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.
Although Firefox has been my default browser for several years,