The SD card USB thingy that Pogue referred to does exist; I saw one for the first time recently, but have never used it. I remember thinking it was very clever as well

I liked the David Pogue presentation, thanks for the link. I used to work at Palm (a few of the other Sharpcasters did as well; our first company built the orginal Blazer browser, which Handspring/Palm acquired), so we are big fans of the cult of simplicity.

As an example, we take Pogue’s cameraphone picture transfer dilemma to the ultimate level of simplicity, which is a zero-touch transfer. i.e. if you take a picture on your camera phone, without pressing any button, it is instantly synced to your PC and the web. We extend the same type of simplicity to all the common problems you face, whether it is sharing, anywhere access, syncing or backup (we like to say, the best type of back up is the back up you don’t have to do!).

We believe a lot of the complexity in the digital world comes from the management aspect, whether it is juggling all your islands of data on your various devices and the web, or backing up your stuff, or dealing with manual one-way uploads and downloads. If only you could just focus on creation and consumption of the digital media and not on the management, life would be a lot simpler (and more fun!).

This is what we are trying to do with Sharpcast. Using the web as an enabler to bridge your offline and online worlds across all your devices.

After you try Sharpcast, please send us any and all feedback!

Cheers,

Gibu

I have a question for you, though, which you might be able to answer. The other day I watched David Pogue’s presentation at the TED conference (available through the TedBlog link here
and I swear that at one point he said that he doesn’t upload his camera’s photos to his computer in the conventional way, but rather takes the memory card out, folds it in half to reveal connectors (like in a USB port), which he then sticks directly into his computer. Was he pulling the listener’s leg, or does this really work? Any thoughts? (If it does, you should post a little tutorial “how to” on your site, seriously!)

Thanks for the compliment on my blog’s look — can’t take any credit for that, though: it’s those smart designers at WP. I did pick that red leaf, though, because I figured it looked close enough to the Canadian maple leaf…

I would definitely encourage you to try out Sharpcast. It is a one-stop solution for transparent remote backup (not just the files, also all your organization and metadata), automatic anywhere access, simple sharing (drag and drop on to a buddy list), and seamless syncing across all your devices (’push’, so you don;t even have to think about it).

The result is that you always have the same view of your stuff regardless of whether you are on the web or offline and what device you are on. You never have to do the same thing twice again or worry about backups.

We are trying to recreate the Blackberry metaphor (Outlook client on a PC, Outlook Web Access via a browser and a mobile client working seamlessly together) for the average consumer.

As for how easy it is to make the mobile work with your Windows PC, simply log in to the client in both places. The mobile is still in Alpha, so please be patient with it.

The whole experience is quite powerful even if you experience just your PC staying in synch with the web (we say here that sync is the new upload) without the mobile piece.

Please let me know your thoughts after you use the product. We are just scratching the surface in terms of features and the types of data/applications we will support and your feedback will help us make it the best solution for your needs.

Btw, I really like feel of your blog. Much better-looking than the average ones you see out there.

Cheers,

Gibu Thomas
CEO, Sharpcast