by the hot spots and into Mojios systems built on Microsofts Azure pushed them to the breaking point. So many customers were using the tools that the software built to digest it slowed to a crawl.

It wasnt clear whether it was an architecture issue, whether it was a bug, said Mojio chief executive Kenny Hawk. The volume came faster than any of us had predicted.

Hawk, worried that he was watching his startup implode, called in a big favor.

A friend, a former Microsoft board member whom he declined to name, agreed to put in a call to Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, asking for help on behalf of tiny Mojio, which then employed fewer than 15 people.

Literally within a couple hours there were (Microsoft) people working on it, Hawk said.

The next day, Microsoft engineers arrived in Vancouver. They would work side-by-side with Mojios staff for the next three days to retool the software to handle a larger workload.

Hawk is grateful for the help, but has no illusions: Microsoft isnt a charity.

The company, he says, is probably hopeful that Mojio, which outgrew its free allotment of Microsoft tools, would eventually become a major buyer of them.

It wasnt just that we were nice people, or that wed been a part of BizSpark, Hawk said. They see how big the connected car market will be. Having a core customer in that space is strategic.

Corey Sanders, who leads a Microsoft team building Azure infrastructure services that compete with Amazon, wasnt involved with the Mojio rescue and hadnt heard the story. Still, the scale of Microsofts response didnt surprise him.

In the competitive cloud market, every customer matters, he said. Every product is critical.

More here:
Microsoft's weapon in high-stakes cloud-computing battle with Amazon? Freebies - The Seattle Times

Read More..

Baidu to use cloud computing, AI to improve behavioural analysis – South China Morning Post

Chinese internet giant Baidu says it plans to leverage advanced cloud computing to analyse the online data of millions of its users to help companies improve their marketing campaigns.

The Chinese search engine giant, which has real-time search data on more than 700 million internet users, is able to analyse individual users through its cloud arms artificial intelligence (AI), big data and cloud computing technologies, Yin Shiming, vice-president and general manager of Baidu Cloud Computing, said in Shenzhen.

AI is bringing in new ways of thinking for many traditional industries, said Yin, who cited the recent battle between Google DeepMinds AlphaGo computer program and Chinese Go master Ke Jie as supporting his view that the development of AI technology has stepped up.

Our Marketing Cloud, backed by Baidu Clouds data and technology, is not just saving resources and costs, but making marketing easier, Yin said.

Despite challenges from other local search brands such as Sogou and Qihoo 360, Baidus dominance in online search has hardly swayed over the years, accounting for about 75 per cent of the search market.

Baidus mobile app is ranked as the seventh most popular in China, with 244.3 million active mobile users as of the end of March, according to Beijing-based research agency Analysys.

Currently over 70 per cent of newly emerged marketing strategies are AI-driven ones, according to Tang Jin, a deputy general manager of Baidu Cloud Computing. But tonnes of data on the internet is ignored without being interpreted properly. To achieve precise marketing for commercial institutions, we need to understand user behaviour on the internet first, said Tang.

The scale of the cloud computing industry in the mainland is forecast to grow to 430 billion yuan (US$62.75 million) in 2019 from 150 billion yuan in 2015, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Baidu launched its AI platform for commercial users in Beijing in November. The system is powered by cloud computing technologies that include perception, machine learning and deep learning. More than 30,000 enterprises from various sectors are reportedly employing Baidus cloud services.

The company is actively pushing for a transition from the traditional search-engine business to an AI-led company to broaden its revenue channels after reported 10.6 per cent drop in net profit during the first quarter ended March 31.

Baidu aims to intensify efforts in applying AI technology to improve existing products and accelerate the development of AI-enabled new businesses for higher revenue growth in the coming quarters, vice president Lu Qi said after the quarterly results in late April.

Baidu in January appointed Lu, a leading AI expert and former Microsoft Corp executive, as its chief operating officer in a bid to bolster its efforts in AI.

More:
Baidu to use cloud computing, AI to improve behavioural analysis - South China Morning Post

Read More..

Cray Takes the Plunge into Cloud Computing – TOP500 News

Cray is now offering its Urika-GX supercomputer for rent. One of the last HPC system vendors to give cloud computing a whirl, the companys initial foray into supercomputer-as-a-service will target life science customers looking for compute cycles on something more sophisticated than a traditional cluster.

To make its cloud business fly, Cray is partnering with Markley, a cloud infrastructure provider based in Boston, Massachusetts. Markley is a fairly typical cloud company, offering services like collocation, utility storage, disaster recovery, and so on. The company promises 100 percent uptime.

Crays entrance into the cloud came about as a result of a beta trial of the Urika-GX supercomputer by a research institute located outside of Boston. According to Ted Slater, who heads up the healthcare and life sciences unit at Cray, genomic researchers there were doing variant analysis, studying cell mutations associated with disease. Identifying those mutations can often lead to effective diagnosis and treatments.

Slater says the researchers were able to realize a five-fold speed-up on their variant analysis runs, compared to the HPC clusters they were using. That allowed them to analyze more data and ask more interesting questions. In fact, the faster turn-around time sped up the whole workflow, including software development of the genomic codes.

Its not too surprising that a Urika-GX could outrun a conventional HPC cluster, given its customized design, in particular, its use of the Aries interconnect to speed inter-node communications. Its also important to know that Urika-GX is an extremely flexible platform for analytics, says Slater.

The system comes with a complete software stack tuned for analytics applications, especially graph analytics. That includes the low-level Cray Graph Engine, a popular statistical programming languages in R, and distributed programming frameworks, like Hadoop and Spark. Application libraries can be added as needed.

Thanks to the five-fold performance improvement, the research institute was sold on the Urika-GX, but they preferred to rent rather than buy. After all, says Fred Kohout, Crays senior vice president of products and chief marketing officer, who wouldnt want to use a Cray?

Although the cloud offering will initially be confined to the Urika-GX system and life science types, Kohout says theyre already considering ways to expand the business. Were going to continue to look at other industries and other parts of the Cray portfolio as they make sense, says Kohout. And well roll those out in the months ahead.

If you happen to be attending the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo in Boston this week (May 23-25), Cray and Markley will be on hand to talk about their cloud computing venture. If you miss the event, the two companies will be conducting a live webinar on the new service on June 13th at 10:00 am PDT. You can register for it here.

Read more:
Cray Takes the Plunge into Cloud Computing - TOP500 News

Read More..

SolarWinds Launches SolarWinds Pingdom Server Monitor – 107.180.56.147 (press release) (registration) (blog)

SolarWinds, a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, and the 2016 ASTORS Homeland Security Program Platinum Award Winner for Best Incident & Event Management Solution, has completed the acquisition of Scout Server Monitoring.

The transaction closed Friday, May 5, 2017. As part of the acquisition, Scout Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Andre Lewis has joined SolarWinds.

With Pingdom Server Monitor, formerly Scout Server Monitoring, SolarWinds enhances its already deep server monitoring capabilities with out-of-the-box simple, yet rich SaaS-based server monitoring developed by DevOps professionals for DevOps professionals.

(Learn how Pingdom makes the Internet faster and more reliable for everyone. Courtesy ofPingdomand YouTube)

In addition to all the great features Scout customers have come to rely on, they will now also benefit from even deeper investment in the product, along with streamlined access to the complete SolarWinds portfolio of SaaS-based tools to better manage, optimize, and troubleshoot the full stack at every layer, from the infrastructure and application layers through the end-user experience.

Were very excited to add Pingdom Server Monitor, formerly Scout Server Monitoring, to our portfolio of products, said Christoph Pfister, executive vice president, products, SolarWinds.

With it, developers and DevOps practitioners have access to an affordable, SaaS-based server monitoring solution. We look forward to investing in it and we welcome Andre Lewis to the SolarWinds team to help in those efforts.

Pingdom Server Monitor joins Pingdom website uptime and performance monitoring products, as well as Librato, Papertrail, and TraceView in the companys SaaS portfolio of products for monitoring cloud-native applications, servers, and other infrastructure to address the complex performance and reliability challenges inherent in todays cloud environments.

The era of cloud and digitalization is driving exponential application growth and increased complexity, Pfister added.

Its clear that cloud-native developers and DevOps teams need faster troubleshooting that enables them to more easily solve problems and improve performance across the full stack, including servers.

The goal of our SaaS portfolio, and the market-leading products within it, is to provide just that, and to do so at an affordable price.

SolarWinds provides powerful and affordable IT management software to customers worldwide, from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses, managed service providers (MSPs), government agencies, and educational institutions.

Originally posted here:
SolarWinds Launches SolarWinds Pingdom Server Monitor - 107.180.56.147 (press release) (registration) (blog)

Read More..

If You Bought $5 in Bitcoin 7 Years Ago, You’d Be $4.4 …

Seven years ago, the value of a single bitcoin was worth a quarter-of-a-cent. Today, that single bitcoin is worth upwards of $2,200 .

Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of bitcoin used in a real world transaction. Over the course of seven years, bitcoin's value has multiplied 879,999 times over since 2010. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars back then on about 2,000 bitcoins, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today.

The early months of 2017 have been particularly heady days for bitcoin. Since the beginning of the year, the value of the cryptocurrency has surged as it gains legitimacy in countries like Japan . Investors have also come to see the currency as something of a safe haven asset amid geopolitical turmoil and there's been plenty of that in recent months, in both Europe and the United States.

And that first transaction? A software programmer on " Bitcoin Talk " known as Lazlo Hanyecz offered to 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas. For a least three days, no one took bite of the offer, with Hanyecz writing: "So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount I'm offering too low?"

A user eventually paid about $25 for two pizzas. In today's bitcoins, those pizzas cost Hanyecz $22 million.

Link:
If You Bought $5 in Bitcoin 7 Years Ago, You'd Be $4.4 ...

Read More..

Bitcoin is worth more than ever, but it’s losing clout

With that said, you might not want to get too comfy if you've amassed a fortune. As our TechCrunch pals observe, Bitcoin's share of the cryptocurrency market has plunged sharply in the past few months. Where it regularly dominated the market with about an 80 percent share, it's down to just 47 percent in a matter of months. Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and others have all seen surges that have whittled away Bitcoin's control.

It's not certain just why that is. There is a concern that Bitcoin's scaling is causing problems by slowing down transactions -- people may just want to explore alternatives that won't bog down so easily. The rapid rise in Bitcoin's value casts doubt on that, though, as you'd expect its worth to tank. If scaling is a problem at all, it hasn't spooked users yet. It may just be a matter of the market growing up, or of speculators hedging their bets by pouring money into more than one digital currency. You wouldn't want to panic if you've already committed to Bitcoin, but nor should you assume that it'll always be the format of choice.

Here is the original post:
Bitcoin is worth more than ever, but it's losing clout

Read More..

Bitcoin is Soaring; Should You Buy? – Barron’s


Barron's
Bitcoin is Soaring; Should You Buy?
Barron's
The price of the digital currency bitcoin swung wildly this week, hitting record highs and then plunging dramatically, day after day. It jumped to a new record of $2,791.70 on Thursday, and has more than doubled this year. That said, it's also had 300 ...

See the article here:
Bitcoin is Soaring; Should You Buy? - Barron's

Read More..