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Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

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Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#341

Post by ataranto »

munchor wrote: post #319
antihero wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they use Linux a lot internally, too? It's really awful that companies such as Box, Google etc are not supporting the Linux desktop, especially seeing as desktop linux is actually a really attractive option right now - better memory management than OSX and installable on pretty much any device, and Windows is pretty much a joke for non-.NET development or unless you game. Fuck, their Android platform is based o…

I completely agree, huge company, huge resources, lotsa money. With all that, making a Linux client would be super easy, any highschool kid can go ahead and just build it, but with their resources, they can make a just-as-good Linux client very easily. Damn, this pisses me off, seems like a great product I just can't use. Ubuntu One and Dropbox seem like the best alternatives now. Also, Google Earth on Linux is indee…

"any highschool kid can go ahead and just build it"

What high school did you go to where everyone was an expert on multithreading, network io, disk io, bidirectional synchronization, and state persistence?

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#342

Post by richardw »

Been waiting for this one for a while. But...doesn't feel right to me.

It synced down my Google Docs files. Except it didn't. They're not, say, Excel files, which I assume the average user will expect. AFAICT they're shortcuts into Google Docs, which I didn't really need since I know where those are already, to a close-enough approximation. So now on my local drive I have two classes of spreadsheet. Real spreadsheets and links to my online spreadsheets, which kinda mirrors normal hyperlinks to online spreadsheets, so we have two classes of those now as well. I can't really predict what will happen if I download the file as Excel and put it into my Google Drive directory. I guess I'll have two files, but will my newly created Excel file be a new doc online? What will happen if I delete the local links?

Created a text file in my local drive. Waited. Nothing appeared in Docs. Right-click the file to "sync", no menu item. Right-click the directory, no menu item. Click different Docs directories. Nothing. At some point, it appeared. That's a temporary issue and can be fixed, but those details count.

Dropbox/Sugarsync feels a bit more predictable. I'll sync, that's it. I have a button I can push to make it do something predictable. Seems less magical.

File sync is a square hole. Google Docs is a round peg. Feels like the reasoning behind this is boardroom-strategy-level, not user-level.

Right now Dropbox/Sugarsync will keep my business. Earlier today I put one minute towards grandfathering a Skydrive account to 25GB free, just in case that proves useful. Hope I'm wrong and Google Drive feels more useful tomorrow.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#343

Post by Karunamon »

numlocked wrote: post #66

To anyone else who uses a custom Google apps domain, it looks like Drive may not be available for a few more weeks: http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2... Edit: Not so. You can enable the "rapid release" track for your domain by following the instructions here: http://whatsnew.googleapps.com/choose-release-track It may take "up to a day" for the setting to take effect, but once it does your domai…

Already on Rapid Release on my domain, already got it (about an hour behind everyone else, until then I got the "Your google drive is not yet ready" message.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#344

Post by Dylan16807 »

kozubik wrote: post #329
TomatoTomato wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"[Some users] store multiple terabytes." They are certainly not a replacement for S3, but could be a substitute for some use cases. Also, they can certainly change their stance at any point, but they are certainly committed to truly unlimited. http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/02/03/backblaze-is-committed-... http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/10/26/backblaze-2-0-unlimitin...

Unlimited storage is a farce, and places you in an antagonistic relationship with your provider: http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/11/flat-rate-stora... ... which is the last thing you want with serious backups.

From what I've seen it's not a big problem here because it's unlimited storage for one desktop. The high-end users are only able to go so high.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#346

Post by doctoboggan »

Achshar wrote: post #299
tlogan wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is Google Docs... Meaning I still have to use some other tool to have offline access (and backup) of my documents? Isn't whole point of Dropbox to have offline access and (multiple) offline backups of your files?

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.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#350

Post by [deleted] »

driverdan wrote: post #165

Absolutely no mention of how files are protected. Is encryption used? Is it technically possible for a Google employee with proper access to view your files (with private key encryption it'd be impossible)? Should we assume this is this on par with Gmail email attachments (viewable by certain employees)?

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