The 4th of July celebration this Friday marks the height of the summer travel season - all week Americans from coast to coast are hitting the roads to be with friends and family for the holiday weekend. As we all look forward to fireworks, grilling, red, white and blue, most of us also look forward to being outside in the summer air for a few days instead of sitting in an air-conditioned office.

But we all know that being out of the office, while enjoyable in theory, presents a whole new set of worries on top of the normal stress caused by traveling. Not only are we facing the highest gas prices in recent history and the somewhat terrifying prospect of being in a car with your family for hours, but these days it’s common that you will be expected to  keep a watchful eye on your BlackBerry or iPhone in case something at work can‘t wait until Monday.

Ahhh yes, the joys of traveling.

It‘s good news, then, that 2008 is the summer of the ‘Road Warrior’- the person who can wander at will and never miss a deadline, e-mail, phone call or business deal. And what enables the Warrior is that (s)he knows how to use today’s technology to their benefit - as a way to pre-empt the sinking feeling you get when you realize that you have 6 new voicemails from your boss…

I just came across a fun list of tips for the Road Warrior - which includes gadgets like the Safety Pin MP3 Player, Caffeinated Soap (huh?), and the Track Stick - which plots your GPS location for online posts/ updates to friends and family eagerly awaiting your arrival. All good ideas, to be sure. And also all much more cumbersome than simply covering your tracks and remembering to save any work you might need while you are out to your Box. Go head, do it now - you can thank me later.

So celebrate with fireworks we will, and slip up at work we will not. Safe travels and happy Road Warrior-ing,

Kendra

It was pointed out to me this morning that some 1,500 employee-hours go into improving our service each week- which means there are a handful of people around here who know a whole lot about Box. In the interest of tapping into this knowledge base, I went searching for the juiciest Box tips I could find…

First stop, Support Manager Drew - who I asked to share a question he is hearing often these days- and perhaps something I can address on the blog for you all (hey, just doing what I can!).

Here’s is a peek into our IM conversation (yep, big into IM’ing at our office):

Drew: Hey, so regarding a good customer service question-
Kendra: Yep
Drew: Ok, I’ve got the good stuff for ya
Kendra: Yesssssssss
Drew: There has not been much communication to users on this one yet, so it’s perfect
Kendra: Do share…
Drew: Most paid accounts don’t realize that when they invite a Lite account to collaborate, the Lite collaborator can actually upload files up to 1GB in size - so long as they upload into the folder created by an individual or business account
Drew: There’s been some confusion around this - because Lite accounts will usually try to upload a file into the root folder, come across the file size limitation, and get frustrated - when there is no need to get frustrated at all
Kendra: Oh, good! I like this… thanks.

I hope this is helpful - and if there are things about Box that you are just dying to know, but have been shy to send over an email about, leave a comment… I will get you whatever you need, promise.

Your file femme fact finder,

Kendra

“Hey, Kendra - um, I hear that you are working at a tech company in Silicon Valley… uh, I need your help. Can you call me? And the sooner the better, thanks.”

I could feel his desperation from across the country when I checked my voice-mail last night. Oh man, this did not sound so good. Especially if he’s calling me to solve his tech issues…

“Hey Seth, it’s Kendra - what’s up man, haven’t heard from you in a while!”

“Yeah, I hate to bug you - but my laptop is dead and all my files are gone and I am FREAKING out. You know anything about this? Who can fix it!? You work in the Valley… HELP ME.”

Ok - we can get through this, I thought. Breathe. I DO work at a tech company in ’the Valley’ and I do know a bit about this stuff… But the best I could do was stammer something about, ’Where do you save your work? Do you back up your files? Who makes your computer and did you call them?!’

Truth be told, what I was really thinking was, ‘Nobody told this poor kid about Box.net, yikes.’

After some himming and hawing, I decided it was time for a Box intervention. (Yes, I have had my share of them in the last month). So I told Seth, as I have told others, that all you have to do is upload all of your files and folders to a Box.net account and you never have to worry about losing anything ever again. Not only will you have all of your files available to you anytime, accessible from anywhere - I told Seth - but you can do a whole bunch of awesome things with them as well. You can edit files, share them, invite other people to look at and work on them with you and access files from your phone (he seemed especially impressed with that one).

Yes, it happens to the best of us - your computer, a tool on which you depend for everything, calls it a day at 10 in the morning. Or something runs a muck on your hard drive and you can‘t get anything done. We all know the story… we just don’t have to put up with it anymore!

So Seth, if you are reading this, sorry you had to be my example. That also happens to the best of us.

Take good care and get uploading,
Kendra

-If you have examples of how Box.net has saved your life (or at least your files!), post them here and I will send you a t-shirt. A really really cool t-shirt.

Did you know Box.net is actively used by people in over 200 countries? Basically, wherever you can find internet, you can find someone using Box.net. Thus, we’re making it a high priority to provide localized language support for the main features in our application, making it even easier to use Box.net in major international markets.

If you want to help in our efforts (translating, proofing, etc), please shoot an email to aaron@Box.net and let us know where you live and what languages you’ve mastered. Those selected to help will become owners of glorious Box schwag.

A topic getting nice coverage at last weeks Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston was social networking for your business - and how you can use social media to do it.

While at the conference, our own Karen Appleton (VP of Business Development) was approached and asked her thoughts on the issue. Check out what she had to say:

In case you are interested to read more about social media for your business - and blogging in particular - here is a BusinessWeek article for you to enjoy. Hey, it’s all in the title: “Social Media Will Change Your Business: Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up… or catch you later”

On a separate but related note - thanks to all of you checking out the Box Blog via your member newsletter! We’re happy to have you, make sure you come back. If you want to also follow Box.net on Twitter (it will help you stay up on your social networking!), you can find us at twitter.com/boxdotnet

-Kendra

We pushed out another major update last night to your Box. Here are just a few new features to look out for:

RSS Feed for your Updates
Keep track of files shared in your Collaboration folders or files that have been sent to you! Just visit www.box.net/updates and click the RSS icon to subscribe in your favorite reader.

Updated List View
We have defaulted all accounts into the new list view to show you some of the new features we have going on. You can always switch back to icon view (or toggle between the two for different needs); you’ll notice the ability to share more easily, add comments to files, and see all of your OpenBox services in a single click.

Remembering your login
To speed up the login process, the homepage now will remember who you are so you just have to enter your password. Quite helpful for quickly accessing your Box!

That’s all for now. Continue to look for more updates and optimizations in your Box.

With yesterday’s announcement of Swapdrive being acquired by Symantec, an old question occurred to me again: really, who should be responsible for your data online? Because this idea of the “cloud” and “online storage” are relatively new and under-adopted in the mainstream, a growing number of companies across the technology food chain are claiming responsibility for hosting your data online. We have Apple, Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, EMC and others either announcing or launching respectable plays in this “space.” This is great, but it raises questions around uniformity, portability, and ownership, among other issues.

A key question is what happens when you want to take your data off of these services. On your local computer, you have full control of -and access to- your hard drive. On the web, you’re playing by someone else’s rules. How can you ensure access to all of your sensitive documents when one service goes bust? Or perhaps you don’t like the privacy rules of a particular service (Google, ahem) - you should be entitled to keep your information private, right? Given all the hubbub about “opening up” social network identity and friend information, this is a problem the online storage folks will be dealing with ten-fold two years from now when users really come around to it. We thought it was hard to load a friends list to multiple applications — try 5GB of highly confidential information!

Our answer to this: We have a fully functional and free API that enables you to import and export your data (only with your permission, of course). This means you can take your data anywhere you want, whenever you want. The best example of this is our OpenBox Services, powered by our OpenBox platform, which are third-party applications you can use directly from your Box account. We’re also eager and excited to work with standards bodies, who will, like us, advocate rights and rules for your personal information.

In the end, this should be an open conversation among all players. It has no immediate resolution, which is exciting — it continues to push us to innovate and build on the ever-present idea of “data in the cloud.”

- Aaron

Ah yes, it’s every Apple devotees dream come true.

I heard it was coming, but the media coverage following this morning’s new iPhone 3G announcement (available for $199 in July) at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco is amazing - and has kept me glued to my favorite tech bloggers’ updates all day (it’s good stuff, I just read a well-known Silicon Valley blogger refer to today’s announcement in religious terms…wow).

In front of a predictably packed house, Steve Jobs unveiled a product sure to continue challenging the mobile landscape we know today. In addition to a being faster and smaller, the 3G will also act as host to a whole handful of exclusive third-party applications, like our friends at Loopt (which can be found in their yet-to-be-seen apps store, rumored to be announced in a few weeks). These apps let you see up-to-the-minute local news, play games, update your social networking status, get stats and video highlights from your favorite MLB team and even watch TV right on your iPhone no browsing required. Sounds pretty good, right?

It should be noted, however, that perhaps the feature we want you discovering (or re-discovering if you already have an iPhone and a Box.net account - i.box.net) come July is fast and easy mobile access to your files right there on your new iPhone. Talk about good stuff…

-Kendra

In our May newsletter, we announced that an iPod was up for grabs for the Box user with the best story for how they use our service to collaborate with others.

The response was awesome, so thank you all for your entries. It was a tough call, but here’s the e-mail we picked…

“I wanted to let you know that Seva Canada, an international eye care charity based in Vancouver, BC, uses Box Net to send images and documents to our offices in Nepal and Tibet. For instance, I had some files about the urgent need for primary eye care centres in the hill districts of Nepal. I needed these to go to the Seva Nepal office in Kathmandu quickly. It was great not having to mail a disk or to get a volunteer to carry it there. Also, the Seva Nepal office could download the files at their convenience, which is important since there are frequent power outages. So Box Net is helping Seva Canada prevent blindness and restore sight in the developing world.

Thank you!”

Hey, seems like a win/win to me,

Kendra

BTW- if you have a great story that you’d like us to hear / want to share how Box is most useful to you, leave us a comment!

Our very own Jim Herbold (Vice President of Sales/ General Manager of Box Enterprise) and Karen Appleton (Vice President of Business Development) will be in Boston next week to attend the Enterprise 2.0 Conference.

Box will be an exhibitor in the Demo Pavilion - so swing by and introduce yourself, ask questions, and come listen to Jim’s talk on Collaboration Management and Box.net Solutions on Wednesday, June 11th at 5pm.

The 2008 conference “is the largest and most important gathering for the people ready to reinvent the way work is done.” Topics will focus on Software as a Service and cloud computing, Search 2.0 and Social Networking in the Enterprise. Box will be alongside conference sponsors like Google, Amazon, IMB, Microsoft, Oracle and Sun and many others…

Don’t miss Box in Boston!

-Kendra