DON’S FREEWARE CORNER - SEP 2015
ONLINE FILE STORAGE
©2015 Donald R. Snow
This page was last updated 2015-09-21
These Freeware Corner notes are published in
TAGGology, our Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy
Group (UVTAGG) monthly newsletter, and are posted
on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
where there may be corrections or updates.
ONLINE FILE STORAGE
There are several websites where you can store files
of any kind online and retrieve them wherever you are.
Most have a free version that has enough storage
space for many files and then paid versions for more
storage space. I don't know of any that are free
with unlimited storage space, but there may be some.
Whatever you do, don't use one of these, or even
a commercial online storage site, as the only place
you have your files, since you never now how long they
will be in business or if you will be able to access
them in the event of a disaster. To me a
combination of local, e.g. external hard drive, and
online storage seems the best.
There is a difference between online backups and
online storage. Backup websites, e.g. Carbonite,
Mozy, and Backblaze, back up your computer files
automatically, but only keep them on their servers for
30-60 days after they are deleted on your computer,
whether you are aware of the deletions on your
computer or not. So, if you inadvertently delete
a file from your computer and don't know it for more
than about a month, it's gone from both places.
If you have a computer crash, you usually know
it and can get your computer repaired or a new
computer, and then retrieve the files from such a
backup company and that can be a lifesaver.
Online storage, e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, and
Open Drive, is different than backups. They
store the files you upload, whether they remain on
your computer or not, but they don't do it
automatically and you have to decide what you want to
upload and store. This means you probably don't
have all your latest work stored in online storage.
However, with online storage, no matter what
happens to your computer, your files stay on the
storage company's servers, as long as you pay the bill
and the company stays in business. Most online
storage websites have a free version which allows you
to upload and store a few gigs of files for free, but
you have to pay for the premium versions to store
more. For the free versions, you usually have to
access your account periodically to keep it active,
but that may only be about once a year. Again, a
combination of local storage in an external hard drive
and online storage on such a website seems like the
best option to me. Then, in the event of a
disaster at your home where both your computer and
local external hard drive backup are gone, you can
still access the files from the online servers.
And if their servers all go down or the company
goes out of business, you have the files stored on
your own external hard drive. In this note we
will discuss a few of the online storage websites and
their free properties. We will discuss backup
websites in another note.
Dropbox is a widely used online storage website.
The free version gives you 2 gigs of storage
space and by referring others you, and they, get more
free space. For a cost of $99 per year you get 1
terabyte (1000 gigs) of storage space. There are
versions of Dropbox for all types of computers and
mobile devices and they have slightly different
appearances and properties, but all can access the
files you store in your account, if they can get to
the Internet. The Internet version has an option
to show who owns the file (who set it up) and who the
owner has allowed to edit or just see it. The
Internet version also has icons to show the types and
properties of all files you have stored. For
example, clicking on Photos shows all the photos in
your account, their dates, owners, etc. There
are icons to do this for Files, Photos, Shared files,
and Links. There is an Event icon on the
Internet version that has a complete history of all
files in your account and by clicking on the Calendar
in the upper right corner, you can go back to the way
your account was at any previous date, so you can
retrieve an earlier version of the file, if you need
it. Clicking on your name (upper right corner)
shows how much of your total storage space you are
using, so you will know if you need to delete some
files to make more space. These features only
seem to be on the Internet version and not the
computer version. When you set up an account,
Dropbox sets up a Public Folder in your account where
you can place any file which will then be given a
unique URL to send to anyone, so they can see and/or
download it, even non-Dropbox users. Other files
and folders you set up can be Shared, but you have to
click on the Share icon to do this, unlike in the
Public Folder, where it is done automatically.
There is an official Dropbox Help Center at
https://www.dropbox.com/help
and many helpful tutorials and videos on YouTube and
elsewhere. Dropbox is very helpful in family
history in many ways.
To get to Google Drive click on the 3x3 app icon
("Tic-Tac-Toe" box) in the upper right corner of the
Google home page. You'll see Drive listed with
several other icons such as Search, Maps, Docs,
Sheets, etc. Log in with your Google account
(free) or else set one up to log in. If you have
a Gmail address (Googlemail in England), you already
have a Google account. If you have forgotten
your Gmail address and/or password, Google can send
them to you, if you know the email address you
subscribed from. You get 15 gigs of storage free
and can pay for more, if you need it. When Drive
opens, you will see a list of the files you have
stored there, including Google Docs (text files),
Sheets (spreadsheets), Slides (Powerpoint-type
slides), and files and photos you have uploaded.
In front of each will be an icon which will tell
you the type of file it is. If it is a folder,
it will contain other files and/or folders.
Shared files or folders will have an icon that
looks like the head and shoulders of two people after
the name. To the right of the name list will be
a column showing the owner of the file, date last
modified, and the size. The icon labeled "AZ" in
the upper right corner has several options for sorting
the files, but folders always sort first, as in
Windows Explorer. If you have lots of files, it
helps to organize them by forming folders and moving
the files into them. To form new files or
folders click on New (upper left corner) or else
MyDrive (also upper left corner). It is
important to remember that these files are not stored
on your computer, but on the Google servers and to get
to them you must be connected to the Internet.
TheiHelp menu is accessed by clicking on the "Gear"
icon (upper right corner). The 3-dot vertical
icon opens more actions available, such as uploading
or downloading files to your computer and moving or
renaming items. The "i" icon (circle with "i" in
the middle) opens the list and dates of recent actions
you have performed on Drive. If you have set up
nested folders, when you are at lower levels, you see
the folder hierarchy path listed at the top and can
get to any other folder higher up by just clicking on
the name there. If you share a file with someone
and allow them to edit it, you will see changes they
make in real time and their changes will be marked
with a different color. To have a copy that
stays the same on your computer and doesn't get
changed, make a copy and change the name slightly and
not share it. In our family we have done this
for files we wanted others to be able to edit, but
keep the changes they make private. The 2x2 icon
in the upper right changes the view of the files and
folders to what is called the Grid View which shows
the folders as tabs with the other files below them.
There is much more to Google Drive and it is
helpful for families and family history.
This is a very useful online storage website from a
company that won't be going out of business soon.
It gives 25 gigs of online storage space free
and they have various paid plans for more space.
I signed up for a free account several years ago
and uploaded two large genealogy book pdf's and have
had them stored there ever since. They were both
OCR'd (Optical Character Recognition) before I
uploaded them, so when I click on them in OneDrive now
they are completely every-word searchable there with
the OneDrive search box. There is a button to
click to "Edit In Word", so I tried that on one of the
pdf book files, but after a couple of minutes it said,
"Sorry. We have run into a problem.", and quit
trying to convert it. Perhaps it was too large a
file and a shorter pdf would be converted. To
upload files or folders you can just drag and drop
them onto the main page. To form a new file
click on the word New (upper left) and you see options
to create a new folder, Word document, Powerpoint, or
Excel spreadsheet, etc. I don't know if you have
to have those programs on your computer to be able to
do that with the free version of OneDrive. There
are various ways you can sort your files and folders
and it is easy to drag and drop files into other
folders. I haven't used it very much, but it
seems to have many properties that I like.
This is an online storage website that I just recently
learned about and on which I signed up for a free
account. You get 5 gigs of storage space free
and can subscribe for other amounts with a credit
card. It is easy to just drag-and-drop files on
it to upload them and you see a percent listed at the
upper right corner of how much of your 5 gigs you are
using. I uploaded 3 large Powerpoints and a pdf
and it still says I'm only using 1% of my free space.
It doesn't seem to allow you to look at the file
without downloading it, which is a disadvantage.
Also, it won't allow me to run my Powerpoints
that I uploaded, like Dropbox and other programs will.
Other programs will even allow you to save changes you make to it when
running. OpenDrive has two different views of
the files, List View and Grid View, from the icons in
the upper right corner. Clicking on the "Gear"
icon (left side) opens your "Dashboard" chart showing
your type of account, how much space you are using,
and graphs of when you uploaded files and the
bandwidth used. It has folders already set up
for Documents, Music, Pictures, and a Public Folder.
Moving items from one place to another is not
just drag and drop, but requires right clicking >
Move > Selecting the folder to move it to, and then
clicking Move; very clunkly. I can't find a way
to move more than one file at a time, but there may be
a way. For uploading and downloading files it
seems easy to use, but organizing your files in the
program is not easy. But with 5 gigs of free
storage you may find it helpful for simple things.
OTHERS
There are many other such websites. Here are
some articles and comparison charts that you might
find helpful.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413556,00.asp
Most of these rate Dropbox very high. You can
find more articles, comparisons, and information by
Googling things like "online storage", etc. Be
careful when using Google, or any search engine, since
companies pay to have their websites listed near the
top in searches, so keep looking further down in the
list and even onto the next Google pages. If you
find online storage websites that you like and
recommend, please let me know and tell me why you like
them. Thanks.