Google Drive Archives - Page 2 of 3 - The Latest on Accounting Tech for SMEs

Google Drive Slashes Cost of Storage To Compete with OneDrive

March 18, 2014 by Aimy Chen

Google Drive slashed the monthly pricing plan for 100GB to US$1.99 from US$4.99, and 1TB to US$9.99 from US49.99, Google announced in a blog post. The cost of 10TB was just US$99.99 for 10TB. The original 15GB plan remained free.

The price cut came soon after Microsoft OneDrive dropped its pricing plan to US$25 annually for 50GB, US$50 for 100GB, and US$100 for 200GB, as part of the renaming of SkyDrive Pro.

Paying Drive users were automatically moved to a higher plan with no additional cost.

A terabyte was enough for anyone to take a selfie twice a day for the next 200 years and still had room left over, said Scott Johnston, director of product management.

Photo credit: Microsoft OneDrive Compare

Gmail Update – Now You Can Save Files Directly to Google Drive

November 18, 2013 by Sholto Macpherson

Gmail users could for the first time save files attached to emails directly to their Google Drive (online storage) without having to download the files to their computer thanks to an update last week.

The long-awaited feature, announced last Tuesday, was one of several improvements for handling attachments in Gmail and Google Apps, which centred on a new file preview mode at the end of an email. The preview showed a thumbnail image of photos, videos, spreadsheets and PDFs. Each thumbnail could be downloaded or saved to Google Drive, or there were buttons to save all files to Google Drive or download them all.

Clicking on a preview brought up a full-screen view of the image or document. The new feature let users read, search for a particular phrase, or browse through multiple attachments right in Gmail.

Once a file had been saved in Google Drive it could be shared with others who could access the file from any device – computer, phone or tablet.

The attachments upgrade was available on desktop and would be rolling out to Gmail users over the next week. Google claims it had 120 million active Google Drive users.

Image credit: Google

Why You Should Move from Dropbox to Google Drive

October 11, 2013 by Peter

Check out an alternative opinion: Why You Should Move from Dropbox to SkyDrive Pro

The day Google released their desktop sync app for Google Drive I knew it was a ‘Dropbox killer’. I still use my Dropbox for some personal files while I wait for my yearly subscription to expire – however I’ll be re-thinking the service when it’s up for renewal.

Here are 5 reasons why I prefer to Google Drive to Dropbox.

1. Best choice for Google Apps/Gmail users

Google Drive obviously makes the most sense if you’re already using Gmail or Google Apps. At first I used Google Drive to store Google documents and Dropbox for all my Microsoft Office documents. But some time ago Google added the ability to store any type of file on Google Drive, not just Google Docs, Google Spreadsheet and Google Slide files.

Now you can keep them all on the one service and access them for the handy Google Drive applications for iOS and Android devices.

2. Better for collaborating on documents

I’m an avid user of Google Docs and I’ve been slowly replacing the need to use Microsoft Office on my main PC. The main reason I prefer working with Google Docs is that multiple people can edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations at the same time, as well as being able to easily collaborate live from any device (such as my iPad).

Using Google Drive as part of the Google Apps/Gmail ecosystem makes multi-user editing much easier and doesn’t require you to wait for documents to sync before making changes. Dropbox doesn’t let two people work on a document at the same time – synchronisation conflicts often occur with documents shared by teams.

3. Price

If you’re cost-conscious you’ll be happy to know that Google Drive is more affordable than Dropbox for individual data storage. Google Drive offers 25GB of storage for just $2.49/month and 100GB for $4.99 per month. Dropbox has a free 2GB plan, but if you’re using more than that the minimum plan is 100GB at $9.95/mth.

4. Permissions

Dropbox and Google Apps use encryption to protect your data, and both also have provisions for two-factor authentication, which adds a second password for each computing device. Where Google Drive stands out is when managing large teams of over 10 staff who are using Google Apps.

Since Google Drive accounts are tied to each user account in Google Apps, there is one less online identity login to manage. Managing Dropbox accounts across large teams adds administrative overhead such as resetting forgotten passwords.

Google Apps includes sophisticated group-level permissions covering Gmail, Calendars, Drive and Docs, allowing you to organise your team into groups. Adding or removing a team member to a Google Apps group will automatically grant them access to any documents and folders shared with that group in Google Drive. This can save time when onboarding new staff.

Dropbox for Teams allows you to configure groups and group permissions, however you are tasked with manually managing a disparate set of group permissions for your business which can quickly get out of sync with the groups you have set up in Google Apps or alternative productivity suites.

5. Integration

Google lets developers create applications that can integrate with Google Drive and enhance its appeal and functionality. For example, you can use Google Drive to save flowchart and mindmap documents created with Lucidchart.com directly to Google Drive folders.

Another great integration is CloudHQ which lets you see your Dropbox files and Evernote notes in your Google Drive. You can synchronise the data two ways – adding or deleting files in Dropbox, Evernote or Google Drive will add or remove them in the other two apps, so you can access all your data from one location. This is a great option for anyone who has made the switch to Google Drive and is still sharing data with others using Dropbox.

Since I’ve moved away from Dropbox to Google Drive for primary file storage I have saved money and enjoyed the benefits of a file storage solution more tightly integrated with our favourite email and collaboration platform, Google Apps.

Peter is the Director of itGenius Australia and is an expert in Small Business Cloud Computing. He has been ranked as one of Australia’s top 10 entrepreneurs under 30.

Image credit: Google Drive

An Easy Way to Copy Files Between Cloud Storage Apps

September 25, 2013 by Sholto Macpherson

Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, Dropbox, Box. The number of options for storing your business documents in the cloud grows each year. But how do you switch between them?

Labnol.org has posted a short blog about a service called Mover.io that transfers files and folders from one cloud storage service to another. The service works on a freemium model – you can transfer up to 10 GB of data for free and then pay $1 per extra GB of transfer.

Mover can even move files to and from enterprise storage with Amazon S3 – and from there to Amazon’s super-cheap archiving service, Glacier, which charges as little as 1c per GB.

As Labnol.org writes:

Mover has connectors for all popular cloud storage providers. You may copy files from your Google Drive to Dropbox, from SkyDrive to Box or even from your old Google account to the new one. They also support FTP allowing you to directly transfer files from Google Drive or Dropbox to your FTP server, over the cloud.

There are no restrictions on individual file size limits (except for SkyDrive) and you may transfer unlimited number of files. Mover creates a mirror copy of your folders on the destination service but if a folder on the source drive has too many files, you have an option to zip them all in a single file before the transfer.

The activity log (see next screenshot) in your Mover dashboard offers a near real-time view of ongoing transfers and the service also sends a detailed email notification when a transfer job has been processed.

Image credit: Mover

Five things you need to know about Google Drive

June 6, 2013 by Andrew Price

Google Drive is an “online hard drive” where Google Apps users store, file and share their documents online. It’s easy to use but to get the most out of it there are a couple of tips that really help.

1. Adding files to a shared folder

Google Drive has been designed from the ground up for sharing, or collaboration. But the way in which we share and organise our files is very different to the way we would organise them on a normal hard drive. This sometimes causes headaches for network admins and users alike.
The two most confusing changes are:

Documents are owned by the user who created or uploaded the files by default
Documents are shared and not copied into a file store.

This can cause issues when a business needs to remove a user who owns documents or when a colleague needs a document but is unsure of where it is filed. Often these items are often owned by another user in a folder shared with us.

This can make the process of collaboration cumbersome and slow. You want to keep files and folders handy while you need to work on them rather than having to search for it every time.

We can do this by adding the shared folder to our own Google Drive. In Google Drive Click, on the “Shared with me” menu item. A list of files and folders will show up. When you find the file or folder you require you can add it into “my Drive” by holding the Option key on a mac or the Ctrl key on a PC.

Although it looks like the folder is in a different place, you have simply created a link in your Google Drive to the shared location. Now you can add files and other folders you own to this shared folder.

2. Taking Google Drive offline

Google Apps users frequently want to take their created and shared documents offline and work on them where there is no internet coverage for example on road trips or flights.

Google is in the process of taking all of their Google Drive services offline. Services that can already be used offline include:

Users need to have the Chrome browser to take Google Drive offline. When you are both logged into Google Drive and in Google Chrome

Click More on the left-hand side of the screen.
Select Offline Docs.
Install the Documents app from the Chrome Web Store
Once installed it takes you back to Google Drive. Select the “Enable offline” button.

3. Google Drive Sync

Google Drive Sync was released in the middle of 2012. It allows you to sync your Google Drive between your desktop PC (Mac or Windows PC). It also syncs almost any format from your PC to your Google Drive so you can access the file without being on the computer holding the original file.

Google Drive will sync files that are part of your “My Drive” folder to a Google Drive folder on your PC that is created when you install Google Drive.

The product is very similar to Dropbox and Box. Google Drive Sync is very quick, the storage can be upgraded quickly and relatively cheaply, it ties into the Google Apps ecosystem and it allows you to use these files with the other productivity apps in the suite like Gmail, Google Hangouts, and Google Sites.

4. Free QuickOffice for Google Apps for Business

Google acquired Quickoffice last year to gain knowledge and technology about converting Microsoft Office documents. They have used this acquisition to two ends.

Google gives it away for free to Google Apps for Business users on the App Store so they can view and edit Microsoft Office products on their iPad.

Google has also improved the quality of conversions from Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents into the equivalent Google Apps formats.

The quality of the file conversion has come a long way since this acquisition. A large majority of documents, when uploaded to Google Drive, are converted almost perfectly into the appropriate Google format.

5. Real-Time Applications

Google recently gave Google Drive the ability to connect to other online or cloud programs using a connector called an API (application programming interface). Programs can send information and update Google programs instantly.

Here are two programs that use Google’s Realtime API:

Gantter is a free, web-based project management tool. When coupled with Google Drive Gantter allows multiple users to collaborate on a project plan at the same time. Gantter files can be stored on Google Drive and users can use Google Chat to further assist in productivity.
Draw.io is a similar program which lets a team collaborate and chat while editing a drawing simultaneously. It is produced by the team behind LucidChart.