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Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

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Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#51

Post by kamjam »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #16
notatoad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attachment size limits aren't there just to fuck with you. Sending large files around between web clients is okay, but if you send a large file to an outlook user they're going to have to sit there waiting for it to download before the rest of their email comes in. And then it's going to make their PST file exceed the maximum PST file size, which in a poorly managed system (i.e. most personal computers) is going to c…

Thanks for explaining this, it sounds obvious now but I never understood why attachment size was limited.

I think attachment sizes were also limited because back in the day, you know when Internet connectivity was a series of beeps and clicks, people used to surf the internet on these shitty little things called modems that ran at 33.6 and 56 kbps. Forget the 10 meg limits imposed in those days, it would probably have taken an hour to download that single message!

A lot of the hang up may have remained from that.

I remember the days when it would take 20 minutes to download an mp3 only for it to drop out in the final minute. Grrr!

Add to that what lloeki said, it's probably one of the most important reason. I becomes very easy to take down several servers at the same time!

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#52

Post by jQueryIsAwesome »

munin wrote: post #14
notatoad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attachment size limits aren't there just to fuck with you. Sending large files around between web clients is okay, but if you send a large file to an outlook user they're going to have to sit there waiting for it to download before the rest of their email comes in. And then it's going to make their PST file exceed the maximum PST file size, which in a poorly managed system (i.e. most personal computers) is going to c…

Oh sure. However, it also puts a lot of load / strain on servers that Google doesn't want to run (SMTP, IMAP, etc). The way the post is written makes it sound like Google has figured out how to tame some natural force to allow us to have big e-mail attachments, while all along the limit was set by Google itself. I really don't think that Google cares about Outlook users (why should they). Somewhat unrelated, I think…

> I really don't think that Google cares about Outlook users (why should they).

Because they want their users to be able to communicate with Outlook users?

You are talking nonsense, they obviously need to play nice with other email hostings/clients; and with this new way of sending files it let their users know that they are two different ways of sending data; that is not really an email attachment but a link to your file in the cloud; a distinction that many times matter.

And they can't give the amount space they give in Drive to every gmail account; why would they do that? Better to be a different service that only the people interested in that kind of big cloud storage will take.

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#53

Post by kamjam »

whyleyc wrote: post #49
revelation wrote: post #48

So can we use that to send binaries to people? Because gmail will absolutely not allow you do that. They will go as far as inspecting archives to look for binaries and ban you from sending them.

You can get around this by renaming the file to have some arbitrary image extension. Not ideal, but works.

Or zip it up with something like 7zip, encrypt it with a password and tell it to encrypt the filenames as well so Google can't peek inside :)

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#54

Post by eagsalazar2 »

Sidnicious wrote: post #36
yason wrote: post #11

This is how email could work too. The sender would host it (by himself or in cloud) and the recipients go fetch it when they want to read it. Updates and comment threads all collect into the same place. No spam either since nobody would be pushing tens of megabytes of messages to your inbox.

It’s cool in a lot of ways, but there are two big disadvantages over traditional attachments: - The recipient doesn’t get a static copy of the file to keep alongside the email. - The sender’s responsible for keeping the file available until the recipient has seen/saved it.

those are both advantages in plenty of situations. Just depends on what you want in a given situation.

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#55

Post by mtgx »

guelo wrote: post #15

Totally off topic but blogspot is just awful. Why does everything have to be a complicated buggy JavaScript app? There's nothing wrong with serving up good ol HTML pages, especially for simple text and images content like a blog.

They would be better off using Google+ for these announcements anyway. It looks cleaner, they can get a lot of feedback in comments, and they get to further promote Google+, too, as it gets more people used to it.

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#56

Post by kamjam »

WayneDB wrote: post #21

I never liked the idea of hosting my own files on someone else's server (Dropbox) or sending them through a middle-man. That's why i just run my own "cloud" on my own premises. If I want to give someone access to a file, I just throw it on my Synology DiskStation and the receiver can get at it via FTP or HTTP client.

Sounds like an awful lot of work finding a problem which there are easier solution. What exactly do you not like about using Dropbox? A trust issue?

There are certain things I do host within my own ftp server, but I just use my web host which I have 10GB of disk space but am only using maybe 10 meg for my personal site. I wouldn't go to the extent of my own server unless it was a real business requirement, I'd be fine just putting on Dropbox/Google and if it was sensitive info then I would encrypt the files first - either 7zip or Truecrypt.

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#58

Post by [deleted] »

kamjam wrote: post #53
whyleyc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get around this by renaming the file to have some arbitrary image extension. Not ideal, but works.

Or zip it up with something like 7zip, encrypt it with a password and tell it to encrypt the filenames as well so Google can't peek inside :)

[deleted]

Re: Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

#60

Post by czr80 »

majorlazer wrote: post #20
guelo wrote: post #15

Totally off topic but blogspot is just awful. Why does everything have to be a complicated buggy JavaScript app? There's nothing wrong with serving up good ol HTML pages, especially for simple text and images content like a blog.

I actually really like it. What don't you like about it?

For a start... how about the stupid menu that pops up when I try to use the scroll bar? A stupid menu that actually has an entry titled "Logo", with a "I love blogger" graphic? What the heck is that supposed to mean?
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