Introducing Google Drive... yes, really • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#411

Post by Achshar » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:01 AM UTC

doctoboggan wrote: post #346

Achshar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those files will be opened with google docs web app. the web app itself can work offline. so your docs work offline.

How do I enable this feature? Whenever I try to access my docs offline the page simply does not load. I am using a google apps account if that makes a difference.

There is an option in settings drop down from top left of the homepage od docs. Also the offline url is https://docs.google.com/offline. But you need to set up offline first from the menu i wrote about above.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#412

Post by mmmmbop » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:02 AM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #396

mmmmbop wrote: post #381

Yeah I think I'll pass. SkyDrive gives me 25GB and their "access any file on your computer (even those outside of your skydrive folder) from skydrive.com" feature is amazing. Plus like someone else already mentioned, having GDrive download hyperlinks is subpar imo. I'd rather get the doc or xls back, edit it on a client, and have it re-upload and convert to gdoc format. SkyDrive: 25gb (or 7 which is still > 5), cheap…

A lot of people would use Google over Microsoft because of the good will and reputation Google currently holds.

Sarcasm? Can't tell on HN sometimes :-)

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#413

Post by replax » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:12 AM UTC

rayhano wrote: post #185

primigenus wrote: post #35

Here's the most important paragraph in the blog post that most people will gloss over (because Google glossed over it): "Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can d…

BUT will the experience be seamless and actually replicate a proper file system, OR the current experience of having files on the web (Box, DropBox, SkyDrive) and not being able to attach/read/edit files. Currently you need native integration with these online services in iOS. When will they actually be web based file systems, universally accessible via API?

I am sorry, but skydrive has basically ms office build in. you can easily create/edit files. although it is obviously not the complete office suite, it is definitely very decent.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#414

Post by robomartin » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

Things I'd like to see before I consider using or recommending GDrive:

- A statement from Google regarding whether or not they will scan the data and files in GDrive to develop further profiling information or other data about the user

- A guarantee from Google that GDrive will not be subject to account lockout in the event of account suspension due to AdWords/AdSense algorithmic (or human) triggers. In fact, I'd want that guarantee for any Google service.

Here's what Dropbox has that Google cannot currently offer: If your work in AdSense/AdWords triggers a Google account suspension you do not loose access to your data with Dropbox.

Being that the algorithmic shutdown can happen at any time, without notice, warning or recourse, it is a far safer bet to keep your data on Dropbox, at any price.

The other guarantee you have is that Dropbox will not mine your data, email and docs to get deeper into your head and your life. Maybe Google offers this too. I don't know. I quit looking at their terms of service a while ago. I'll reserve judgement on that. I'm sure someone will tell me how this works.

In fact, Dropbox, the best come-back to GDrive might very well be to offer email and document services. I know that this might be a huge undertaking, but I am sure that there are lots of people, like myself, who have developed a serious trust issue with Google due to the way they behave on the AdWords/AdSense side of things.

This is an area ripe for an incursion simply because of what google isn't doing well: Customer Service.

As I have stated on numerous posts in the past, I have zero interest in any tool outside of Google Analytics because of the shitty approach they have to customer-no-service everywhere else. Could I use gmail and gdocs? Of course. Would I pay for that service? Certainly. Why don't I? Because I have zero interest in loosing access to my data because of some shitty algorithm, the lack of a staged approach to dealing with account issues and an even crappier non-existing customer service philosophy.

Why I feel this way (from about a week ago): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804260

A thought on what could be a better system: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804260

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#415

Post by inthewoods » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:15 AM UTC

andrewjshults wrote: post #127

aresant wrote: post #68

I recently upgraded to Dropbox @ $199/yr for 100gb to archive our digital photos. Yesterday MSFT skydrive offered 100gb for $50/yr. Today GOOG offers 400GB for $100/yr or 1TB for $256/yr. As a consumer with "offsite backup" in mind, there doesn't seem to be an inherently high switching cost to move services away from DropBox. As a result I think that they're going to need to reassess pricing strategy within the year.…

The biggest cost (once you get into those multi GB levels) is the weeks to months it's going to take to get everything up. That being said, I'd be very tempted to use drive to backup my photos (raw files, so sitting at 400GB or so). The price is cheap enough to put everything in there and forget about it, but not too cheap where I have to worry about the storage quality.

If it's just photos, you might want to check out Adobe Revel - they're offering storage of an unlimited number of photos for $5.99/month. Might be more cost efficient. I haven't checked it out yet but plan to.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#416

Post by philp » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:22 AM UTC

nessus42 wrote: post #335

philp wrote: post #132

Has anybody tried syncing extisting folders via symlinks? Using Dropbox this is how I prefer to keep track of folders outside of the actually Dropbox folder. Google Drive just seems to ignore them. Not being able to include other folders would pretty much be a deal-breaker for me :( Any ideas?

God, I hope that Google Drive doesn't start following symlinks. That behavior of Dropbox is completely broken and dangerous, and furthermore makes it impossible to use symbolic links for what they're supposed to be used for. When symlinks are synced, they should be copied "opaquely", not "transparently". I.e., the link itself should be synced, not what the link points to. Opaque syncing of symlinks is the standard wa…

Tragic indeed. May the deities hear your outcry!

Do you have any helpful suggestions on how to solve this problem by other means? I found the symlink solution to be quite elegant and never experienced any unexpected behavior.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#417

Post by franze » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:23 AM UTC

adgar wrote: post #332

franze wrote: post #18

hmmm, hmmm .. "Posted by Sundar Pichai" - isn't that the guy who convinced Googles top management in 2008 to kill - the ready for launch - GDrive because files are "deprecated", "ungoogly" and a "thing of the past" (according to steven levys book "in the plex") - wonder what changed since then (DropBox? Evernote? ...)

> wonder what changed since then (DropBox? Evernote? ...) You're on the wrong track. What's changed since then is GDrive - what do you think all those involved were doing in the last 4 years?

>what do you think all those involved were doing in the last 4 years?

well my sarcastic self suggests: 3 1/2 years of those 4 years probably: google wave, google buzz, google search wiki, google site annotations, google knol and - not to forget - google plus

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#418

Post by tomkarlo » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:29 AM UTC

evgen wrote: post #394

tomkarlo wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Evernote's OCR does handwriting, and at least for me, does it pretty well. It's not going to give you a transcription, but it's good enough that the doc will show up if you're searching for it.

That is probably because the Evernote founders were the team that developed the CalliGrapher cursive recognition engine which was used by the Apple Newton back in the day.

Maybe, but it seems to me that for search (especially with stemming / misspelling coverage) you need a much lower OCR accuracy than for converting into text. Like maybe 95% vs 99.5% - you can have an order of magnitude more errors and search would still work fine.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#419

Post by Xyzodiac » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:37 AM UTC

Seriously Google?

For a company that uses their own version of Ubuntu internally, makes a killing off their Linux based mobile OS, and is trying to carve a whole new market with their Gentoo Linux based ChromeOS, it's unquestionably sad that Google Drive did not have Linux support out the door.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#420

Post by amalter » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 1:39 AM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #284

packetslave wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting from google.com/privacy: "We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations." Speaking as a Googler, everything I've seen indicates a strong company-wide emphasis (…

I've updated my post. I didn't mean does everyone have access, I meant is it even technically possible for someone with proper access to view the original file. If files are encrypted properly then no one at the company would be able to access them.

Clearly unencrypted. They dedup, enable OCR searching, transparent online access to office style documents, etc.. These features would not be possible if they encrypted your bytes before being sent over the wire.

You might want to look into Tarsnap. It's more expensive and you don't get the fancy features, but they offer opaque encrypted file handling. Also, there have been a couple niche strong privacy centered providers that have commented in this thread.

I suppose one could create a Truecrypt container and have GDrive sync it in the background. Wonder if Google will ever complain about files they can't process.