Google Drive - Cloud Storage Challenge pt.I

As you've guessed, it's now been just over a fortnight since I posed myself the challenge of relying on absolutely nothing else for my University work other than Google Drive. That's right, I'm not using MS Word or Adobe Acrobat on my desktop , and no LibreOffice on my Ubuntu laptop - I'm relying heavily on Google's services on each device I use.

I have to say, after the initial week of getting used to uploading all my Uni relevant documents to Drive, and organising folders properly, that so far using the service has been a breeze. I'll admit, using Drive for Uni in my first week on my old laptop (whilst waiting for my Chromebook to arrive) was hard, particularly when I already had a fully fledged Office Suite that took out the need to upload downloaded docs manually. I'm finding the Document creator to be simple and easy to use, and as far as updating and saving changes to the file you're typing on, Drive manages this effortlessly and has led me to believe it saves as soon as you pause from typing anything.

The moment my Chromebook arrived, on the 1st - my dependency on Drive grew tenfold, and for good reason, it's all I can use. The move to the Chromebook as my 'take everywhere' Uni laptop has meant that everywhere I go, I'm completely dependent on Google's services, and it's now something that's made its way home, too.

Already when I'm on my desktop at home, I don't think about opening docs on MS Word - Drive is immediately my go-to alternative, and part of that change has been marked by the fact that as Google believe - we are always on the internet (namely, Chrome). Having the Drive app present itself on each new blank tab page on my desktop/laptop, waiting for me to run it makes it difficult for anyone with a Chromebook to actually think outside the Chrome browser.

An offline doc that just saved as I pressed the spacebar

One of my concerns thus far reflects what some of my preconceptions of a cloud based service had been - reliability offline. This was something I knew would affect me in a big way, owning a Chromebook and whatnot, but thankfully my Wi-Fi troubles haven't been all that damaging to the overall experience. The University Wi-Fi I hop onto typically churns out relatively low signal bars wherever I am on campus, but for the most part, the Chromebook handles this quite well and while on occasion the connection has dropped out whilst I've been writing up lecture notes, I've been able to continue typing in offline mode with nothing more than a pop-up message notifying of a lost connection. Once the Wi-Fi signal is received again, Drive saves everything I was working on in offline mode direct to the cloud.

I've been surprised that Google Drive has been able to operate so seamlessly, even without an internet connection. I've also enjoyed how little input I've had to put into syncing offline docs to the cloud, and it's simple things like that which have certainly allayed some of my initial worries about cloud services. I will report back in the next fortnight or so, adding to what I've already discussed and possibly raising new concerns with the service as the weight of Uni work and assignments pile on, and I'm relying on it more heavily.

For anyone wondering what a Samsung Chromebook ARM looks like, don't use mine as an example - I've completely 'geekified' my one, but made sure not to cover up that gorgeous Chrome logo on the top left.