ubuntuone-users team mailing list archive

[Matthijs ten Kate <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Elliot,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us about your vision on Ubuntu
One. Now let me share some of mine.

I'm a big fan of Ubuntu One and I think it could very well grow into a
unique 'selling' point for Ubuntu. I've been using it extensively over
the past few months and my overall impression is quite good, considering
it's (mostly) free and still beta.
I'm currently thinking of upgrading my account to 50GB, but there are a
few issues which make me hesitant:

1. Performance. To be really useful, the sync performance should IMHO be
improved. Currently, there's no way to tell a) when the sync process
will start (varies between seconds and several minutes to up to one
hour) and b) how long the sync process will take to complete. The file
transfer rate is completely undisclosed to the user (from the netspeed
applet I see it varies irregularly between 0 and 2 MBytes/sec) and
syncing larger amounts of data takes, from my personal experience,
several hours to complete. Considering I have a 60mbps cable connection
at home, this is less than stellar performance. Just how long will it
take to sync 50GB (or anything between 2 and 50GB, for that matter)??

2. Updates of files sometimes don't get picked up by U1. This is
especially annoying when working with i.e. an OOo document which has a
lot of revisions and edits. Expecting to have the latest saved version
to appear on another U1 connected computer within several minutes can
prove to be disappointing. On more than one occasion, the latest saved
version wasn't picked up at all but the other clients still showed the
nice little green sign of the file being up-to-date.

3. Interaction with small disks. I use U1 extensively to sync files with
my netbook. However, this netbook only has a 10GB disk. What happens
when I upgrade U1 to 50GB and actually start using that space? I predict
the netbook will get stuffed. And then what? Is there any way to have
any control over what's being pushed to the netbook and what isn't?

4. Verbosity. As long as the whole sync process is still sometimes
problematic, I'd like to be able to see just what exactly the U1 client
is doing and what is has done. Just displaying 'Synchronization in
progress' is just not verbose enough. I imagine there could be a 'more
info' button (or plus sign) which would take me to a more detailed
overview of what's going on.

And of course, there's my wishlist of items:
-Sync contacts with Thunderbird
-Being able to use all the features of the Address Book (using pictures
of people, creating groups etc.)
-Calendar sync
-Integration with other sources such as Google Docs / Calendar, IMAP
servers etc.

You might say 'hey, you just want a clone of Mobile Me!'. Well yes, I'd
be thrilled to have a good alternative for this service, to make the
Ubuntu solution more viable to people who are switching from Windows.
Right now, most of my customers are moving towards Apple...

Nevertheless, keep up the good work!

Thanks for reading, regards,

Matthijs