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August 21, 2012

Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox

 
 

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Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox

You have your files, photos and documents on your home computer that you would like to access from other locations on different devices. Dropbox has been the de-facto choice for long but that could potentially change as Microsoft and Google have just entered the arena with the launch of Windows Live SkyDrive and Google Drive respectively.

The three services are very similar – you get online storage (you can access your files anywhere) and file synchronization – edit a document on one computer and the changes are propagated to all your other computers almost instantly.

Let's see how these online drives stack up against each other:

SkyDrive vs Google Drive vs Dropbox

Supported Platforms

Dropbox is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, BlackBerry and Android devices. Windows Live SkyDrive is available for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone devices while Google Drive is currently available for PC, Mac and Android phones /tablets. All services do offer a web mobile version that can help you access your files from the web browser of any mobile phone.

The other important difference is that Dropbox is also available for Windows XP and Linux while SkyDrive is not.

Storage Limits

Dropbox offers 2-3 GB of free online storage storage, Google Drive offers 5 GB while SkyDrive, if you are new, offers 7 GB of storage space.

You can upload files of any size to Dropbox through the desktop client while that limit is 2 GB in the case of SkyDrive. Both SkyDrive and Dropbox let you upload files up to 300 MB from the web browser while that limit is 10 GB in the case of Google Drive.

Storage Plans

If you are running out of storage space on SkyDrive, you can buy an additional 20 GB for about $10 per year or 50 GB for $25 per year. Dropbox Pro offers 50 GB of storage space for $99 per year while Google Drive offers an extra 20 GB for $2.49 per month.

See detailed comparison of pricing plans.

Built-in File Viewers

Both SkyDrive and Dropbox web apps have built-in file viewers for most common file formats including Office documents, PDFs, videos and images. Google Docs supports even more formats – including Photoshop mockups and AutoCAD drawings – and no wonder that you can also view these files in Google Drive without additional software.

Unfortunately, maybe because of licensing issues, none of these drives will stream MP3 songs in the browser – you will to have download the MP3 file locally to play the audio.

File History

Your free Dropbox account will save any file's history for 30 days meaning if you accidentally delete or change a file, you can easily restore the previous working version for the next 30 days. SkyDrive and Google Drive also store the previous versions of all files though they have not exactly specified how many reversions are preserved.

If you delete a file or folder inside SkyDrive web app, it's gone forever whereas in the case of Dropbox and Google Drive, the files are moved to the Trash from where they can be easily restored.

Account Security

Since your Google Drive is connected to your Google Account, you can apply 2-step protection and non-authorized user won't be able to access your online file even if they are aware of your Google username and password. This extra layer of protection is not available to Dropbox and SkyDrive users.

Google Drive and Dropbox also maintain a detailed log of every single change that was made to your files (or account) but this seems to be missing in SkyDrive.

File Search

This is one area where Google Drive has a definite upper hand.

When you search for a file on Dropbox.com, it returns results where the file names matche your search keywords. SkyDrive lets you search the content of documents that are in common Microsoft Office formats. Google Drive goes a step further as it can even read the text content of scanned documents and photographs using OCR. That is, if you have saved a photograph of the whiteboard to your Google Drive account, you should be able find that image by text without having to remember the filename.

Offline Access

The mobile apps of Dropbox and Google Drive let you save any document or file on your mobile for offline use.  Such a facility is not available in the iOS apps of Windows SkyDrive though you can always export the document to another app (like iBooks or Good Reader) from SkyDrive and access it offline.

Selective Sync

If you have multiple computers, all these "online drives" will copy your files across all your machines. Sometimes, you don't want this to happen and both Dropbox and Google Drive offer you an option to selectively synchronize folders per computer. For instance, you can tell Dropbox not to download your family photographs folder on the work computer.  This saves bandwidth and your hard disk stays light too.

Selective Sync is however missing in SkyDrive.

What I like about Windows SkyDrive

SkyDrive offers plenty of storage space but the best part is that the SkyDrive web app lets you access files and folders of all your other computer right from within your browser. You just need to have SkyDrive on these machines and you can then easily access any of their files from any other computer, anywhere simply using your Windows Live ID.

SkyDrive is an absolute must-have service for Microsoft Office users because it gives you the ability to edit documents in the web browser while preserving all the formatting.

What I like about Google Drive

Google Drive offers the most pleasing interface, the search feature is brilliant and the new grid view lets you quickly browse your stored files visually. You can email any file from your Google Drive account to another user as an email attachment, a useful feature that's missing in all the other online drives.

If you live in the Google ecosystem and do not have Microsoft Office on your computer, skip SkyDrive and go with Google Drive.

What I like about Dropbox

The basic Dropbox account offers a mere 2 GB of storage space but you can easily increase your account space to 16 GB by referring a couple of friends to Dropbox. Also, you can find tons of apps that make the Dropbox service even more powerful and useful.

Google Drive and Windows Live SkyDrive are extremely promising services but none of them support as many platforms as Dropbox does. The best part about Dropbox is that it just works and it won't be easy even for Google and Microsoft to build the kind of developer ecosystem that currently exists around Dropbox.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 24/04/2012 under Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, Software.


 
 

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Easily Transfer Web Pages and Documents to your Kindle

 
 

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Let's say there's an interesting article on the web that you would like to read on your Amazon Kindle while on your way back home. Or maybe you have a couple of PDF eBooks on your desktop that you want to transfer to your Kindle. How do you initiate the transfer wirelessly?

You can either use bookmarklets to send web pages to your Kindle or email the documents as attachments to your @kindle.com address. However, a more convenient option is the Send to Kindle app from Amazon.com – this app has been available for Windows PCs for quite some time now and today, Amazon released a Mac version as well.

Send To Kindle

Send web pages and documents from the desktop your Kindle

Send Web Pages and Documents to Kindle

Send to Kindle installs as a virtual printer on your Windows or Mac and you transfer any web page to your Kindle by simple printing that page using the Kindle printer. The app turns the web page into a PDF and sends it to your Kindle.

Alternatively, if you want to transfer documents to the Kindle, you can select the documents in Windows Explorer (or Finder on the Mac) and choose "Send to Kindle" from the contextual menu. The app can transfer PDFs, images, Word documents and text files.

The same Send to Kindle app can also be used for transferring documents from the desktop to the Kindle app on your Android and iPhone / iPad devices. A must-have for Kindle users.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Easily Transfer Web Pages and Documents to your Kindle, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/05/2012 under Amazon Kindle, Software.

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  1. How to Easily Transfer Files Across Cloud Services
  2. Convert & Read Adobe PDF Files on Amazon Kindle
  3. The Kindle App for iPad
  4. Add a 'Send to Kindle' Button to your Blog
  5. How to Transfer Documents to Kindle via Email


 
 

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Price Comparison of Online Storage Services; Dropbox is Under Pressure

 
 

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The following chart compares the pricing plans ($/year) of various online storage services in case you need more than a few Gigabytes to store your photos and documents in the cloud.

Online Storage Costs - Comparison Chart

Online Storage Costs – SkyDrive Most Affordable

It turns out that Windows SkyDrive offers the best value for money ($/GB/year) but if your storage requirement exceeds 100 GB, Google Drive is the way to go.

Everyone's favorite service Dropbox looks pretty expensive at this time – they offer 100 GB space for $199/year ($2/GB) while SkyDrive charges $50 (or $.5/GB) and Google charges $60 (or $.6/GB) for the same amount of online storage.

The aggressive pricing strategy adopted by Microsoft and Google has put lot of pressure on Dropbox to lower prices and offer smaller plans. Here are some comments of Dropbox Pro users that echo a similar sentiment.

  • My $99 Dropbox yearly plan just auto-renewed and I don't know if I feel good about it in light on this weeks news. I really want to stay with Dropbox (because I think they are better), but the difference in price/space is large enough to consider switching. I hope that Dropbox responds, for their sake.
  • Everyone has been complaining that Dropbox needs to lower their prices especially in light of Amazon cloud lowering their costs… I think there is a VERY high probability I will be moving to Google once it does. The price per space differential is just too high. Unless they do something, they are probably going to lose customers. I just wish they had been proactive about this BEFORE Google released their product.
  • The price per space difference is significant. Enough for me to consider moving unless Dropbox lowers their pricing. I hope they do as I am a Dropbox supporter and push the service to all my friends, but with significant price difference, I can't justify staying with Dropbox.
  • I've been a strong supporter of Dropbox and have recommended many people to the service – especially in the early days, but with Drive coming out with those prices, Dropbox is going to have to do something with their pricing plans. I don't want to leave Dropbox, but unless pricing is brought down a little, I will move.
  • Like many other users have said, I will not renew my subscription once my current one is over unless Dropbox lowers the price significantly. The current price is simply way too much. Google Drive seems promising and good enough.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Price Comparison of Online Storage Services; Dropbox is Under Pressure, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 25/04/2012 under Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, Internet.

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  4. Online Backup Services – Review and Comparison
  5. Can You Depend on Online Storage Services That Are Free ?


 
 

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Find Who is Linking to your Website with Google Analytics

 
 

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The organic search rankings (and Google PageRank) of your web pages depend on several factors but the most crucial one is incoming links (also known as backlinks). Search engines treat external links pointing to your website as "votes" and more votes will often translate into higher search rankings. →

Find Sites That Are Linking To You

Would you like to know which websites are linking to any of your web pages? Or how many incoming links (or backlinks) have you "earned" since yesterday? Here's how you use use Google Analytics to find out who's linking to you.

Step 1: Sign-in to your Google Analytics Account and open the "Standard Reporting" dashboard for any of your Analytics profiles.

Social Report in Google Analytics

Step 2: Click the Traffic Sources group in the left sidebar followed by Social – > Pages.

Step 3: The next screen of Google Analytics will have a list of the most popular web pages on your site (sorted by traffic). Click on any of these pages to view its incoming links report.

Google Analytics - Page Report

Step 4: Google Analytics will open the Social Referrals report for that page. We need to switch to the Activity Stream tab as shown in the next screenshot.

Activity Stream

Step 5: On the Activity Stream page, switch to the Events tab (next to Conversations) and then click on any of the "green" Trackback icons (they also have permalinks) to get a list of all external website that are linking to that particular page.

Trackbacks Report

Step 6: This is the last step. Select any of the Trackbacks on the page, choose the down arrow and select "View Activity" to know the exact page URL that is linking to your website.

View Trackback

Tracking Backlinks – Bonus Tips

  • It may take a few steps to access these TrackBacks report the first time but you can add it as a widget to your Google Analytics dashboard for quick access anytime later (look for the "Add to Dashboard" button at the top of the page).
  • These reports display backlinks per page but if you would like to see the backlinks of your entire website, go to the top of the report and "Click All" to remove the Page filter.
  • If you would like to know how many new sites have linked to your websites in the last day, just go to the Date Range and change it to "Yesterday" or you can even choose custom dates.

Also see: Track Print Usage with Analytics

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Find Who is Linking to your Website with Google Analytics, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 15/06/2012 under Google Analytics, Internet.


 
 

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Calling All Indian Bloggers

 
 

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The Indian Bloggers directory (version 1.0) has been around for several years now but I need your help to take it to the next level.

Please go to indianbloggers.org/me and add your blog(s). This step should not take more than a minute and you should add (or rather claim) your blogs even if they are already part of the existing directory.

You may submit regular blogs as well as video channels and audio podcasts to the new directory.

All submissions will be manually reviewed, like before, but the upcoming version will offer even more visibility to your blogs among other things. And it won't just showcase the best blogs from India but also the people (or bloggers) who are writing these blogs.

Also, the minimum criteria for including your blog in the directory is:

  1. Your blog has been around for at least 5 months.
  2. You have published at least 30 articles on your blog.
  3. Your blog is active and has a decent readership.

You can follow the Indian Bloggers directory on Twitter and Facebook for updates. Thanks!

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Calling All Indian Bloggers, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 21/05/2012 under Blogging, India.

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  4. Some Good Advice on Blogging from Successful Bloggers
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Responsive Web Design – A Dummies Guide

One Design, Multiple Screens

 
 

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Google has officially recommended Responsive Web Design as their preferred method for building mobile websites. If you have a website or a blog, it is time that you seriously consider switching to a responsive design instead of maintaining a separate mobile-friendly (or tablet-friendly) website.

responsive web design

One Design, Multiple Screens

If you are new to the concept of Responsive Web Design (RWD), here's a quick guide that should answer most of the common questions that you may have around this technique. Let's get started.

Q1 – Why should I switch my website to Responsive Design?

A1 – Your website looks great of the desktop screen but the same may not be true when your site is viewed on a smartphone, a tablet or an e-reader (like the Kindle). Once you make the design responsive, the website will look good (and readable) on all screens and not just the desktop.

Q2 – What are the other advantages of switching to RWD?

A2: With Responsive Design, you can create one design and it will automatically adapt itself based on the screen size of the mobile device. This approach offers plenty of advantages:

  • It save time and money as you don't have to maintain separate websites for desktops and mobile phones.
  • Responsive Design is good for your website's SEO (search rankings) as every page on your site will have a single URL and thus Google juice is preserved. You don't have to worry about situations where some sites link to your mobile site while other link to your desktop site.
  • Your Google Analytics reports will paint a better picture of your site's usage since the data from mobile and desktop users will be consolidated.
  • The same will be true for the social sharing stats (Facebook Likes, Tweets, +1′s) since the mobile and desktop versions of your web pages will no longer have different URLs.
  • Responsive Designs are easier to maintain as they do not involve any server-side components. You just have to modify the underlying CSS of a page to change its appearance (or layout) on a particular device.
  • The earlier design methods looked at user agent strings to determine the mobile device name and the browser that is making the request. That was less accurate and with the number of devices and mobile browsers expanding every day, that matrix is very difficult to maintain. Responsive Design doesn't care about user agents.

Q3 – What should I know to get started with Responsive Design?

A3 – Responsive Design is pure HTML and CSS. You create simple rules in CSS that change style based on the screen-size of the user's device.

For example, you can write a rule that says if a user's screen-size is less than 320 pixels, don't show the sidebar or if the screen size is greater than 1920 pixels (widescreen desktop), increase the font size of the body text to 15px. Here are the same rules translated to code:

  @media screen and (max-width:320px) {      .sidebar { display: none }    }    @media screen and (min-width:1920px) {      body { font-size: 15px }    }

Q4 – How do I check if particular website is makes use of Responsive Design? 

A4 – That's easy. Open that website in any desktop browser and resize the browser. If the site's layout changes as you resize, the design is responsive. You can also use these online tools to compare the different layouts of a page in the same tab.

Q5 – Can you share examples of some good websites that are responsive?

A5 – That are quite a few but my favorites include The Boston Globe (news website), Simple Bits (personal blog), Happy Cog (web design agency), Barack Obama (yes, the President's website), Shake Shack (restaurant chain), Nicole & Josh (wedding website), Food Sense (cooking & recipes), dConstruct 2012 (design conference) and Good to Know (Google's site on online safety). You should also check out mediaqueri.es, a curated gallery of websites that use Responsive Design.

Q6 – If I go with the Responsive Design approach, will my website work with older browsers?

A6 – Mostly yes. RWD uses CSS3 media-queries and HTML5 (for better semantics) that are not supported in older versions of IE. However, there are JavaScript based solutions – respond.js and modernizr for example – that bring the power of CSS3 and HTML5  to older browsers including IE6.

Q7 – Does Responsive Design play nicely with advertising networks like Google AdSense?

A7 – If you using ads on your website, you should carefully choose the formats because wide units  (like the 728×60 pixel leaderboard) may not fit on a 320px mobile screen. I prefer using standard rectangular units (like 300×250) on my blog since they easily fit on smartphone screens and widescreen desktops.

The one issue with Responsive Design is that ad slots on your website that are above the fold (ATF) often gets pushed down on the mobile version and clients may not always like that (if they have paid you for a premium ATF slot).

Q8 – There are thousands of mobile devices. What screen resolutions should my responsive website support?

A8. Open your Google Analytics dashboard and choose Audience -> Technology -> Browser & OS. Now switch to the Screen Resolution tab in the report and see the resolution of mobile devices that people are using to browser your site.

I would recommend setting break points for at least the following viewports in your CSS3 Mediaqueries - 320px (iPhone landscape), 480 px (iPhone portrait), 600px (Android Tablets), 768px (iPad + ~Galaxy Tabs) and 1024px (iPad landscape and desktops).

Q9 – How do I get started with Responsive Web Design? Any good tutorials?

A9 – First, read this article by Ethan Marcotte and then buy his book. Ethan coined the term and popularized the technique ever since he wrote that article for A List Apart back in 2010.

Here are more online resources to help you get started:

Q10 – What are some of the disadvantages of using Responsive Design?

A10 – Responsive Design may add some  extra kilobytes to your web page as they will have to download CSS styles and JavaScript files that were otherwise unnecessary. The other problem is around images. You don't want to serve higher-resolution images on your mobile site but that is hard to achieve in responsive design (unless you resort to a server-side workaround like Adaptive Images and Sencha.io).

Finally, there is a learning curve involved and it will take effort to add a responsive layer to your existing website. Sometimes it may make more sense to start from scratch rather than making your existing fixed-width website fluid.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Responsive Web Design – A Dummies Guide, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 08/06/2012 under Web Design, Internet.

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  4. Digital Inspiration Gets a Responsive Web Design
  5. What is Responsive Web Design?


 
 

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