Online Storage of Documents
I am a very mobile user. As a consultant, I am either on my iPhone, laptop, a server, or someone’s workstation (which is often not my own). I learned real quickly that I need to have some flexibility to have my documents with me at all times. I have changed laptops at least 3 times in the past few years and I have always been concerned about loosing files or for that matter, the laptop itself. So I started to look into online documents. Our firm decided to switch from hosting our own email to having our email hosted with Google’s Email Hosted Service (http://www.google.com/apps). It has turned out to be one of the best decisions we have every made. In this post and others to come, I’ll discuss with you various online services that host documents (various types) and what I like and don’t like about them.
Since we host our email with Google, they offer what is called Google Docs. Yes it is free. My favorite feature of Google Docs is the ability to access the files just about anywhere… okay, anywhere I have internet access. I can just click on a link, create, upload, edit, review, share or even collaborate with my Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents. Google Docs has it’s many weaknesses and I will point some of those out as I see fit, but having access to the files online just makes sense. How many times have you saved a file on your desktop (or even the server’s file shared folder or user folder) and realized that you are across town or at home and don’t have access to your files. Using Google Docs or other services like Box.net (I’ll dicuss this one later) your “problem” is no longer a problem but just something that works… you have access to your files.
As usual, I look forward to your questions, comments and reviews of technologies related to online storage, collaboration and such.
