This is a guest post from Jeremy Monat, President of White Glove Apps, a new smartphone app development company.

ZumoDrive lets you sync files between your various devices, including smartphones, netbooks, and computers. You can set up linked folders on your computer, then anything that’s put it those folders is automatically accessible on your other devices. You can share a folder with others to allow collaboration on documents.

ZumoDrive recently added the ability to upload files directly from your phone, which lets you quickly take and share a picture or video. This virtual disk service is from Zecter, Inc.

This review is for ZumoDrive 0.5.6 on the Palm Pre Plus and a Mac running OS X 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard). ZumoDrive also works on Windows and Linux computers, and iPhone and Android smartphones, and of course the Palm Pixi as well.

Signing up for ZumoDrive

You install ZumoDrive on both your Pre and your computer. On your Pre, to create and account, you just need to give your name, email, and a password.

Then you’re ready to install the desktop software from ZumoDrive.com on your computer.

You then sign in to ZumoDrive.com using the account you created on your Pre.

There are a series of options letting you automatically link your music from iTunes, your pictures from iPhoto, and other folders on your computer. Of course, if you have a lot of music on iTunes or pictures in iPhoto, you’ll have to upgrade to more storage on ZumoDrive than the 1-2 GB that come free!

ZumoDrive offers a free account with 1-2 GB of storage (more on that second GB in a minute), or paid options for 10 GB ($2.99/month), 25 GB ($6.99), 50 GB ($9.99), 100 GB ($19.99), 200 GB ($37.99), or a whopping 500 GB ($79.99).

Once you’ve set it up, a ZumoDrive virtual disk will appear on your desktop. When you return to your Pre, the ZumoDrive app will show your folders and files.

The Dojo: Earning an extra 1 GB

The Dojo is ZumoDrive’s online tutorial on how to use the service. Basically they’re providing an incentive for you to understand it better, probably so you’ll use it more. The exercises are pretty simple – they take about 10 minutes – and are a good way to understand what you can do with ZumoDrive.

Folder linking: Sharing documents with your phone

Linking a folder on your computer makes it into a mobile repository: anything you drop in it will be automatically shared with your other devices. You can drop in individual files as you need them on the go, or make a folder for an important project linked so you’ll always have the latest files for the project. In the Finder, just right-click on the folder and select Link folder to ZumoDrive. Once it’s linked, you’ll see a little cloud appear on its Finder icon to remind you it’s shared. One note: I did find that ZumoDrive gets confused if you move a linked folder on your Mac.

You can also see your linked folders on ZumoDrive.com. Just click the Files tab and double-click on Linked Folders. They’re organized by the computer they’re on, so you’ll have to navigate down to the folder you want. Updates are pretty much instant: as soon as you add or delete a file on your computer, the change is reflected on ZumoDrive.com’s Files page (you may have to refresh the web page). You can share, download, rename, and delete files in the web interface, and changes are automatically and instantly reflected on your desktop computer.

Once you’ve linked a folder, a cool feature is sharing a folder with others: you could collaborate on a project by sharing the files. (The only catch is your collaborators will have to install ZumoDrive on their desktop computers.) To share a folder, right-click on it and choose ZumoDrive – Share… If you click Shared folder, you can then enter the person’s email address and set their privileges to “View and edit” (read-write) or just “View and download” (read-only). This is similar to collaborating on Google Docs, but you can do it with any file type; although you can’t see changes made in real time with ZumoDrive. If you click Link, it will give you a link you can send people.

You can also go to your Pre and see the files in your linked folders. Changes to linked folder contents are reflected on your Pre as soon as you refresh (using the circular arrow icon on the top left). When you tap on a file, ZumoDrive asks whether you want to open the file, copy it locally to your Pre, or share it with others. If you choose open, ZumoDrive takes good advantage of WebOS’s multitasking, opening a new card to show the document in the appropriate app (PDF View, Doc View, Videos, etc.); photos open within ZumoDrive itself. If you copy it locally, you get confirmation when the download is complete. If you share it, the Email app pops up, letting you send a link to the file.

Uploading files from your Pre

Here’s the new feature. To upload a file, tap the up arrow on the upper-right of any ZumoDrive documents folder. The upload interface is pretty cool: you can preview pictures, videos, or songs before selecting them for upload. (The button to finalize selection of a photo to upload in a preview is labeled Open Photo). You also have the option to take a new picture or record a new video within the upload interface. You can upload or share any type of file from your Pre.

One thing that confused me at first was uploading a large music or a video file: the Pre’s Upload… flywheel only spun for a couple seconds, so I assumed it hadn’t worked. But actually it did: it only shows the Uploading… flywheel for a couple seconds, but continues uploading the file in the background.

Unfortunately you can’t delete files using the interface on your Pre, which would be a nice feature in case you didn’t have enough space to upload another file from your Pre.

Listening to music and viewing pictures

The music and photo icons at the bottom of the screen function as media libraries, letting you play music or view photos (but not upload more media). These media seem to play as if they were local files.

Alternatively, if you go to the main My ZumoDrive screen and tap the Music or Pictures folders, you get a file listing that lets you upload more files. However, it gives your uploaded files random file names, so it’s hard to tell what’s what. You can still view or listen to the files in a streaming setup, but the media players are better for those purposes.

Nevertheless, streaming audio and video play pretty well, especially if you use a Wi-Fi connection. Sometimes the video took a few seconds to get going, but after the video caught up with the audio they synched well for the rest of the video.

The difference between the two ways of accessing media could be better explained by ZumoDrive. After I realized the music & photo icons are media players for essentially local files, and the folders are for uploading, sharing, or streaming files, things made more sense.

Desktop application

The desktop application creates a cloud-shaped menu icon on your Mac’s menu bar. You’ll see arrows circling in the cloud when files are being synched.

The first two menu items open your ZumoDrive on your desktop or in ZumoDrive.com. The next three are really links to the same control panel. Specifically, you can view the transfer status, see which folders are linked, and change settings.

You can also quit ZumoDrive, which removes the ZumoDrive virtual disk from your computer. Of course your files are still available on ZumoDrive.com and your Pre, but you can’t use the desktop interface (e.g. to add files to linked folders and have them show up on ZumoDrive.com or your Pre). To restart ZumoDrive, go to your Mac’s Applications folder and re-launch the application.

For me, the ZumoDrive desktop application got stuck in a download loop: it kept trying to download two small files for some reason. This made it a processor hog on my Mac.

Conclusions

ZumoDrive is a solid option for sharing files between your desktop computer, your Palm webOS phone, and your friends. The ability to effectively extend your phone’s storage space is nice, but live syncing with other devices, both yours and your friends’ computers and smartphones, is the real key in my mind: it’s often just a couple files or folders you need while on the go, but you want to make sure you have the latest version.

The free version of ZumoDrive is full-featured and includes 1-2 GB of storage, but if you want to access your entire iTunes or iPhoto library on your phone, you’ll likely need to pay for more disk space. There are still some bugs to be worked out, but ZumoDrive seems to be rapidly evolving on many desktop and mobile platforms, so hopefully future versions will fix the issues.



Yesterday, I brought word of a relatively minor update to Palm’s WebOS operating system, for those of you using a Palm Pre on Sprint’s network.  While WebOS 1.3.1 had a few bells and whistles (you are welcome Yahoo users) it was mainly a maintenance upgrade.  Although there were a few hints of things to come (video recording, perhaps??).  Which begs the question, how did such a minor upgrade break so much on my Palm Pre.  Seriously, while an upgrade to the operating system can often cause some minor, unforeseen quirks, this is worth than anything I saw with Windows Mobile or the iPod Touch.  Let’s take a look at what was broken as a result of this minor upgrade:

Hey…my apps don’t work.  Yes, that is right.  Quite a few apps, particularly homebrew apps, are not compatible with WebOS 1.3.1.  That was certainly unexpected.  I woke up after installing WebOS and found that most of my commonly used apps would no longer load.  It took a little hunting through the homebrew forums, but I did find that many of these apps have been updated in the last week, so pay attention to those updates.

Hey, my email and calendar don’t work.  I am not saying this is related to Yahoo (it really is not) but at the same time they Palm offers syncing through Yahoo, they shatter Exchange sync.  Fortunately, I do not use Exchange for anything except my secondary email account, but the forums were in an uproar from one end of the Internet to another over this one.  hopefully, a patch will be coming soon.

Hey, nothing works.  I have noticed a lot of little things that do not work the way they should.  Some folks reported in various forums that they cannot install any new apps. Fortunately, I have not experienced this myself, though I have found that many of my keyboard shortcuts no longer work…which makes it difficult to take any screenshots.

to say I am disappointed would be an understatement.  For a minor maintenance upgrade to break significantly more than it fixes is absurd.  I certainly hope that Palm gets a fix for their fix soon.  I hate to say it, but this is exactly the reason Palm has had so many former users lately.  Hopefully, they are not sliding back to their old ways so soon after such a large success.  With Android threatening to overtake Palm (or have they done so already), they really do need to be careful they do not slip into the trash heap of great design, poor execution. 

Yup, you heard me right folks, craptastic!  I have been waiting for Facebook to come out with an app to replace the horrible mobile web interface for the Palm Pre ever since I got the phone in June.  Over the weekend, they finally released it.  so, I eagerly downloaded the app and loaded it up on my Palm Pre…a decision I immediately regretted.

The first thing I noticed was the extreme lack of speed.  Hit update and get ready to wait.  It took at least five seconds to update the display.  But I could live with that if the app did anything worthwhile.  The Facebook app for Palm displays your Facebook newsfeed…and that is about all it does.  While you can update your status, or leave a comment, there is no way to filter your feed, and no way to access any of Facebook’s more advanced features.  Additionally, the entries in your newsfeed are not sized appropriately for the screen, meaning you can generally view two or three entries on the screen at a time.

Compare this with the robust app Facebook published for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and the disappointment simply mounts for Pre users.  One can only hope that this was intended to be an early test or beta, geared toward testing the functionality, and that more features will be coming soon.  Otherwise, we will continue to term this one craptastic, and hope for more entries from third party developers.

Over the weekend, Palm pushed out a new update of its WebOS operating system to Palm Pre users (if you have not seen it, hit that update icon on the last page of the launcher screen).  There are a lot of small enhancements in this one, the most prevalent of which is that Yahoo email and contacts.  You can see the full list of updates on Palm’s website.   But there is plenty more, which you may not already have seen.  The folks over at Precentral.net have compiled a list of undocumented features in WebOS 1.3.1, including:

• speed enhanced web browser
• changes to the Linux kernel which lay the groundwork for a potential video camera in the future
• snappier photo interface

So, Pre users, you can download the new WebOS directly from your phone, and start enjoying the new features in about 10 minutes.  And if you notice any additional features, leave a comment and let us know what you found.

With the advent of WebOS 1.2 last week, the App Catalog was setup for the arrival of paid apps.  You could create your account, but there were no apps to buy.  You could only sit poised ready to purchase when the time came.  Well, today, that time came as a plethora of paid apps started showing up in the App Catalog.  Earlier today, there were only three games, but a few hours later there are nearly 20 paid apps and games, and I am sure plenty more are coming. 

I also checked out the purchasing experience, which is pretty seamless.  Your credit card information is stored in your online Palm account, not on your device. So, if you lose your device then your information is safe.  Still, I was not terribly thrilled to find that they accept only Mastercard and Visa.  No PayPal?  Hopefully Palm will consider getting PayPal in there. 

I can’t wait to see all of the apps and games which will be coming down the road.  I have already heard from a number of my favorite developers, many of whom reported having WebOS projects in the works, so hopefully those will start trickling out.  I also noticed quite a few apps which I recognized from the Homebrew App Catalog, so congrats to those folks as well.