Tonido Pro and Biz are now Free

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Tonido Pro and Biz are now Free

We have an awesome news to share with you. We have made both Tonido Pro (29$/year) and Tonido Biz (99$/year) completely free. Just install the latest Tonido and get all the paid features at no cost. For complete list of features, Please check http://www.tonido.com/tonidodesktop_freefeatures/.

Now with Tonido being free, Data Privacy doesn’t have to be a privilege anymore. Each and Every one of you can run your own Personal Cloud at no cost to protect your personal data.

We are committed in making Tonido as the #1 Personal Cloud server that safeguards your data privacy and internet freedom. We thank you for your continued support.

Personal Cloud Tonido Launches App for Raspberry Pi – Instantly Access, Share and Sync Personal Files

New App for Raspberry Pi makes Private File Sharing and Data Privacy attainable by Everyone

AUSTIN, Texas, July 22, 2014 — CodeLathe, the leader in personal cloud, today launched Tonido App for Raspberry Pi that provides anywhere access to personal files stored in the Pi while enjoying the security, privacy and unlimited access. Tonido lets individuals’ access documents, see photos, listen to music and watch videos stored on storage devices (USB Drives, SD card) connected to Raspberry Pi. Users can now share their personal files and media without worrying about the privacy and security of their data.

“Tonido allows anybody to instantly create their own Personal Cloud while Raspberry PI is an embodiment of DIY movement. By combining both we have made data privacy and private sharing viable to everyone. We are delighted to bring Tonido to Raspberry Pi.” said Anis Abdul, CTO of CodeLathe.

Tonido offers users secure access to their entire collection of documents, photos, music and videos stored in Pi from anywhere without having to upload it to a public cloud service. Individuals begin by downloading the free Tonido server app on their Raspberry Pi and get the Tonido mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8. Employing smart LAN switching technology to use gigabit access speed within home LAN networks, the app safely connects users to the files stored on their Pi in seconds. Users can also access their files via Wi-Fi or mobile networks, backup their photos and videos from their mobile phones to their Tonido personal cloud, and download files for offline viewing.

“More than ever, internet users are realizing data ownership and privacy is no longer safe and secure in popular online services and they’re turning towards personal cloud services like Tonido for their remote access and sharing needs. Raspberry Pi’s low power footprint and affordability makes it an ideal platform for Tonido and now everyone can run their own Personal Cloud with ease,” said Madhan Kanagavel, CEO of CodeLathe.

Tonido for Raspberry Pi Features

Access, Share, Sync files and media from anywhere
Automatic media indexing and organization of photos, music and videos
Automatic Smartphone photos and videos backup
Automatic multi-format music streaming and playlist support (including FLAC, OGG, WMA, MP3, and more)
Native Mobile apps for all the popular mobile OS’s (iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry)
Plug- and-Play remote access. No fiddling with router settings
Easy to remember web URL access to your Raspberry PI
Available for both Raspbian and Raspbmc

For more information on the Tonido for Raspberry Pi app, visit: http://www.tonido.com/tonido-for-raspberry-pi-2/

Tonido’s 10 Rules of Personal Cloud

Personal Cloud is probably the most misused term in the internet now. Every sundry public cloud storage offerings like Dropbox, Google Drive and others are masquerading themselves as Personal Clouds. Remember. It is their Personal Cloud. Not Yours. They can kick out, block or shutdown anybody at anytime. They determine how much storage you can use and have complete right to track and catalog your data.

We are one of the earliest companies who have used the term -“Personal Cloud” back in 2009 to put forth our vision. We cannot sit idle and watch the misappropriation of term and vision that we have fought for over many years.

In real sense, the word personal means “of, affecting, or belonging to a particular person rather than to anyone else”. So Personal Cloud means a cloud that is owned by you. not by others.

Like Codd’s 12 rules of database, which he put together to prevent his vision of the relational database being diluted by vendors, We are putting together our 10 rules of Personal Cloud.

Rule 1: The Personal Cloud system should run on the device owned or fully controlled by the end user.

Rule 2: The Owner of Personal Cloud system should have complete ownership, rights of content he/she can put in the Personal Cloud System

Rule 3: The Owner of Personal Cloud system should have complete independence of content he/she can put in the Personal Cloud System

Rule 4: The Personal Cloud System (the app and the data) should be completely Local. The system should be accessible even if there is no internet.

Rule 5: The Personal Cloud System should not snoop or alter the end user content either manually or in an automated fashion

Rule 6: The Personal Cloud System should not pose any storage limits and should be accessible from anywhere.

Rule 7: The owner should be able to stop or shutdown the Personal Cloud system anytime.

Rule 8: The Personal Cloud System should be cross platform and run on all the popular desktop (Windows, Mac and Linux) OSes.

Rule 9: The Personal Cloud System should have clients or be accessible from all the popular mobile OSes (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows and others).

Rule 10: The Personal Cloud System should run on from low to high end computing devices (Routers, NAS to PCs and Servers) and varied chipset platforms (ARM, MIPS, X86 and others).

If you are a user check whether your beloved service checks all of the rules here and if you are a vendor make sure you comply to all of the rules here before calling yourself as Personal Cloud.

Tonido Server and Tonido Drive v4.75.0.25764 Available Now

Happy New year and The first of 2014 Tonido server updates is now available for all OS versions.

This build focuses primarily on the indexing functionality as well as miscellaneous bug fixes.

Specify media type to index in a folder

With this build, it is possible to index only Audio/photos/videos and any combination of the three. By default all the three types of media will be indexed.

Enabled Large Image Caching

Tonido’s Prepare media capability and Indexing functionality used to cache only the thumbnail images. With this build, thumb nail and larger versions of the image will be cached resulting in significant improvement in access performance using mobile apps.

Bug fixes:

Preserve Audio Metadata Case: The indexed audio metadata read via MP3’s ID3 Tags or from FLAC files will be maintained. This requires re-indexing of the audio files

Maintain Audio Album’s Track Number: The default view of an album will be sorted using track number of the audio files

Robust FLAC file metadata extraction: There were instances of incorrect strings being extracted for FLAC files. These have been fixed.

Access history for public shares: This build fixes the access logs of public shares.

Stability improvements: A number of fixes have been rolled into this release to improve the server stability.

Tonido Drive Changes:

As a part of this release, Tonido Drive has also been updated.

The Tonido Drive has been significantly updated to improve stability and performance as well as fixing a number of bugs.

Some of the important fixes are

– Fixes a bug that prevents access of root drives (Drive_x type of folders)

– Handles server side updates correctly

– Improves performance for Microsoft Office Document editing

The release notes are available here

We would love to hear from you. Please let us know of your feedback via our forums or via Facebook.

File Synchronization Performance Benchmarks – Tonido vs. Dropbox

Users’ desire to access their content from anywhere and the Proliferation of smart phones, tablets and game boxes like Xbox, PS3 in modern homes and has created a new market category of Personal Cloud solutions. Various research reports from leading research firms predict that the next decade will be an era of Personal Clouds and forecast the active accounts associated with personal cloud storage services will exceed 1 billion at the end of 2013.

When it comes to Personal Clouds, There are mainly 2 schools of thought

Personal Cloud based on Public Cloud (Yeah It is kind of Oxymoron). Ex: Dropbox and Google Drive are major offerings in this category
Self hosted Personal cloud solutions like Tonido, arkOS, OwnCloud and others

We (Tonido, FileCloud) are one of the early proponent of Personal Cloud and self hosted cloud concept. Now we can confidently say our Personal Cloud server, mobile apps, sync and drive clients can give serious competition to popular public cloud compatriots in terms of functionality, UX, Performance and value. You don’t have to take our word for it. Do your own research. Check our mobile apps rating in the respective app stores, Read independent media reviews or check out user reviews of Tonido in popular news forums or just try the Tonido software by downloading from here.

But when you compete with multi-billion dollar behemoths like Google or Dropbox for a market share , it is imperative to change the narrative to objectivity and bring quantitative numbers to the table.If we are going to compete in terms of perception, it is a lost case and we don’t have the resources to pull it off.

So we did a comparison study between Tonido Sync vs. Dropbox’ s two way file synchronization performance within LAN. When the Tonido server and sync client is on the same LAN network, our Smart LAN switch technology enables direct file, media sync instead of going through our relay servers. In similar fashion, Dropbox’s LAN Sync enables faster sync if two clients are on the same LAN. The benchmark results based on our tests will prove the merits of Tonido Personal Cloud in an objective fashion. Based on our user metrics over the years, we estimate 70-80% of access happens within home LAN and the remaining 30% of access happens over WAN. So it is very important to provide a superior experience when the access or sync happens within the home LAN and Tonido provides that superior experience.

Test Setup: Tonido Sync vs. Dropbox Clients

Both computers under test are situated in the same LAN, connected to the same router and ran the latest versions of Dropbox and Tonido software.

Test Results: Two way File Synchronization Performance in LAN (Tonido Sync vs. Dropbox)

Based on our findings, In Average, Tonido Sync is 3 to 5 times faster than Dropbox in the same LAN. Let us know your experience in the comments.

If you are looking a secure file sync software that is trusted by 1000s of enterprise users for file synchronization, then try FileCloud. FileCloud offers the best in class file and folder sync for small and large enterprises. Learn more!

Tonido Bug Fix Release 4.69 now available

Tonido 4.69 is now available with several bug fixes:

Make folder songs indexed using track number
Make it easy to set the indexed folders in getting started
Revamp Sharing Options Dialog box
Show Drives directly instead of inside “Drives”
Add confirmation saying that original files will be deleted
Sharing list is sorted by most recent at top
and several other bug fixes

This release is available on Tonido Desktop (Windows, Mac and Linux) and on the TonidoPlug.

Announcing Tonido Desktop Release 3.62

We are excited to usher in the New Year 2013 with a major landmark Tonido release 3.62. This release is available in all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux and TonidoPlug).

So what’s new?

Completely Rewritten Web User Interface

The Tonido Web browser user interface was first developed in 2009 and has been evolving over time, which led it to being not optimal and efficient as it can be. We took a long hard look at its deficiencies and started work on a user interface refresh. However, it soon became apparent to us that a modern clean design was needed and that meant a rewrite from scratch, and that’s what happened. The whole interface was fully rewritten over the last 4 months with a whole breadth of enhancements and improved visual aesthetics.

Over the next few weeks we will delve into details about this interface, but the major changes have been to switch to a single panel navigation format instead of the windows explorer style that was implemented previously. The web browser interface also keeps consistent visual style with the iPad app. The music player has been brought outside separately, leaving the file listing and gallery mode alone in the navigation panel. Additionally, the side panel provides quick links to your favorites, recently accessed files etc.

Improved Uploading Support

On modern browsers (including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox), file uploading is much improved, with quick drag-and-drop file upload support. Simply navigate to a folder, select some files and drag them into the browser window. On those browsers, it is also now possible to upload files > 2 GB which was not possible before.

Improved Photo Gallery and Slideshow Support

Photo galleries now allow showing thumbnails in two sizes allowing easy and quick switching between the sizes. Slideshows now show much bigger photo images that adjust according to your browser’s size. Slideshows also allow full screen mode.

Music Player Playlist Support

The music player now shows full media art and metadata as well as allowing you save and load your playlists.

Full iOS Live Streaming and Video Transcoding support for Mac and Linux

This release now expands live streaming for iOS (iPhone and iPad) with video transcoding support for all platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux. So now it is truly a breeze to watch your videos on an iOS device in any format.

Improved Video Playback via Web Browser

Allows you to select a suitable way to playback your video (among the different options: Flash, VLC etc) so you can select between different options easily.

2013 marks the 5th year anniversary of CodeLathe, the startup behind Tonido, and we are constantly striving to make the product better, easier to use, and more useful. Thanks for all your support these past years and continued support going forward.

Happy New Year 2013!

Top Business Software for running a Small Business

After operating as a distributed development team over the last 4 years, we at CodeLathe have some vociferous opinions on what software really cuts it for getting things done in a small to medium business. Now, we are only including general communication, collaboration tools for running a general business. This does not include innumerable other tools we use internally for code development, testing, builds, integration etc.

Without much ado, here’s the list: Feel free to comment.

Microsoft Office

Really nothing to say other than you need a copy. You can’t run a business without a MS Office copy running on all your computers.

Skype

CodeLathe runs on Skype.

We do text chats, voice chats, video chats on Skype 24/7 and 365 days of the year. In fact some of the group chat history extends back to startup times of our company. It is also an invaluable tool to work with others outside our company whether it is to call them internationally with really cheap calling rates or doing quick text chats to catch up on status, questions, troubleshooting etc.

Join.me

The easiest way to share screens when you need absolutely need to sit together and huddle over a computer screen.

Intercall

OK, this is really not software but a service, but it is an indispensable tool so I am adding it anyway. We tried out a lot of conference calling solutions, but the best conference calling solution so far has been Intercall. You can’t beat the quality, reliability and pricing.

TrustFax

No one really needs a fax number these days, but it useful to send and receive faxes from vendors can only interface with via fax or postal mail. With Trustfax, you get a fax number for a low yearly payment and it sure beats a trip to the postoffice.

Tonido

Of course we build Tonido, so we are biased. But we use Tonido on a daily basis to share files, folders, large attachments instantly via skype or email by creating quick share links. We also send tonido links to downloads to people outside the company and synchronize files using Tonido Sync without worrying about data privacy, availability. We also have a single shared folder allowing access to contents for all our users outside our company. With the company growing, we eventually might start using Tonido Cloud instead as our own
self-hosted file sharing and sync solution.

Like our list, what is yours? What did we leave out?

Android App – Music player improvements

For past couple of months, we have been working on improving performance of music player in our Android app. We faced many hurdles due to the limitations in underlying Android native player. In the latest version of the app (v39), for Android phones above Android 2.3.3, we have improved the streaming (mainly mp3) , mainly time to buffer and latency between two songs. This would also eliminate internment skips that some users faced while streaming music. Consider this update as one of many coming updates to improve user experience in music streaming.

Tonido user survey- winning comments

Thank you all for your overwhelming participation, support, and comments. For small company like us, your comments provide the necessary encouragment to work hard to improve continously. Though each of your comments were very valuable, we picked following feedback for thoroughness that took into account every aspect of the product. We will soon ship a Tonidoplug to the user.

Hi Tonido Team,

I purchased a Tonido2Plug several weeks ago and I enjoy using it every day. Yesterday, I received an email from you, asking for feedback and suggestions, where you offer a prize of a TonidoPlug2 for the best feedback or suggestion. I’m am happy to provide you with feedback and would be even happier to win the prize if you think my feedback or suggestion is worthy of such an honor.

My Feedback:

Unboxing everything went well. I was pleased with how the items were found in the box and how easy it was to understand how the device was to be connected to the router, the external USB drive, and to the power outlet.

I could not figure out how to open the Tonido2plug to insert an internal drive. I learned later that the directions were not correct.

The graphic in the directions made it easy to understand the order of the connections, and I was able to get everything connected in less than 5 minutes.

There were parts of the printed instructions that I couldn’t read because of a combination of font size and font color — the blue color that you use for the links was especially difficult to figure out. One of your online pages asked for the device’s MAC address. I couldn’t read it — the label printed on the device was printed in very small text, and some of the characters were not legible
After I got it all connected, the device would not work and I could not figure out why. It took me a few attempts of trial and error, then I added a “help me” post to your forum and had to wait for a response, then I had to call my internet provider (they told me to reboot my cable modem). After that, it worked and I have had no issue since, except for …… I can’t get the wireless to work. I have followed the directions the best that I can but it’s like a trial and error puzzle where I don’t seem to get the settings done correctly. I have a wireless printer that I set up with absolutely no issue, and my family members have several other wireless devices and each of those devices were easy to set up or configure. I haven’t given up but I’m frustrated with this.
My Ratings (scale of1 to 10 where 10 is best):

Packaging and Unboxing: 10

Connecting: 10

Printed Directions:4

First Use: 2

Troubleshooting: 4

Usage after issue was resolved: 10

Owner settings: 10

Setting up a guest account: 10

Guest usage: 10

Ongoing use: 10

Wireless Configuration: 3

My Suggestions:

Reprint your instructions so the font is a bit bigger and change the color from blue to something else that is easier to read.

Correct the instructions. There is at least one part that is wrong (instructs you to hold own a switch to open the device, and that isn’t necessary).

Put the instructions on your web site.

Add some videos on youtube or your own site that show how to gt set up (how to connect the parts, how to open the device and insert an internal drive)

And finally, one request: My ultimate goal with the Tonido2plug is to create a mini web server, to host a family web site, and I’ll need to use all the parts of xampp (apache, MySQL, PHP, etc) plus maybe even install wordpress. It doesn’t look like the directions
to do that are written for a person like me (I’m not a software developer or programmer) so it would be great if there were some simple and clear and easy instructional material available to explain how to do that.

I have already recommended your product to one of my co-workers and he says he will place an order, and I think most of my other team members will want one too, so we can have a somewhat distributed file-sharing network at work, protected by the firewall. But we can’t use any device at work unless the IT department has approved it. So if I win a Tonido2Plug for best feedback, I will hand it to our IT department so they can check it out.

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Archive for the ‘Software’ Category