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Monday 25 March 2013

Thing 21: Google Drive

I asked in our office whether anyone had used Google Drive and the consensus was that I meant the self-driving car that hit the news headlines a while ago and therefore no, they hadn't tried it.

Google Drive is a service that lets you store your files (photos, videos, presentations, spreadsheets and the like) on the web so you can access them from wherever you are, from whatever device you happen to be using (smartphone, tablet, computer) and share them with whoever you choose. Technical terms that you may wish to add into that sentence include 'cloud storage' and 'file synchronisation'. You get 5GB storage for free then can pay for more if you need to.

Although I haven't used Google Drive before I have used Dropbox which works along similar lines; I use it for transferring photos between my lovely android phone to the iPad or computer. As I mentioned in a previous blog post I hated Dropbox with a passion until I worked out how to use it and now I love it.

Google Drive looks to be equally useful with the added advantage that you can create documents/spreadsheets/presentations/drawings within Google Drive as well as uploading them. I tried this earlier by creating a document and sharing it with a colleague who then added to it (thank you Emma!) so I can see how it could be useful for collaborating on work.

Unsurprisingly if you try to use Google Drive in Internet Explorer it comes up with dire warning messages about unsupported browsers and an unsubtle message that it works best in Google Chrome but it did work for me in IE.

Google Drive is one of the 23 Things that I will probably use in future; this has been a useful Thing to explore.

(Photo added from Dropbox!)

5 comments:

  1. MANY CONGRATULATIONS...you've pretty much finished! Have loved your blog, both informative and funny - always very readable!

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  2. Why thank you! I'm enjoying your blog too - time for tenuous song link to The Final Countdown??

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  3. Are you giving me a cue for "It's the Final Countdown" as my final song? Scandanavian heavy rock, not sure it's my thing really - but very apt title...you'll have to wait and see my dear;)

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  4. I sadly really like Google Drive I didn't know anything about it until I had to write the instructions, but now I have loads of screen shots saved of recipes that I can work on my phone when I'm cooking :) Plus I seem to have lots of picture of my cats on there too. Maybe I'm turning into a mad cat lady... :)

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    1. That screen shot idea for recipes is inspired, why don't I think of things like that? I don't think you qualify for Mad Cat Lady status yet...unless you've started knitting them bonnets or similar??

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