Online Storage

I wanted to have some files available to me wherever I go. A simple request, but to get it the right way, for me, was not so simple.

I tried a usb drive and that works great for many things, especially for times where I don't have internet access, like at church. (I'm in the bishopric and bring the printed program on my usb drive so it can be printed and copied at church for Sacrament Meeting).

But, the usb drive takes some time to insert open, nativate to, etc. It would seem like a trivial amount of time and sometimes it is, but other times it is just too much time, especially when I am online and working feverishly. I'm a software developer and am online a lot.

So, I looked around for free online file storage services, and while there are a plethora out there, and even for free, none had the feature set I wanted.

• A programmatic API
  
• access from Linux, specifically Ubuntu (my home and work desktop OS)
• free or very cheap

Here is what I have found and am very happy with so far.

• Amazon S3 service for the file storage (which has only a programmatic web services API)
• www.s3browse.com for my one-off interface needs. It is a completely free web interface to your S3 account. Very nice! I wonder why, or rather how, it is free though.

Now, I'm free to automate any file storage and retrieval I want when the needs arise and I'll be paying less than $5 a year (estimated).