I'm looking for cloud storage that isn't blocked in China and that has good syncing features so I don't have to worry about keeping my files updated between two computers. I'll add that one of the computers is on XP, which rules out Windows Live Mesh, which seems to have been a pretty good option otherwise.

Dropbox and Sugarsync seem to be blocked, so they're out as well...

Anyone know of a good solution, or am I stuck relying on manual USB drive updates?

Dropbox is blocked in China? 该死... Also, does this thread have the potential to get Skritter blocked? I've heard that even discussing this kind of thing is bad for your firewall karma.

It could be harmful, but Skritter users tend to need to know these things. I think keeping it in English helps. We haven't seen skritter.cn itself getting blocked much (except during a few crazy times when tons of stuff was getting blocked temporarily).

alright, pardon my ignorance, but can someone explain to me what "cloud" or "cloud storage" is ? This is the second time I've heard "cloud" in the technical/computer sense, but I have no clue what it means. The only "cloud" I know is big fluffy white things that are high in the sky on sunny days. I know what you're thinking... that "I'm a science type of guy"

@Bohan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_storage

Basically, "Cloud" in the computing sense, is centralized computing - in other words, whatever is being provided by the "cloud", whether storage or computing or gaming, is done in some centralized location and then sent to your local machine via an internet connection.

Cloud storage is basically having your files stored on someone else's computer or server so that you can access them from multiple devices over an internet connection.

Another example would be cloud gaming from OnLive, which apparently allows you to play games that your computer itself couldn't handle, sending you essentially a real-time video of the game while your control input is sent in simultaneously.

Bohan,

There was a time when there was no GMail, Yahoo mail, or Hotmail. E-mail was something you downloaded from your ISP onto your hard drive.

Then those services came out. They are considered "cloud computing," and they are the most basic. You can access them from any computer. Then photo services came out, like Flickr and Facebook.

Now there are a ton of cloud computing services. Drop Box is pretty popular, because it is like a virtual hard drive. It doesn't just store email or photos, but any kind of file that you want to keep on it.

Obviously the counterpart is the privacy issue.

Back on topic for a moment, I'm currently checking out ZumoDrive and Syncplicity. If I find either one of these is particularly good and China-friendly, I'll make sure to update this thread.

Cloud is nothing more than a new marketing word to replace the term internet... ie

Cloud email ... email on the internet
Cloud storage ... storing files on the internet
Cloud computing ... using computers on the internet instead of locally

In my opinion, is best described in this youtube video entitled "What the hell is cloud computing""
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0

Video version, from 2min 15sec:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEPTeTzg6M&feature=fvwrel

youtube is no good to those of us in China, but I feel that the term "cloud" in relation to computing is more than just a marketing term. The way I see it, "the Internet" in popular use usually refers to a set of content and services available on a worldwide infrastructure also called "the Internet". "Cloud" services are services which provide computing services that are usually local to the user's computer in a non-localized fashion, so the service which used to rely on the user's access to one computer now relies on the user's access to an internet connection. In other words, iTunes isn't a cloud service unless it allows you to play your music directly from the internet with no reliance on localized storage, Amazon's shopping section isn't a cloud service because its functionality has always relied on an internet connection, but Dropbox is a cloud service, because it augments or replaces local hard disk storage.

Cloud discussion aside, I said I would report back on the services I tried. I installed Syncplicity on my two computers and discovered it worked like a charm for my needs - synchronization of a limited set of files between two computers. It has had some minor connection issues, usually either not connecting if it runs on startup or sometimes taking a couple minutes to connect, but overall it's worked well for me. The free account allows up to two GB of storage/synchronization - the way it works is you tag files and/or folders to keep synchronized and it keeps them synchronized between the two computers. The biggest downside is probably the limitation of two computers for the free account, but that's all I needed.

Since Syncplicity did what I needed, I didn't try out ZumoDrive.