Exciting news: Wuala merges with LaCie

Luzius and I are thrilled to announce that we're joining forces with LaCie, one of the leading manufacturers of external storage devices.

Why LaCie? We believe it's the perfect match! Wuala stands for innovative online storage, while LaCie has become a synonym for premium quality and well-designed external storage hardware in the past 20 years. By combining our core competences, we’re able to create new, exciting products which offer the convenience of fast local access and backup as well as the versatility of online storage. Together we will realize the vision we embarked on more than four years ago while researching the basics of Wuala at the ETH Zurich: to build a reliable and secure cloud storage by integrating millions of devices around the world.

What will happen now? Wuala will continue as it is. All of us will stay with the company and we'll remain in downtown Zurich. The merger with LaCie not only gives us new operational resources, but also plentiful new ideas which we could never have realized as a pure software company. We’ll keep you in the loop for sure!

Got some burning questions? Read our special Wuala-LaCie-FAQ and don't hesitate to post your questions in our forum or just email us directly. We're eager to know what you think.

We're excited about the future of Wuala and we'd be glad to have you on board on this inspiring future journey. Be part of something groundbreaking and help us supply the world with the most fascinating storage solution ever! Thanks for your support.

Dominik, Luzius, and the Wuala team

Wuala’s unique encryption and privacy

Wuala offers a level of encryption that lets it stand out in comparison to others. When files are stored in Wuala, they are encrypted before they leave the computer. This mechanism makes it safe to store files in a distributed system and no-one, not even we as inventors and operators of the system, can read the data. As a consequence, it is not possible to recover your password in Wuala, it is the only key to your data.

Online backup solutions usually chose the same approach to guarantee privacy. What sets us apart from others is that we offer this high level of privacy while we still let you share files with others. This unique proposition is possible thanks to our Cryptree key management system (research paper).

Services like Box.net, Dropbox, Gmail, Flickr, Facebook, etc. all have full access to the data you store with them. Thus, they are not suitable for sensitive data. Even when you use them for less sensitive data, information asymmetry is increased. Being able to access their customer’s data puts companies under temptation and pressure to use it for other purposes than originally intended, and also increases the risk of it being accidentally exposed due to a bug or bad design (example).

Our encryption mechanism is one feature that lets Wuala stand out and also allows it to safely run in a distributed manner.

Effective Usage: Running Wuala on a Debian-based server

There is a simple and quick possibility to turn unused storage of your linux-based home- or nas-server into Wuala online storage. The only thing you have to do is to run Wuala from the command line and configure it to trade your unused gigabytes.

First of all you need a Debian-based linux server like Ubuntu server, which is connected to the internet. You must have rights to access this server (via ssh or directly), to add users and to configure portforwarding on your router if it isn't fully UPnP-enabled.

WUALA INSTALLATION:

1. To run Wuala you have to install the following packages: wget, screen and of course sun-java6-jre:
   user@server:~$ sudo apt-get install wget screen sun-java6-jre


2. Add a new user 'wuala' and set up a password for it:
   user@server:~$ sudo adduser wuala
   


3. Terminate your current session and log in with the new user 'wuala'.
   


4. Download the latest version of Wuala directly from wuala.com:
   wuala@server:~$ wget http://www.wuala.com/files/wuala.tar.gz


5. Unzip the tar.gz archive to your home directory:
   wuala@server:~$ tar xfz wuala.tar.gz


6. Change to the unzipped directory 'wuala':
   wuala@server:~$ cd wuala


7. Start Wuala in a new screen session. It's important that you use the wualacmd script for command line usage!
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ screen /home/wuala/wuala/wualacmd


8. After Wuala update is finished, detach the screen session with [Ctrl]+[A]+[D]. Wuala is now running as a background process.


9. Now you are able to send commands to this background instance of Wuala and start configuring!

WUALA CONFIGURATION:

1. To use Wuala via command line, make sure that you've changed to the directory '/home/wuala/wuala'. To execute a command use the following syntax:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala [command]


2. The command 'help' will list all available commands:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala help
   
   These commands are currently supported:
   --help, -help, benchmark, connectionCheck, connectionInfo, download, exit, feedback, help, list, login, logout, ping, printStackTraces, restart, setBindAddress, setDataPath, setInrate, setOutrate, setPort, setRestartOnUpdate, setSuperNodeAllowed, setTempPath, setTradingLimit, showPaths, showQuota, showSettings, showStatus, shutdown, startTrading, stopTrading, trade, tradeStats, undoSetDataPath, upload, version


3. To prepare your server for trading, check the connection to the wuala network:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala connectionCheck
   
   If you don't have a UPnP-enabled router you have to configure portforwarding manually. The 'connectionCheck' command should give you the correct port.


4. If the connection is properly working, log in to your Wuala account:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala login [username] [password]


5. To start trading, simply use the 'startTrading' command:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala startTrading


6. If you don't want to trade up to 100 GB (default value) of your server storage you can change this setting to XY GB:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala setTradingLimit XY


7. Furthermore you should enable restart after update:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala setRestartOnUpdate true


8. To check online time and earned gigabytes, use the 'tradeStats' command:
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala tradeStats


9. Finally you can check your current status using 'showStatus' or for detailed information 'connectionInfo':
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala showStatus
   wuala@server:~/wuala$ ./wuala connectionInfo


10. You can now terminate your session, Wuala is still running as a detached screen process in background. The next time you log in to your server, simply execute commands as described in step 1 of the Wuala configuration tutorial.

That's it! Your server is now earning online storage for you!

Further information:

• If you restart your server you have to start Wuala again as described in step 7 of the Wuala installation tutorial or you should add this procedure to your boot script. Attention! Wuala will change the port used for trading! You also have to change it in your router configuration!


• If you want to use Wuala with your virtual private server, make sure that you have enough memory to run java! Many virtual private servers don't support such memory intensive applications like the java runtime!

I hope you enjoyed this step by step guide! Please use the comments for feedback.

About the author
I'm a German student and freelancer, who's currently studying electrical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. As i'm crazy about Ubuntu and of course Wuala :-P, i wrote this step by step guide to show you the wonderful and really useful features of Wuala's command line. :) You can find me either at wuala.com/defcon or at patrickleibold.de.

Daily Life: Dress rehearsal

We're thinking of shooting this really cool team picture, but we haven't decided on the location yet. Therefore, we were off to finding the perfect location....

(Note: we're not complete on every picture)








What's your vote? On the balcony, in the hallway, in our office, or on the stairs? 

Effective Usage: Creating Online Image Galleries in 3 Steps

Many people have asked us how to create an online image gallery in Wuala. With this post, we'd like to respond to your questions and give you an overview of one of the most commonly used features of Wuala.

Creating an image gallery involves only 3 steps:

1. Adding images to Wuala


2. Deciding if you want to resize them


3. Enabling a public or secret web link to your folder

Adding images to Wuala
In order to create an image gallery, you need to create a folder (right click anywhere in the "My Files" section and choose "New Folder..."), and then add images to it. Adding images is easy: Either click on "Add local files" or simply drag your files from outside Wuala into the folder.
Decide if you want to resize your images
Whenever you add images to Wuala, you'll automatically be asked if you want to resize them. This can be useful when sending images from a slow connection when you're on holiday or from a mobile connection. For most people, a 1024x768 copy will be enough, because they can still be printed as 9x13cm photos without quality issues. We recommend resizing to 800x600 if you only want to show your pictures on the web and leaving at least 1024x768 if they should also serve as a backup copy. You can decide to resize all pictures (batch resize) at once or no picture at all by ticking the "remember the decision and never ask again" option and clicking the corresponding button. Of course the decision will only be remembered for the pictures you're inserting in this very moment and you'll be asked again upon the next insertion.

Enabling a public or secret web link to your gallery
You can share the gallery folder through a secret link. To achieve this, you have to right click on the folder, then choose "Share..." and finally click "Set..." next to "Weblink:". Then you either use the predefined key phrase or manually enter a new one. You have to click "ok", then "save" which will make the folder turn red and everything is ready to go.

In order to make the folder public, you can simply choose "public" instead of "shared" and you're set. No password needs to be entered for public folders but they will be accessible for all Wuala users and search engines, while shared folders will only be visible to those whom you provide with the link.

An example of a gallery
This is how browsing your gallery will look like (check it here):

Tipps & Tricks
Some additional tips:

1. You can always reset your folders to private, which will remove all third party access inside Wuala and from the web


2. You can always add, modify, replace or remove files from Wuala folders. All changes will immediately be reflected in your online gallery


3. If you add descriptions (captions) to your images in Wuala, they will also be shown in your web gallery


4. The number of views in your online gallery will also be included in the number of views you see for every file in Wuala, giving you a good overview of your gallery's popularity

Was this post useful? Let us know in your comments.

Daily Life: Gaining Attention at a Job Fair

Last Saturday we were at the ETH Kontaktparty, which is a job fair for computer science students and graduates. Our biggest challenge was: How can we stand out with Google, Doodle, UBS and McKinsey around us?

Our goal
Create a give-away no other company would have. A give-away that is cheap. A give-away that everyone would see and that would give an additional value.

Our ideas 

Our first idea was: A promo code! We wanted to distribute a special promo code, but where should we place it? Flyers would be thrown away and glossy brochures are expensive. 

Our solution
Why not place a promo code on our homemade cookies? Everyone likes something sweet and everyone likes additional online storage! :-)

The preparations
Chocolate, sugar, stickers and small bags - we were set to go!




The Kontaktparty
Our cookies were finished and our booth was set. It was the perfect day to recruit some new team members! 

Our cookies were clearly liked: The Doodle-Guys (see above) occasionally came to fetch some additional cookies, while other recruiters wanted to trade their give-away for a Wuala-Cookie-Pack. Furthermore, we were able to promote Wuala a bit and got to know some bright graduates! 

Feel like tasting the Wuala experience? Here's the recipe.