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Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

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Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#461

Post by andrewaylett »

rwallace wrote: post #454
jedc wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get hacked and/or locked out of accounts surprisingly often. A good (and tech-savvy friend) was recently hacked, and managed to get thousands of dollars transferred before found it. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you have a Gmail account please follow Jeff Atwood's directions below. Turn on two-factor authentication, make sure you've verified a phone number and recovery email address account. http://www.codinghorr…

Suppose you turn on two factor authentication, and then something happens to the phone number you used for it. Does that mean you've effectively lost your Gmail account? (Not a rhetorical question. I don't know how or whether you can lose a cell phone number - as opposed to just the physical phone, which presumably shouldn't be a problem - but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't happen.)

In regular use, you enter a code from an app, rather than using any network features of the phone. You can also set up (either as default or as backup) a phone number to text with a code -- as backup, they recommend sending to someone else's phone.

Lastly, they will give you a list of ten one-time-use codes which you can write down or print out and put in your wallet/safe.

If all the above fail, I believe there's an account recovery procedure, which takes a couple of days and involves sending proof of ID.

So you're not relying on a single device, and certainly not on a single phone number, to be able to retain your account.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#462

Post by ajanuary »

rwallace wrote: post #454
jedc wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get hacked and/or locked out of accounts surprisingly often. A good (and tech-savvy friend) was recently hacked, and managed to get thousands of dollars transferred before found it. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you have a Gmail account please follow Jeff Atwood's directions below. Turn on two-factor authentication, make sure you've verified a phone number and recovery email address account. http://www.codinghorr…

Suppose you turn on two factor authentication, and then something happens to the phone number you used for it. Does that mean you've effectively lost your Gmail account? (Not a rhetorical question. I don't know how or whether you can lose a cell phone number - as opposed to just the physical phone, which presumably shouldn't be a problem - but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't happen.)

You can set up an alternative number, and can also print out a bunch of one-time use codes. One of these methods should be enough to log in and change the settings.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#463

Post by douglee650 »

amirmc wrote: post #88
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…

"You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+" And this reminded me how much stuff I already have sitting in Google. A minor glitch last week meant I couldn't access my webmail (though I primarily use IMAP), which made me start thinking about this. I'm really pleased to see Drive come out but at the moment I feel reluctant to put too much stuff into it because I become even more dependent on the big G (and I'…

well, have you thought about how much "self serve IT" works for average consumers before cloud based services? for ex. can you aunt download and configure a mail client, or does she just have an @yahoo

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#464

Post by nikcub »

karpathy wrote: post #371

Few of my observations from this announcement: In Google's vision of the future, your computer is a thin client. There is no My Documents folder, as everything personal lives on gdrive. The Chrome app store becomes the new operating system. Apps will have access to your files, they will be able to search them, open them, and operate on them. You will never see the "Open file" dialog box again. In this world, the conc…

This has been the theme for years. It is the argument that killed the original Google Drive and why Google are so late to the party.

What they didn't realize is that you need a drive product in order to migrate users from the old desktop files paradigm to the new web services.

I see Google Drive, SkyDrive and Dropbox as nothing more than a temporary bridge between the old world and the new world. I am already using webapps and web files for ~90% of my work, there is just a few little things that I still do in the desktop world, such as image editing.

The opportunity here for entrepreneurs is to look at old file and app usage and work out where the gaps are in good online services. I wouldn't worry too much about providing the actual storage, since that is now a race to the bottom, and providing the operating system or app aggregator is also now a free business, the good business will all be in the web based apps.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#465

Post by mcherm »

amirmc wrote: post #88
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…

"You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+" And this reminded me how much stuff I already have sitting in Google. A minor glitch last week meant I couldn't access my webmail (though I primarily use IMAP), which made me start thinking about this. I'm really pleased to see Drive come out but at the moment I feel reluctant to put too much stuff into it because I become even more dependent on the big G (and I'…

There's a business opportunity out there for someone to build a "Google Backup" tool. It would synch your G-drive to Dropbox, your Gmail to yahoo mail, and so on. Marketed as "in case they turn evil" and intended people like you (and me!) who have this concern.

The company would become useless if Google ever fixed their customer service problems ("they closed my account and wouldn't say why!"), but Google has demonstrated they WON'T fix that.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#466

Post by Flenser »

ahi wrote: post #160
bvdbijl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, I just bought 1 year for $5 AFTER GDrive was released and I have now 25GB of storage, but now if I click on the link it brings me here: https://www.google.com/settings/storage/ and says my current plan isn't available any more. Sweet!

Maybe you should call customer service.

no need. If you have an old/unavailable plan you've been grandfathered in and can stay on it, renewing at the same price indefinitely as long as you don't change your plan or a payment fails.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#467

Post by akrymski »

Aren't there two completely separate use cases?

1. Syncing files across different computers: think git for docs.

2. Backing up files: no versioning necessary

Price points for these should be different imo. I'd live with a backup that offers little redundancy cause there is a small chance that my backup and my laptop die at the same time. S3 & Dropbox are expensive in large part due to that redundancy.

I only use Dropbox for syncing a small set of docs and live with the free account just fine. I should probably use online backup at some point but I just don't feel like the S3 solution is appropriate for this. I dont need my photos or music stored in 3 different data centers across the globe, and I don't want it to sync to all my computers either.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#468

Post by AhtiK »

namityadav wrote: post #145
huhtenberg wrote: post #21

Well, this pretty much exhausts the pool of people who don't care for the data privacy. On the plus side, those who do want privacy are still waiting for a proper solution, and it is an opportunity. (edit) It is really shocking how absolutely mind-bogglingly ignorant people are when it comes to their data privacy matters. How could any business person in a sane state of mind choose to share its data with some 3rd par…

I have been looking (for years) for a "good" online storage/sync solution that allows me to store my documents using my own private key. TrueCrypt etc don't reach the "set it, and forget it" level. But when you think about how much more expensive storing those documents will be for these companies (as each copy of the same document will be encrypted with a separate private key), and how much value these companies wil…

Pretty much ANY online service that provides sync has decided not to use private keys. The same goes also with tasklist apps. They are either only web-based (and obviously readable at the server) or use the sync without encryption to provide web access. http://timegt.com is using private key for encrypting sync data but it came with the cost of not having any web access to your tasks!

The same with dropbox etc, private key encryption renders any server-side magic like web access very complex.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#469

Post by icebraining »

fierarul wrote: post #460
gnaffle wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of thousands of apps on App Store and Android Market says you're wrong. It's true that many of them require an online account, but many don't. Excluding that, there's still lots of free software.

I mostly meant offline desktop software. The only market that seems to be lively is the Mac AppStore.

Debian gets new desktop software every week. Mostly libraries (dozens of them), but some apps too.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#470

Post by culturestate »

mcherm wrote: post #465
amirmc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+" And this reminded me how much stuff I already have sitting in Google. A minor glitch last week meant I couldn't access my webmail (though I primarily use IMAP), which made me start thinking about this. I'm really pleased to see Drive come out but at the moment I feel reluctant to put too much stuff into it because I become even more dependent on the big G (and I'…

There's a business opportunity out there for someone to build a "Google Backup" tool. It would synch your G-drive to Dropbox, your Gmail to yahoo mail, and so on. Marketed as "in case they turn evil" and intended people like you (and me!) who have this concern. The company would become useless if Google ever fixed their customer service problems ("they closed my account and wouldn't say why!"), but Google has demonst…

It's not strictly an apples/apples comparison, but there are several apps like Spanning Backup(1) on the GApps Marketplace that offer whole-account backup.

1. https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?pr...

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