Monday, April 30, 2012
Google's very own cloud storage service Google Drive has presented a challenge to the rival companies in the similar domain. Google Drive is almost like Google Docs on steroids. You get a hefty 5GB space with loads of useful features. Small businesses and freelancers can benefit from this product as it is tightly integrated with other Google products that include Google Apps as well. This means you can easily use it with your custom domain Google Apps account. Here are some of the best ways you can leverage this excellent cloud storage service to the fullest.
Use as a collaboration tool - This is one of the most important features that make it an extremely useful tool for freelancers and businesses. Multiple Google users can work on the same document seamlessly through Google Drive without any clash. The document owner can maintain version history for individual files edited by a team of collaborators. You can also exercise application level restrictions to authorize selective apps which can be used to access a specific document.
You can also initiate activity log for each file so that actions performed by each collaborator can be tracked easily for better document management. This activity log also includes date & time along with the collaborator's identity. There's no limit on the number of collaborator's for each file in Google Drive.
Share large documents securely - GMail has the limitation on the size of the attachment (25MB) for each mail. Now you can easily bypass this restriction and can email very large attachments to your friends and peers through Google Drive. This not only saves lot of your inbox space, but also lets you send large number of big files to multiple contacts in one go.
You can also share your files stored in Google drive which not only enable restricted access but also lets the recipients to leave comments on the document viewing page. You can prevent users from downloading the shared file by locking it for any download attempt and can also make it read-only, if required. I found the sharing option more preferable then sending the file as an email attachment as its more social in nature and gives more options to the recipients to interact with the document in different ways.
Access your drive almost anywhere - Nowadays almost every cloud storage service supports access from multiple devices and platforms. This includes automated syncing without any need of an explicit command from the user. Google Drive also offers the same feature with strong support of auto-syncing for the entire drive. Apart from the regular web-based interface, you can access your Google drive through different apps on multiple devices very easily.
These applications are available for Windows Vista, XP and 7 platforms. Mac users running Lion and Snow Leopard systems can also download tailor made Google Drive applications for their computers. Any device (tablet or smartphone) running Android 2.1+ software can also use the Google Drive application for Android devices. iPhone and iPad users running iOS 3.0+ can also download tailor-made Google Drive application for their devices. This covers large chunk of web users that not only gives you the best experience but also lets you access your Google Drive from anywhere.
Organize your data easily - Google Drive's 'Organize' function is one of my favorite features that I use regularly. Through this useful feature, you can easily arrange your files and folders through drag 'n' drop interface. To transfer entire folders you can select and deselect the check boxes to migrate large folders in quick time.
Freelancers and small businesses will use this feature heavily to keep their data organized. During transferring large folders with multiple sub-folders and files you will be presented with a progress bar to track the amount of transfer completed. It's not just the web interface, but this organizing works seamlessly across different desktop & mobile applications discussed in the previous section. If the amount of data to be organized (shifted) is huge, you can defer its syncing from a desktop app by temporarily pausing the sync feature.
Export to Google Docs for easy editing - And last but not the least is the killer feature of using Google Docs office suite within Google Drive. You can easily export your files in Google Drive to the Docs service for easy conversion and editing. This gives Google Drive an edge over its competitors. Once your editing process is completed, you can easily overwrite or create a new edited copy back in your Google Drive account. While exporting your files to Google Docs you can easily maintain revision history to track the progress of important business documents.
Use as a collaboration tool - This is one of the most important features that make it an extremely useful tool for freelancers and businesses. Multiple Google users can work on the same document seamlessly through Google Drive without any clash. The document owner can maintain version history for individual files edited by a team of collaborators. You can also exercise application level restrictions to authorize selective apps which can be used to access a specific document.
Share large documents securely - GMail has the limitation on the size of the attachment (25MB) for each mail. Now you can easily bypass this restriction and can email very large attachments to your friends and peers through Google Drive. This not only saves lot of your inbox space, but also lets you send large number of big files to multiple contacts in one go.
Access your drive almost anywhere - Nowadays almost every cloud storage service supports access from multiple devices and platforms. This includes automated syncing without any need of an explicit command from the user. Google Drive also offers the same feature with strong support of auto-syncing for the entire drive. Apart from the regular web-based interface, you can access your Google drive through different apps on multiple devices very easily.
Organize your data easily - Google Drive's 'Organize' function is one of my favorite features that I use regularly. Through this useful feature, you can easily arrange your files and folders through drag 'n' drop interface. To transfer entire folders you can select and deselect the check boxes to migrate large folders in quick time.
Export to Google Docs for easy editing - And last but not the least is the killer feature of using Google Docs office suite within Google Drive. You can easily export your files in Google Drive to the Docs service for easy conversion and editing. This gives Google Drive an edge over its competitors. Once your editing process is completed, you can easily overwrite or create a new edited copy back in your Google Drive account. While exporting your files to Google Docs you can easily maintain revision history to track the progress of important business documents.
