100% of our wonderful amdal readers are affected by Google everyday. Although this may sound like one of those non-profit charity commercials on TV, its totally true. I probably enter the Google Universe more than others, but I bet all of you have used Google for searching, looking up an address, finding an image, or even creating a spreadsheet. The latest from the big G is huge - Google Documents now supports uploading ANY file. This means you can backup your entire documents folder on your computer into the cloud - and access them anywhere. Let me show you what I'm talking about…In the past, Google Documents was really only good for creating word/excel-ish documents for sharing purposes. Even when it launched, I still found myself using Word and Excel for everything, and emailing them individually for sharing. The beauty of Google Docs is you can have ONE version of a document, and have it shared among a group of people. Very useful, but still not enough to get me hooked.
Now that Google's opened up their upload feature to all file types, you can literally replicate your files. There is a cap - 250mb - so you can't upload full movies or gigantically large powerpoint presentations, but 250mb should cover almost all of your documents. Since I purchased the 200GB of Google storage (with the free Eye-Fi memory card… remember), I have a ton of space to backup my documents/music/pictures. Your gmail account should already have around 7GB of Google storage to get you started, but if you want to do what I did, you can go here to buy more space.
Why is this a big deal? Well, recently my external hard drive failed. Not sure what happened exactly, but it was terrible. I was transferring my pictures/documents/music/movies from one computer to another, but didn't stop to think that once I transferred and deleted the original files, the only place they existed was on my external drive. When that crashed, I thought I lost everything (luckily for me, I'm a nerd and figured out how to get it back) - but the main takeaway was that I need to get my documents backed up in the cloud. Google's storage is secure and safe - everything is replicated so you don't have to worry about losing anything due to hardware breaking. Now that Google Docs has the ability to upload all my files, I'm going all-in, and I really suggest you do the same.
Note: I've mentioned Dropbox before, and I still think Dropbox is a great companion to having your files within Google storage. Since Dropbox syncs a folder on your computer (allowing you to access your files when offline), I would still use Dropbox for the files you access most often. Dropbox's free 2GB of storage should be enough to cover you. For everything else - get it off your risky hard drive and into the cloud!
6 comments:
I don't want Chinese State Security looking at my crappy law school briefs though
Another perk of Google Docs that has recently brighten my days is that you can make folders & share the whole folder/contents with other people- very helpful for those of us running grass roots non-profits on the side. In the week or so we've been using the folders, the feature has made getting documents to people in our Google domain much, much better!
Dear Future:
As the Tech God of AMDAL, we are currently using CentralDesktop and kinda hate it. Can you recommend another site/ online collaboration platform? Thanks in advance!
AOG - What do you use CentralDesktop for primarily? If its sharing files and collaborating on documents, Google Docs and Google Wave should suffice. If you don't have a Wave account yet, let me know and I'll send an invite.
What happens when the cloud crashes? I guarantee, you aren't going to be able to get the failed HDD drive from Google in order to recover your files...
Future: Mostly document sharing, calendars, etc. The real reason we're using CD is that I don't think anyone wants to take the time to research another platform and/or transfer everything over.
I am part of wave (I would feel cool, but I have no idea how to use it. MLR can attest to the one day that I waved him and it was a mess, haha), so I guess I can invite everyone from the charity into it?
I'm gonna bring this up at the next board meeting and then email you to pick your brain on the Google docs stuff & joining the google movement to get off of CD.
As always, thanks!!! Your insight and brilliance regarding tech stuff never ceases to amaze
Thanks AOG! If its mostly document and calendar sharing, I really think Google's offering should solve the problem. Then again, Google's Excel is very limited in comparison to Microsoft's, but you can still share a Microsoft Excel file among a group of people easily. Calendar sharing couldn't be easier on gCal - I highly recommend it.
Nick - We talked about this offline, but to everyone else: Google's servers are replicated across multiple hard drives. When one crashes (and they certainly do, even at Google), the data is backed up constantly. The risk of losing your data in the cloud, especially when its backed by a company like Google, is extremely low. Look at the way things are moving - soon we'll always be connected and the need for physical storage on the consumer level will be the way of the Dodo - Chrome OS is just the beginning.
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