Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Cloud Computing: Where is Google's GDrive?

Do you use more than one computer -- and then find yourself looking for your most recent work? In the past, we used to email ourselves the most recent versions of spreadsheets or document (so we could work on things at home, for instance)... Today, cloud computing and the ability to sync files is getting hot. Imagine working on a file -- and having the latest version getting synced on all of your computers -- automatically and almost instantly!!

We have been waiting for Google's GDrive -- but it has been slow in coming out. We have high hopes for Google's product based on the performance and features of gmail and google documents. In addition, recent chatter about Google's Chrome browser (syncing bookmarks -- and additional Google document features) -- have us hoping that GDrive is coming out real soon.

In the meantime, if you want to explore other Cloud Computing / file syncing options, here are some of the best out there currently. You can sync a few GBs worth of files with most of these services for free -- and then pay a fee (around $25-$100/year for most) for more storage.
  • Syncplicity.com - our favorite; some good features. We'll describe Syncplicity more in another post.
  • Live Mesh - mesh.com -- we like that this is backed by Microsoft. You can even use this to easily access your other pcs remotely.
  • Dropbox: getdropbox.com
  • SugarSync.com - tons of features
  • Mozy.com -- a great tool to backup files on the internet automatically.