Google Drive - Cloud Storage Challenge pt.II

Google Drive continues to be the home for my primary office suite of sorts, and for storing most, if not all of my Uni related work - and now even extra stuff I work on outside Uni. It truly is becoming more and more a part of my life the more I'm using it. But don't assume that this entire post will express my love affair with this service, because not every love affair is rosy, there are bound to be some pitfalls and it's no different in this case.

Source: play.google.com

I've been using Google Drive now on a daily basis for around eight weeks and in that time I've found myself more and more reliant on the service. I maintain that Drive is ideal on the point that work can be easily uploaded or saved and almost instantly be made readily available on another device or machine. This has been fantastic when I'd be working on something on my desktop and then felt like moving into the main living area and casually work on the Chromebook whilst watching TV. The ease with which you can move about and have everything on you, like my Uni notes and timetable on my phone almost makes the whole experience a breeze - and as I said earlier, I'm using Drive outside of Uni related work which wasn't part of my original intentions. Having had my last USB stick stolen some months back, I haven't yet replaced it, but I'm finding that I probably won't need to anyway - everything I used a USB for is almost accomplished entirely by a quick Google sign-in to Drive.

That said, Drive's integration with some of Google's services function as a double-edged sword and I've found the workings of Google have made my life easier and more difficult at the same time. I'll start with the good - Google Calendar reminders and Gmail alerts serve their purpose and on a number of occasions, thinking ahead in class and using Calendar to add in deadlines have saved me in future from completely forgetting about due assignments. Having the right-click option to send files as a Gmail attachment is also a neat feature, and on occasion I'll send docs to myself if I know I'll have to access them in areas where I don't trust the security.

Now to some of the bad points - well they're not bad necessarily as much as they're not so pleasing, and if anything, impede on productivity. If you're familiar with Drive, or even basic Google search for example, you'd know that if you were signed in to your Google account that in the top right of your window you'll find your Google account name and if you're connected to Google+, any notifications you have pending your viewing. Even writing this entry, at this very moment I have 11 notifications that I've racked up in the span of 10 minutes. Google+ is a major distraction for someone like me, and having the notifications ticker in Drive tallying up everything I'm missing on Google+ has a monumental impact on my productivity. Thankfully it is excluded whilst you're working on a document, but I'm constantly moving around Drive when taking notes in class, and usually I'll have around 5 or 6 tabs open with a combination of PDF reading materials or my subject's folders and notifications are still visible there.

Something else which on a couple of occasions has had my heart beating abnormally fast, has been troubles with retrieving files and such from Google's servers. In two separate incidents, I've found myself attempting to access subject folders and only receiving half the list of document and sub folders I had. These weren't cases where I'd be without these missing documents/folders for 5 seconds or so, these were 30 second to a minute delays - and to be able to relate the feeling of potentially losing an entire assignment draft you'd been working on for the past week is not easy. Blame it on connection problems or just my impatience, data loss has always been one of my key concerns with cloud services and experiencing it first hand, even for a brief time-span is nevertheless something that gets my heart racing.

A few weeks back I completed the lengthy survey Google are conducting for Drive, and in adding suggestions, I at the time wasn't aware that a feature I came to expect to be in Docs would be the reason why I had no other option but to switch back to MS Word for an assignment - to have select pages in a page orientation, not the entire document. For the last week I've been struggling to bring together an online workbook I've been working tiresomely on, and I was approaching the final hurdles where I began to add images I'd created - the only problem, Docs will only allow for a single page orientation for the entire document, and I needed landscape for 3 pages. Determined not to break from the challenge by using another office suite, I Googled a solution only to find there was no possible way presently to use both orientations. So thanks Google, I had to break my challenge for an afternoon because of Docs - I pin the blame on Docs.

Despite these complaints, which I suppose only come natural with using a service or product for a prolonged period of time and on a daily basis, I can still say Google Drive is showing its worth and as I'm wading into deeper waters in Uni, having everything stored in the cloud and accessible on me wherever I am isn't all that bad. I'm saving paper by keeping everything electronic and that's always a plus.

I'll report back my final thoughts either whilst I'm drowning in Uni assignments, or after, when I'm being revived following the semester's end.