Ryan Collins » Google

Can Insync dethrone Dropbox as a cloud storage service?

mr.rcollins — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:22:07 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I read a Techcrunch article about Insync. It is a service that works almost identically to Dropbox. Their differentiating feature is the fact that they use your Google Docs account for storage. A downside to this is that you only have 1GB of storage with normal accounts, but Google lets you add 20GB to that for $5 a year (compared to Dropbox costing $10 a month for 50GB of space).

To set up, you download the client, install it, and log into your Google account or accounts. It lets you sync multiple Google accounts at the same time, so I can use it with my work Google account, my professional Google account, and my personal Google account. Insync creates a folder in your home directory called Insync, and creates a folder for each one of your accounts inside of it. Google Docs files show up as their Microsoft Office equivilents.

It works really well, just as well as Dropbox. There are a few annoyances, such as the inability to pause syncing (for example, if you’re on slow connection), but for the price it’s hard for Dropbox to beat.

One tip I would recommend is to create a folder inside your Google account folder and use that like you would use a Dropbox account. If your Google Docs account is anything like mine, you have a ton of files and very little organization. Since I’m using this basically as a Dropbox replacement, I created a folder called DesktopSync, and I use that like I would use my Dropbox.

If you are in a Google Apps for Education school district, your Google accounts work fine with Insync. I haven’t tested it on our client computers that students use yet. If it works there, it would be a very nice solution to file access outside of the district.

It feels like the 50s with all this Chrome

mr.rcollins — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:45:25 +0000

Although Firefox has been my default browser for several years, every so often I try out alternative browsers. A couple of weeks ago I started to use Chromium (developer builds of Google’s Chrome browser) for OS X and it has now become my default browser.

Google has an obsession with speed. In fact, they have found that a .4 second delay in delivering search results causes a 30% drop in click throughs. They started working on Chrome to deliver a browser that is fast and secure. It also offers some other advatages such as isolating each tab or window into separate processes. This means if a tab or window crashes, it only affects that tab or window. Bookmarks can now be synched with your Google account, and extensions are starting to become available.

One of my requirements for a browser is the ability to run multiple profiles. I have one browser set for personal use and one set for professional use (I do try to separate the two, although it is difficult at times). Chrome supports multiple profiles, so now I can launch the default profile which contains my personal settings and I can launch a Mr_rcollins profile which contains my professional settings.

I’ve found that Chromium launches faster than any other browser I’ve tried. After using it for two weeks, it feels so much quicker than Firefox 3.5.5.
Although Firefox has been my default browser for several years, every so often I try out alternative browsers. A couple of weeks ago I started to use Chromium (developer builds of Google’s Chrome browser) for OS X and it has now become my default browser.

One of my requirements for a browser is the ability to run multiple profiles. I have one browser set for personal use and one set for professional use (I do try to separate the two, although it is difficult at times). Chrome supports multiple profiles, now I can launch the default profile which contains my personal settings and I can launch a Mr_rcollins profile which contains my professional settings. I’ve had Firefox set up for this for over a year and it works pretty well.

I’ve found that Chromium launches faster than any other browser I’ve tried. After using it for two weeks, it feels so much quicker than Firefox 3.5.5. You can learn more about Google Chrome here;. I use the Techcrunch Chromium Updater to grab the latest builds for OS X since Google hasn’t released an official beta yet for OS X.

Gmail presents Autopilot

mr.rcollins — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:35:07 +0000

From the website:

The easiest email could possibly be.

As more and more everyday communication takes place over email, lots of people have complained about how hard it is to read and respond to every message. This is because they actually read and respond to all their messages.

With Gmail autopilot no longer do you have to worry about actually creating a response. Using technology from Eliza and the CADIE project, Google will craft automated responses in your style. You can adjust for capitalization, typos, brevity and emoticon use.

Google Reader and the iPhone/iPod Touch

mr.rcollins — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:06:34 +0000

Using my RSS reader of choice Google Reader, I’ve discovered two ways to use it on my iPod Touch. If I navigate to:
http://google.com/reader/m I get a slightly different interface than using http://google.com/m#reader. The former address gives me a nice icon when I add it to my home screen, but the latter address works better on my touch.

Does anyone know what the differences are? Why can’t I get the nice icon to add to my home screen with the second address?