{"id":504,"date":"2008-03-03T21:23:23","date_gmt":"2008-03-04T05:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wapreview.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2008-03-03T21:23:23","modified_gmt":"2008-03-04T05:23:23","slug":"avvenu-browse-your-pc-from-a-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/504\/","title":{"rendered":"Avvenu – Browse Your PC From a Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Avennu\" Avvenu<\/strong><\/em>, which was recently acquired by Nokia, is similar to SoonR <\/strong><\/em>(review<\/a>) in that both provide remote web access to files on a desktop PC from a phone or another PC.\u00a0 I’m a satisfied SoonR user, is Avvenu good enough to switch?<\/p>\n

To use Avvenu, you start off by installing the Avvenu client program, which runs all the time in the background, on the PC (Windows XP and Vista only). Then, when you log into Avvenu’s mobile (https:\/\/mobile.avvenu.com<\/a>) or PC site (https:\/\/www.avvenu.com<\/a>) with a phone or another PC you’re able to browse the remote PC’s entire file system and download files. You can also share files with another user – Avvenu emails them a link granting time-limited, read-only access to specific files. Avvenu doesn’t allow sharing audio or video files, however. If Google Desktop search is installed on the PC, Avvenu integrates with it letting you search the PC for files. You can upload files to the PC from another PC or a mobile device that supports file uploads from the browser – like Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones. Or you can upload to a single pre-configured folder using MMS with almost any phone.<\/p>\n

Another Avvenu feature is the Avvenu Music Player<\/em> which streams music from the iTunes<\/em> library of a PC running Avvenu to any Windows or Macintosh computer or to a Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone or a Palm OS device which has Kinoma Player installed. I don’t use iTunes so I couldn’t try this feature although it looks quite nice with a slick GUI and playlist support.<\/p>\n

The basic Avvenu service is free. It requires that the remote computer be turned on and a user logged in to access it’s files. There’s also a premium service, called Anytime Files<\/em>, that stores copies of selected files on the Avvenu server permitting remote access even when the PC is turned off. Anytime Files is $9.99\/month, $79.99\/year for 10GB of storage or $19.99\/month, $149.99\/year for 30 GB.<\/p>\n

I’d be a lot more excited about Avvenu if SoonR didn’t already exist. SoonR does everything that Avvenu does except for streaming iTunes music. SoonR also does a lot that Avvenu doesn’t; like giving full remote access to Outlook e-mail, contacts and calendar; allowing you share any file, including video and audio, which Avvenu blocks and offering 100 MB of free AnyTime Access<\/em>, the SoonR equivalent of Avvenu’s Anytime Files<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Everything I tried in Avvenu worked as advertised and without error but there were several areas were I felt usability could be improved:<\/p>\n