With each new generation of devices, PDAs and smartphones tend to let smaller, lighter, cheaper, and more powerful. But in spite of these ongoing improvements, few people rely solely on a mobile device, choosing instead to use one only in addition to a desktop or notebook PC. And while most users with both a conventional PC and a handheld device usually want to use the latter to access files on the former, doing so isn't always easy due to hardware or software compatibility issues or owing to limitations in things like storage capacity and bandwidth.

Transmedia Corporation thinks it has the solution in it's new Glide Mobile software, which when used in conjunction with the company's Glide Effortless service, lets users access, manage, and share various kinds of information—like audio, video, photos, and documents—from their full-size PC via a mobile device.

How It Works
Strictly speaking Glide Mobile isn't a remote access application since you don't use it to connect directly to the PC back in your home or office. Instead, you can upload the files you want to remotely access to a Glide central server, and from there you can view, manage, or share items from your handheld device (or any other conventional PC, for that matter). The obvious downside to this approach in that you can only access those files that you had the forethought to previously upload, so Glide Mobile won't be of much help when you need to access to a file you left back on your PC. On the other hand, Glide's centralized approach does make up for that limitation with some advantages of its own.

The Glide Mobile client software is actually a collection of several applications, each of which is designed to display a different type of file type such as documents, photos, music, video, and so forth. Glide Mobile recognizes a wide variety of file types (over 200 file types are supported according to Transmedia), which gives it the ability to preview most files without having to download them first. For instance, you can view a thumbnail of a Microsoft Word document, PDF, or photograph, or stream video and audio files (except for DRM protected files) directly from the Glide server, saving not only download time but storage space on your mobile device.


Glide Mobile

One caveat to be aware of is that the performance of streaming previews will vary based on the speed of your cellular data connection. Due to our geographic location in Southwest Florida, we were unable to use Verizon's BroadbandAccess service, which is supported by the Treo 700w and promises download speeds averaging 400-700 kbps. Instead, we were forced to make due with the company's 60-80 kbps NationalAccess service, which resulted in poor streaming performance as attempts to stream material suffered from long and frequent pauses.

Uploading Files
There are two ways you can upload personal files to the Glide network. One is to log into Glide's Web site to transfer individual files from your PC. You can also upload a group of files this way, but you must specify each one individually before beginning the transfer. An optional (but free) desktop utility called Glide Link lets you upload large groups of files or entire folders, as well as the contact list from either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. The transfer time varies depending on how much data you're uploading, but we found that our files were accessible within a few minutes.

For those times you have access to a regular PC, Glide's attractive and well-designed Flash-based browser interface makes it easy to access your online files. It uses context menus that change depending on the type of file highlighted, and any supported file type can be viewed without having to open the host application. The limitation is that you can't modify files unless you download them first, except for photos which can be manipulated with a built-in rudimentary image editing tool.

In addition to the files you upload, the Glide network also offers content and services provided by various partners. For example, you can choose to purchase music, prints of photos, or even products. Depending on your point of view, a lot of sponsored content can be either a blessing or a curse, but Glide manages to make it pervasive without necessarily being obtrusive. When you upload a file it gets interspersed with other online content since it's automatically placed in the relevant category folder (photos, music, video, etc.). Despite this, all your files are always accessible in a special "personal" folder as well, making it easy enough to bypass the other stuff if so desired. You can also caption or tag your files to make them easier to find.

Content Sharing
Another benefit to having online file storage via Glide is that it lets you share files via mobile e-mail rather easily given that you can send them as embedded links instead of file attachments. This makes for an extremely small e-mails (typically only 5 or 6 KB), and lets the recipient access the files you "send" directly from their browser.


Glide Desktop

Glide Mobile also offers some rights-management features that give you a fair degree of control over what your recipients can do with shared content. You can set an expiration date for any message you send, or even a future start data prior to which the message content won't be accessible. You can also specify a limit to the number of times content can be downloaded or viewed, and even require that a password be entered to access the link. (Unfortunately though, you don't get to specify what that password will be and it's automatically included in the e-mail in plain text which limits its practical security value.)

Device Support & Pricing
The Glide Mobile client software runs on Windows Mobile 5.0 PDAs and smartphones (we tested the service using a Palm Treo 700w), versions of the Motorola RAZR, and Symbian-based Sony Ericsson W600i. Support for other device platforms is under development, including Nokia Series 60 platform devices.

Glide Effortless offers a number of different subscription plans with either monthly or annual payment terms. The standard individual plan provides 1 GB of storage for either $4.95 a month or $49.95 per year, while a premium level (which adds a video and audio conferencing feature) bumps the storage to 4 GB for $9.95 per month or $99.95 annually. For an additional charge you can add storage capacity in 5 GB increments up to a total of maximum 40 GB. Family plans are also available, offering 3 GB of storage for up to four users at $9.95/month or $99.95/year, or 6 GB for six users at a cost of or $14.95/month or $149.95/year. There's also a free single-user version with a rather generous 300 MB of storage provided, and none of the Glide plans levy charges for bandwidth used.

Bottom Line
If Glide Mobile has a major weakness, it's the fact that it requires you to manually upload files—there's no way to automatically copy new files in a desktop folder up to the Glide server, nor can you automatically synchronize versions of a file between the two locations. In spite of this limitation, Glide Mobile is still an innovative and cost-effective service that provides a useful way to access to access and share a variety of material from a handheld device.