Microsoft OneDrive Fires a Shot Across the Bow of Other Cloud Providers

Microsoft announced a price cut and storage expansion for its' OneDrive cloud service to begin next month and this is very big. Just for singing up you get a whopping 15 Gigabytes of storage for FREE, up from 7 GB.

 

First, let me give a concise explanation of the cloud. The first thing you should understand about the cloud is that it is not a physical thing. The cloud is a network of servers, and each server has a different function. Some servers are used to store documents or deliver a service.



A Room of Computers - part of "the cloud"

When you upload photos to Facebook or Flickr, etc.; those photos are "in the cloud" or on servers like you see above. They are not on your computer but on very large computers.

For me, the cloud is important and most useful. In fact, I rely on it heavily for my everyday use of my PC, iPad and smart phone. I synchronize  ALL of  my documents, music and photos on the cloud. I do this because:

• My smart phone photos automatically upload to my cloud provider so I never have to worry about accidently deleting them
• The cloud is secure and a backup in case something happens to my laptop
• The cloud allows me to use or see any of my documents or photos on any computing device I own; laptop, smart phone or tablet. I can even get to my documents from anyone else's computer.
• My wife and I share all of our documents and photos because we use the cloud, thus they synchronize back and forth from our laptops to the cloud.

Basically, the cloud service synchronizes documents stored within specific folders on your computer and their server on the cloud. So your documents reside in two places, your computer and the cloud, and they stay synchronized.

I had a recent, and most favorable, experience of completely restoring my laptop to factory condition and then putting all of my documents and photos back on simply by logging into Dropbox, our choice of cloud service. Amazing!

Now, back to the main reason of this article--Microsoft's OneDrive cloud service. Below is a look at the most of the cloud services available today. I'm not going into great detail on each but a quick look at them...what they provide for FREE and how much 100 gigabytes of storage might cost if you need more than the free storage.

My family's cloud provider is Dropbox and has served us very well for the past 3 years. My wife and I share all of our documents using a single Dropbox account. In addition my wife and her real estate partner share their business documents using their own accounts. We each pay for 100 GB of storage space. Microsoft's new pricing makes OneDrive 25% less than Dropbox.

How Much Will a Gigabyte Hold?

I personally use Dropbox(family documents), OneDrive(OneNote), Google Drive(a few documents)  and Amazon Cloud Drive (my music) but primarily Dropbox and OneDrive. OneDrive because I use Microsoft OneNote everyday for managing notes, information, outlines for these articles, etc. and OneNote synchronizes with OneDrive. The major "players" are Dropbox and OneDrive with Amazon Cloud and Google Drive doing very well too.

 

Advantage / Disadvantage

• Dropbox is the current market leader and many iPad/iPhone apps allow you to store documents here.
• Microsoft Office for mobile ONLY allows document storage on OneDrive.
• Sharing Dropbox folders with someone else requires the other person to have a Dropbox account.
• Sharing OneDrive folders with someone else does NOT require the person have a OneDrive account. They will simply have a webpage to save for access.
• The storage space of shared Dropbox folders counts against both person's storage allotment.
• The storage space of shared OneDrive folders ONLY counts against the owners allotment.

Mary Jo Foley of All About Microsoft has written a great article and OneDrive and what Microsoft is doing with it if your subscribe to Office 365.

If you want to see how much cloud storage you might need, go to Windows Explorer (File Explorer in Windows 8) and right click on your Documents and Pictures folders and click Properties to see how much space they take up. (See a screen shot below)

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A Windows 8.1 Book That Delivers Everything You Need



Cover design: Martin McClean

Windows 8.1 Field Guide, co-authored by Paul Thurott and Rafael Rivera, is a quality book and you deserve to read it. Here's why.

Let's face it, Windows 8 has been a tough road for we consumers to try and figure out the new features. We've had to do our own research on the Microsoft web site because there has not been a whole lot of reference books let alone a User Guide from Microsoft. I did share Microsoft's End User Training Brochure in a previous article.

Paul Thurott and Rafael Rivera have written a quality book. It is written with the same care and style of two of their  previous books; Windows 7 Secrets and Windows 8 Secrets published in hard copy and Kindle. I have both of these books and like them very much. They have been easy to read, understand and were very useful. Now they are very large as many computer books go because there is so much to write about and explain in screen shots as well as text. Windows 8.1 Field Guide is currently 590 pages and I have been most satisfied.

I have been reading early versions of the Windows 8.1 Field Guide. Paul and Rafael can do just about whatever they want to get the book right and using their readers as editors because they are self-publishing this book. Bravo to them. Windows 8.1 Field Guide's content is top notch, in my opinion, and I utilize it for the many nuances of Windows 8. Sure Windows 8.1 is different from Windows 7 but what new product isn't from it's predecessor and shouldn't for that matter. I don't care that Microsoft didn't write a book like this (did they or didn’t' they?) as I like this one just like the previous two books.

Now that I've established, what I believe, is the quality product point of view, lefts talk about the purchase proposition. Paul and Rafael have "nailed it" by going this self-publishing method and can establish their price and exclude middlemen. At least I think they have "killed" the middleman but no mater. Here are your purchase options.

Option 1:

Purchase Windows 8.1 Field Guide from Amazon.com as a Kindle ebook and download immediately. $4.99. Cool.

Option 2:

Purchase Windows 8.1 Field Guide directly from Paul and Rafael on their website and download to your computer in any of these formats; PDF (Adobe Reader), MOBI (Kindle) or ePub (many ereaders like the Nook). $2.00. WOW!

I know, you're asking. "Are you kidding! What's the catch?" No catch at all as this is self-publishing at its best. Option 1 is easy. Order on-line at Amazon.com and download to your Kindle. Any Kindle, Android smart phone or tablet and Apple iPhone or iPad. Even read on your computer with a Kindle app. Simple and just $4.99.

Option 2 is really sweet but there are a few more steps involved but your are rewarded with a lower price. Purchase from Paul and Rafael's web site and download. Start reading with the Kindle app or any PDF reader and you're set. And the tremendous price of $2.00!  Wait…that's just as easy as Option 1 and only $2.00. The extra steps are for getting the MOBI (Kindle) version to your Kindle device or smart phone or tablet. I've done it for my iPad using iTunes and it was easy enough.

Another benefit of purchasing direct is that you can get updates to the book as they are released. Simply bookmark the download page and download the latest book as it becomes available. You can't do this with Kindle.

Here are some articles to help you get the self-published book format to your device.

Three Easy Ways toLoad Non-Amazon Books on Your Kindle Fire

How to send .mobifiles to the Kindle App for Viewing on Your iPad or iPhone.
Transfer .mobi andepub eBook Files to an iPad for Easier Reading & Viewing.

To be fair, I heard Paul on the "What the Tech" podcast talk a little about this publishing experience and please don't think he and Rafael are making a bunch more money via Amazon's Kindle book at $4.99. Far from it. Amazon takes a piece of the purchase price and there are fees for the WhisperSynch technology where the book remembers where you left off or synchronizes from device to device. This feature is free to purchasers but the authors and publishers pay a fee. As a result, Paul said he makes a little less from the Amazon deal vs self-publishing.

Paul Thurott's bio excerpted from the book.

Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger, the author of over 25 books, a technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the majordomo of Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows. Paul also writes a daily news column, WinInfo Daily UPDATE, a weekly editorial for Windows IT Pro UPDATE, and a monthly column called Need to Know for Windows IT Pro. Additionally, Paul co-hosts two tech podcasts each week, Windows Weekly with Leo Laporte and Mary Jo Foley, and What the Tech with Andrew Zarian. You can reach Paul via email or on Twitter at @thurrott.

Rafael Rivera's bio excerpted from the book

Rafael Rivera is a software developer for a VAR 500 company, Telos Corporation, where he works on mission critical systems for the United States Department of Defense and Intelligence  Community. He is also a certified reverse engineering analyst and takes Windows apart for fun on his blog Within Windows. You can reach Rafael via email or on Twitter at @WithinRafael.

 

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A Calendar App With a Twist

 

A good calendar app on a smart phone is so valuable but frankly, a bit boring. Up To Calendar changes that by adding a wonderful feature--seeing other events, in categories you select, and when they are going to take place. You can then add them to your calendar. Wow!

I heard about Up To Calendar while listening to the webcast called All About Android and each host share an app. In episode 163, Gina Trapani recommended Up To Calendar and I gave it a try.

Watch this 27 second video about how the Up To Calendar works.

My favorite calendar app is DigiCal which pulls my Google calendar from the web. What makes DigiCal so good is Large text for my vision disability. Bigger is required and DigiCal does this nicely. Up To Calendar has the same views (although text isn't as large) as DigiCal with my most useful view being the Agenda or List view. I see what is upcoming on my calendar  for today, tomorrow and beyond.

Image Credit: Up To

Up To Calendar has an icon that looks like a stack of papers that I touch to see other events coming up. If I want to participate in one of those events I simply swipe to the left and touch the red Add option and now that event is on my calendar.

Image Credit: Up To

When are the Oakland A's in town and I can decide which game to attend and put it right on my calendar.

What new movies are playing and put it on my calendar.
I can see when new TV shows are premiering and put them on my calendar.

Up To Calendar is FREE for iOS and Android.

Up To for iOS

Up To for Android

UpTo works with your existing calendar. Google Calendar, iCloud, Outlook, Facebook Events and any other calendar that synchs with your phone. Enter an event into your UpTo calendar and it synchs to your web or desktop calendar. Now that's awesome!

Here's how to get started.

1. Install the App
2. Create a FREE Account
3. Give UpTo permissions to see and create events to your phone's calendar.

Image Credit: Up To

One can follow or attach to other calendars. You can even publish your organization's calendar to UpTo for others to follow. Learn how. http://upto.com/embed-calendar. There is a FREE or Standard version, a Premium version for $5 per month or a Customer version where a quote can be obtained. The Standard version could be a great method to share a baseball schedule for the kids, a bowling league or any group activity. Unlimited Calendars and Unlimited Events--all for FREE.

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Legally Blind and Waiting for Google's Driverless Car

I've been legally blind since June of 2010 and had to stop driving and working. I wasn't quite ready for this age 55. It's been difficult but just had to deal with it. There are two things I've been watching closely though--treatment for Retinal Pigment Epithelium  Dystrophy (my disease of which there is no treatment or cure) and driverless cars.

Google is making great headway with their Driverless Car Project and they are now showing a prototype car they built from the ground up and it shows great promise.

Watch this video and read what they have to say in Google's Official Blog.


Video from Googles Official Blog.

This car appears to be the ticket for to get some independence back. I could go to the mall, grocery shopping or visit friends on my own.

There are many questions still to be answered from insurance issues, legal issues, etc. Virtually all auto companies are working on projects like this but I strongly believe a technology company has the best chance to get it right. They don't have any automobile "baggage" to get in the way.

100 prototypes to be on the road by 2015. Then...we'll see.

Like I said, I can't wait!

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