Google Drive appears to be Google’s ominous response to Dropbox, the popular cloud storage and file sharing tool. Personally, I do not know what I did to stay organized before Dropbox. It carries all files that I need, which I can now get on my iPhone, iPad, MAC, PC, or remotely by logging in to www.dropbox.com from any computer with an internet connection. I can also share files and folders with collaborators who also have Dropbox accounts quickly and easily through Dropbox’s easy-to-use sharing setup. Suddenly, I am organized, my important files are available everywhere (and synonymously backedup all the time!), and all is happy… enter Google Drive!

Google Drive is so similar in design and functionality to competitors that it is obviously an attempt to take some of the cloud storage market from Dropbox, Box.com and other popular cloud services – such as Microsoft’s (aka, he-who-must-not-be-named) Skydrive launch with a generous 25GB of free storage reward for early sign-up. Google Drive is another example of Google’s recent change from a proactive to a reactive company in the technology world.

Google Drive Will Not Replace Dropbox… Yet.

I am not ready to replace my Dropbox account for Google Drive for several reasons.

• Customer loyalty – Dropbox has been good to me! Giving me several gigabytes of free storage for free and not serving me any ads to boot is quite generous!
• Doc sharing functionality – Google docs has a great sharing setup online. I have many documents and spreadsheets shared across 2 different google accounts, my personal and my google apps account. However, you can only sync Google Drive to your desktop app and mobile apps through one account, AND by default, Google Drive only syncs those files/folders where you are the “owner.”
• If someone were to obtain my Google password, they have access to all of my files. Since I use my Google account for a variety of things, I am entering the password in more places, thus inherently increasing the risk of it being hacked at some point. Therefore, I do not want my singular space for file storage to be under the same account password. I like the separation of Dropbox to keep my paranoid mind at ease.

Why Add Google Drive?

However, I am taking advantage of Google Drive in addition to Dropbox for cloud storage, because of several important factors.

• Free storage with Dropbox + free storage with Google Drive = MORE free storage!
• I contacted Dropbox once with the bright idea to use it as my primary backup device (replacing my current array of external hard drives packed with media). I needed about 750GB to get everything backed up. However, Dropbox had no tiered system for me. The only solution available was to upgrade to “Dropbox for teams” which was not at all what I was looking for. Google Drive, on the other hand, offers a tiered system, allowing me to pay for whatever amount of storage space I need. Google Drive seems to be doing a better job of incorporating file storage and file sharing together.

For now, the combined use of Google Drive and Dropbox has made for a happy marriage in my cloud storage world. Will you replace your current cloud storage account with Google Drive?

A very informative article and infographic by blogger Heather Taylor

It’s getting easier and easier for non-designers to make basic websites. In seconds you can have your own site in Tumblr, WordPress, or Posterous (to name a few) but have you considered how users will experience your site and what they want to see?

According to a new infographic by ROI Media, only 4.13% of websites have valid HTML and CSS. The bigger worry is only 40% of users say they can find the information they need on sites. This could be the fault of the users themselves but more likely it’s due to poor design.

Originally posted on: Anatomy of the Perfect Website, by Heather Taylor

The High Stakes World of Mobile Payments

Mobile payment systems handled $240 billion of transactions in 2011. You can transfer money, buy movie tickets, airfare, book hotels, and pay for your $2 breakfast burrito from the local street vendor on your 4-inch smartphone.

The infographic below (source: www.mobilepaymentstoday.com) provides an excellent summary representation of the mobile payment systems available and the companies supporting them. Mobile payments bring large corporations such as Intuit in to competition with small start-ups such as Square.

I used Square when running a lawn care business. After cutting a lawn, we could knock on the door and have a payment completed and receipt emailed in 2 minutes. Not to mention we blew away the consumer with our seemingly advanced technology prowess! This system also made it quick and easy to take last minute walk-up customers.

Source: www.mobilepaymentstoday.com by James Wester