Ok, everyone is throwing around the term “cloud” lately. No doubt it’s a buzz word. But what is a “personal cloud?” The Iomega Personal Cloud connects desktop Iomega network storage devices to other devices – personal computers, Macs, iPhones, iPads and more – via the ‘Net. The real catch here is that the Iomega Personal Cloud is completely self-owned and managed so all of the content is under your full control 24×7 – no usage or subscriber fees.

We tested the Iomega Personal Cloud at CES today and found it very easy to setup and use. To start, it only required an email address and a name for your personal cloud to get off and rolling. Once configured you can send invitations to join the cloud to 250 friends, family members or business associates. The Iomega Personal Cloud blasts out invitations to each person you designate and automatically installs a small client app and then instantly connects each invitee to the Iomega Personal Cloud using a 8 digit unique pass code. Then a drive letter appears on their computer and data can be loaded just as you would with a direct-attached drive. Controlling the cloud was a cinch – from the Iomega Personal Cloud administrator panel you can see who is connected to the cloud, you can ban them from the cloud and do a host of other nifty things to them.

A really cool feature is that when you own two Iomega network storage devices with Iomega Personal Cloud running, you can automatically replicate data from your home or business to any other location. This is just like paying for web-based backup storage – a service you can now cancel. Every business has to realize that backing up to a single device stored in a single location is a disaster waiting to happen. Iomega now has the answer. And it’s easy and it’s called the Iomega Personal Cloud.

Finally, everything is encrypted and locked down. You control who sees what and when. A very easy, slick interface makes the Iomega Personal Cloud easy for even Grandma to run. Congratulations granny, it’s a CLOUD! This is a must have tool for both consumers and businesses alike.

In closing, “All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.” Thank you Mr. Brautigan.

See more information at: http://www.iomega-personal-cloud.com

Groucho Marx had it wrong: “I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.” It’s amazing how far our digital households have come in such a short amount of time. The latest multimedia product from Iomega, the Iomega TV with Boxee propels the theory that Groucho was a bit conservative in this thinking. Iomega TV with Boxee takes everything you enjoy from the Internet – TV shows, music, movies and throws it directly up on your HDTV. No longer do you have to rig up one of your computers to the TV and have it sitting on the floor in the living room. The Iomega TV with Boxee box is clean, shiny-black and sits right under your HDTV LCD.

Life has become so simple and thanks to Iomega TV with Boxee it is now even simpler. The 1080p HD, wireless-enabled, DivX Plus HD and DNLA Certified Iomega TV with Boxee ships as a non-storage device (streaming only) or up to 2 TB so you can store your most previous digital content and even share it and access it worldwide with the new Iomega Personal Cloud (more on this later). We really loved the interface and its simplicity. The fully QWERTY keyboard built in to the back of the remote made searching easy and fast. If your movies and content are getting old and boring, no problem. The Iomega TV with Boxee has the built-in ability to stream thousands of movies live from OpenFilm, IndieMoviesOnline, MUBI and EZTakes. When will you have time to go to work? When will you have time to eat? So much content, so little time.

One very interesting social media component is the ability to share content with your fiends on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Iomega TV with Boxee will automatically deliver your recommendations to your friends and deliver theirs directly back to your TV. Now, if you have some sketchy friends this may pose to be quite an eye-opening experience.

With the ability to store 800,000 photos, 500,000 songs or 770 hours of video, Iomega TV with Boxee seems to be the perfect fit to your digital domain. And yes like everything else in your life it does require an Internet connection (wired or wireless) but luckily since you are reading this blog that appears to be on your “DONE” check list.

See more information: http://www.iomega.com/iomegatv-media-center/index.html

When we first heard about the Iomega SuperHero being developed earlier this year we thought to ourselves surely this was already out in the market somewhere? We searched high and low and to our surprise there wasn’t anything like it. Sure we found plenty of useless accessories like toilet docks, funny phone fingers, and breathalyzers but no device to backup data and charge at the same time.

Well here comes Iomega and the super handy Iomega SuperHero Backup and Charger for iPhone. We have all lost, damaged or water logged an iPhone so we have all been there posting on Facebook and Twitter “Lost my phone, send me your number if I know you.” Well those days are over my friend.

The SuperHero dock accommodates not only an iPhone (3G, 3GS, 4) and iPod Touch (4th generation) but also a 4-gigabyte Secure Digital (SD) card in a slot in the base of the device. Upon initial setup a simple application is downloaded from the Apple App Store and you are off to the races. The device is completely standalone so no computer is necessary. The interface was extremely simple and not overloaded with setting choices. We popped an iPhone in and off it went backing up all the contacts and photos and keeping us informed to its progress along the way. It was lightning fast and gave us a little battery boost at the same time.

The SuperHero seems so perfect to keep on your nightstand right next to your bed. As you are sleeping and re-charging your batteries you can now rest easy knowing your photos and contacts are backed up and your iPhone will be juiced up waiting for the next adventure.

As we were writing this I remembered a quote from my favorite movie – Mary Jane from Spiderman said “You have a knack for saving my life. I think I have a superhero stalker. ” NOW YOU SURE DO!

See more information: http://www.iomega.com/superhero-iphone-backup/index.html

Couldn’t make it out to CES this year? Didn’t feel like pushing and shoving your way through millions of square feet of cool products? hmmmm. Well we will bring a little bit of CES to you. We thought we would share some photos from the booth to show you what you are missing.

Iomega CES 2011 Trade Show Buttons

It’s funny how a tradition catches on. Lots of booths at CES try to go all out for the expensive trade show swag. It’s also funny how those things never see the light of day and end up buried in a closet back home or stuffed in a drawer at the office. Not with the CES Iomega buttons. People love to show them off – heck we even see people wearing them at other non-techie trade shows. People are proud to attach these things to their bags, briefcases and luggage and show them office. People even sport them at booze-fueled CES parties. That makes us proud – real proud! Such a simple concept – inexpensive too! But what some booths out here don’t have, we have plenty of – creativity and a sense of humor! Here are the latest and greatest CES 2011 buttons. Oh, and our new products are pretty cool and creative too (daily reviews starting tomorrow).

Wait a minute!! Hey, these things are not to be resold!?? Oh whatever, make a little side cash!

iConnect is so simple it blows our mind. What a great idea – this crappy $5 thumb drive can be turned into a Network Attached Storage device? Come on!

Iomega’s newly launched iConnect will do just that and a heck of a lot more.

It’s being called “a wireless data station” and the thing retails for under 100 bucks. You plug the iConnect into your network and it immediate sets itself up and is now available and seen from any device on the LAN. Now all you need is content and we all have that running out of our ears. Hard drives here, laptops there, thumb drives all over the place! With iConnect’s 4 USB ports you can plug ANY TIME of USB storage device into (thumb drives, external hard drives, you name it). Once plugged in all of those devices will become NAS for your network. Pretty cool!

The iConnect is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux and the iConnect even has a web portal that will let users remotely access content and administer the settings for it. From the web portal, you can copy data between the devices, trigger backups from remote machines and a host of other really cool stuff. To top it all off, iConnect is DLNA certified so it can do DLNA streaming to network aware devices like the PS3 or Tivo.

The device really has some unbelievable functionality for its price. For instance, USB RAID. You can set scheduled drive to drive copies to protect your data. No need to buy expensive RAID bays or large NAS devices just connect a pair of USB drives, and start the process with the web application.

And like the pink bunny with the drum – the list of features just keeps going and going.

Plug a printer into iConnect and it becomes networked and is now a shared printer for all the computers on the network!

Finally, don’t want to mess with the web portal but want to copy all of the data off a device that you just plugged in – no problem! , and iConnect lets you transfer the data from one drive to another with the ‘QuikTransfer’ button right there on the front of the device – POOF!

It’s under $100 people. Get one and get one now.

PS: Mac fans – it has Time Machine support!

Hey is that a ScreenPlay Director?

Everyone’s regular home is cluttered with digital junk: CDs, DVDs, Blue Ray Discs, iPods and the list goes on and on. And it never fails as soon as you want to watch THAT particular movie you can never find it. It’s not in the case or it’s been switched with Sleepless in Seattle and you have already seen that 50 times.

With ScreenPlay Director and its lite counterpart – TVLink Director you now have the ability to store all of your digital stuff on one handy gadget AND you can view, stream, watch and listen to all of your favorite Elvis music (happy birthday today Elvis), watch Raiders of the Lost Arc at the click of a button and even rent movies through a new partnership with Roxio’s CinemaNow service. CinemaNow has thousands of titles to browse and download. They even have the recently released Star Trek . Downloading took just a few minutes to load up on the ScreenPlay Director on a standard DSL Internet connection.

ScreenPlay Director comes loaded with 1 TB of storage space making that the only difference between it and TVLink Director. (with TV Link you must plug in an external storage device). There are 3 USB ports on the device so plugging in to retrieve content was a snap.

We added on the optional wireless adapter and could then connect to the Internet to access tons of pre-programmed content sources such as YouTube, Flickr, and ShoutCast. Of course, you can also set up the device with your favorite RSS feed and podcast. Lastly, Iomega has a cool online portal to help locate content for ScreenPlay – http://www.iomega.com/onlinemedia/. Be sure to check it out.

So get out the popcorn, fire up your ScreenPlay Director, punch in your favorite movie on CinemaNow and enjoy the show!

PS: the new ScreenPlay Director interface/GUI is sweet…you have to check it out.

14k Gold Plated eGo

Not wanting to hop the next American Airlines flight out and purchase one for yourself? No problem. Iomega is raffling them off every half hour in the booth during CES and people are lining up. So that tells us that plenty of ordinary folks from the Midwest want one too.

Have they been v.cloned?

So what is v.clone? It’s patent-pending technology that Iomega engineers have developed using the VMWare virtualization software platform but added some really cool new features not available in any other software. I think the word we are looking for is “revolutionary.” So here is the story of the day we got to test v.clone before anyone else on the planet (well except maybe Jonathan Huberman and the thousands of Iomega employees). Lets just say we have some “connections” within Iomega and were able to get a final release copy and test it.

tada – its v.clone:
We copied v.clone on to the laptop and plugged in our recently acquired 14k gold plated eGo external hard drive (only available for sale in the Middle East or one must win a raffle at the Iomega CES booth). This laptop has a 120 GB drive (I know its not the 1 TB I wanted) so we figured it would take all day to copy the data on the first full replication – nope! It was finished within an hour and “supposedly” we now have a copy of this laptop. So we unplug the gold jewel and attach it now directly to our netbook. v.clone pops up and installs some quick software on the netbook and voilà – the laptop is now opened up as if it was the netbook! same exact files, same locations, same icons, same installed software – NO DIFFERENCES – It was a piece of cake! We can move files FROM the v.clone image directly TO the netbook just as you would drag-and-drop files on any standard computer. As the Sham-Wow Guy, Vince Shlomi says “BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE:”

The real benefit as we see it of v.clone and where it succeeds in walking on water is the technology in it that allows you to change files on the virtual image and once you reconnect it back to the computer you copied the files on, the master drive and files are updated with the changes from the virtual copy – brilliant!!!

So in my pocket on a slim 14k gold plated Iomega eGo lies my entire laptop computer ready to be virtualized on any computer that will allow me access.

We are sorry you have to wait until February to try it for yourselves. But trust us – IT’S WELL WORTH THE WAIT.

PS: its free and will ship on every Iomega portable drive. Eat your hearts out WD and Seagate.

We are tweeting live from the show floor on all things CES (ok so there is a little focus on Iomega)
http://www.twitter.com/iomega or follow #iomega

There is a great buzz on the show floor this evening as all of the exhibit construction is nearing the finish line; the products are shined up, the Internet is connected and the hawkers are practicing their pitches aimlessly pacing back and forth giving it everything they’ve got.  The booth staff look ready for the first attendee to charge through the door …only 15 hours to go!

The booth that sits at #31823 South Hall is ready for show time!  Every year our attendees cram into the booth hoping to test drive the latest portable drive, the latest NAS or the latest multimedia drive and this year is no different. They are also looking for the cool swag and Iomega always delivers. Our tradeshow Iomega-red big round buttons are always the “belle of the ball” and this year some of the sayings we have come up with are just downright hilarious and a little risqué Hey that’s what YOU want and that’s what Iomega delivers!

Hustle in tomorrow and get them while you can..apparently they are collector’s items so once you are done wearing this years “Do It Nightly” monicker you can eBay them and bring in some cash which can be used for your next eGo or ScreenPlay.

See you all tomorrow “on the floor!”

Capture a complete virtual image of your PC — including the operating system, all applications, your settings, and all your files to your Iomega hard drive. Access the cloned copy and use it seamlessly on another computer*, just as if you’re working from your own PC. When you reconnect, automatically sync your data to your primary PC – everything is always up to date. Iomega v.Clone is a patent-pending cutting-edge technology—only Iomega offers this powerful solution.

More information: http://ww2.iomega-web.com/vclone

* Enhanced Intrusion blocking
* Anti-virus Security that detects and removes viruses from your emails, downloads, and removable media
* Spyware protection that blocks adware, spyware, and other hidden dangers
* Strongest protection from spam
* Personal Firewall to protect your entire network
* Fraud defense that keeps you out of hot water with “phishing” scams
* Protects your personal data from unauthorized use

More information: http://www.iomega.com/protection/iom_trendmicro_en.html

Iomega rolls out its latest pocket-friendly NAS device to the masses, known as the iConnect Wireless Data Station. This simple method of introducing your entire USB storage into a network enables you to connect, share and access files anywhere, even over the Internet. Debuting at CES 2010, the iConnect Wireless Data Station does not have any onboard storage (hence the relatively svelte size), although it does enable users to hook up to a router (wired or wireless) in order to share content off four USB devices (hard drives or USB flash drives) automatically. This makes it a snap to share data, as it also works from any networked Windows PC, Mac or Linux workstation. The Iomega iConnect Wireless Data Station will be released worldwide later this January for $99.99, where each purchase comes with a three-year warranty.

More Information: http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/network-storage-desktop/wireless-data-station/network-hard-drive-iconnect/?partner=4760#overviewItem_tab

Enjoy a complete media experience with the feature-rich Iomega® ScreenPlay™ Director HD Media Player. With full 1080p high definition (24 fps) and up to 1TB of space to save your files, the ScreenPlay Director adds exceptional features like direct access to online media, rent/buy movies with CinemaNow and network connections. This high-definition multimedia player connects easily to your home network to store & access your videos, music and photo collections. Easily browse your network to select stored videos and view on your home theatre or access online content with the convenient remote. Compatible with the latest media formats such as H.264, WMV, MKV, MP3, AC3 (Dolby® Digital Encoding), WAV, WMA, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI/VOB), MPEG-4 (AVI/DiVX /XViD) and JPEG. It supports the Iomega USB WIFI Adapter for wireless access (adapter sold separately). Includes Iomega Protection Suite software. The ScreenPlay Director is powered by an Energy Star® qualified adapter for a better environment.

More information: http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/multimedia-drive/screenplay153-multimedia-drives/screenplay-director/?partner=4760#overviewItem_tab