🕹ī¸ Do Something Great! 😄

Tag: insync

  • Can Insync dethrone Dropbox as a cloud storage service?

    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.