While Creative’s web service suite ZiiLife is not quite all put together yet (it is still in beta), it still gets a few worthy mentions. Particularly its online file storage application, ZiiDisk.
ZiiDisk is one of three components that make up ZiiLife, which includes a VOIP telephony service ZiiMeet and ZiiJournal—a customizable online photo gallery.
To try out ZiiDisk, you need to sign up for an account at www.ziilife.com. ZiiLife is out of the private beta phase, so anybody can sign up and give it a go. 200MB is not a lot to work with (for now it’s the default storage amount you get when you sign up for a ZiiLife account), but it’s enough for a test drive.
When you click on ZiiDisk, the first thing you see are several default folders labeled music, movies, documents, backups, etc. So there’s a step saved when you want to upload files to folders. For the not-so-tech-savvy, this is a good instructional cue to what they are supposed to do with ZiiDisk.
Upload any type of file
As with DropBox and other online file storage services, ZiiDisk lets you upload any type of file: Word documents, PDFs, mp3s, images, movie files, etc. Previewing an image is straightforward. A single click launches the image (a slight delay here though), along with the options to rotate the image; zoom in and out and navigate to other pictures in the folder.
Upload multiple files at once
With many online file storage services, uploading files is slow and cumbersome, because you have to upload files one, by one. Zzzzz. By comparison, with ZiiDisk, you get to upload a bunch of files at once —very zippy, very, very good. On one occasion I uploaded several images (of about 1MB each); and on another six mp3s at once. Both were impressively quick and fuss-free affairs. That said, stick with Internet Explorer—the uploading process tends freeze up other browsers, unfortunately.
Picture uploads show up on ZiiJournal!
This is a neat one. When you upload jpegs, gifs, bmps—any type of image file, they show up instantly on ZiiJournal. Where you will go ooooh, is when you see that all the pictures have been automatically sorted by the dates they were taken.
It’s all a right click away
Anything you need to do with your files— cut, delete, share, edit properties— is only a right-click away. That’s primarily how you work your way around in ZiiDisk—and it’s the key reason it’s easy to use, especially for newbies.
Instant file sharing
What’s very likeable about file sharing on ZiiDisk is how instant the experience is. Once the recipient clicks on the download link in the e-mail, he is directed to the web page where the file is hosted and download begins automatically.
For now, just two gripes. What I’d like to see is Creative offering space upgrade options for ZiiDisk and to fix the browser compatibility issue. Up next tomorrow: ZiiMeet.
