Microsoft Plans Gdrive Competitor 238
gambit3 writes "From Microsoft Watch: The MSN team is working on a new Windows Live service, code-named Live Drive, that will provide users with a virtual hard drive for storing hosted personal data. From early accounts, it sounds an awful lot like Gdrive, the still-as-yet-publicly-unannounced storage service from Google."
Apple (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Apple (Score:2)
Re:Apple (Score:2)
Re:Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has offered an online virtual hard drive since the OS 9 days (that's the previous millenium) with
It mounts as any other disk on your system, and even offers sharing with other people from that disk.
Re:Apple (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/dotmac/idisk.html [apple.com]
Re:Apple (Score:4, Funny)
Surely you just! Ever heard of the Blue Screen of Death?
in what way is it like a non-existant product? (Score:5, Insightful)
---gralem
Re:in what way is it like a non-existant product? (Score:2)
Nah, it's much closer too the as-of-yet-not-announced Yahoo!Webdrive!
Re:in what way is it like a non-existant product? (Score:2)
Re:in what way is it like a non-existant product? (Score:3, Funny)
It has to be INTELLIGENT DESIGN !
Re:in what way is it like a non-existant product? (Score:2)
The original GDrive.
Re:in what way is it like a non-existant product? (Score:2)
If I didn't know better, I'd think that "ScuttleMonkey" was trying to sink slashdot.
But what do I know?
Amazon too (Score:3, Informative)
http://aws.amazon.com/s3 [amazon.com]
That name is so Creative ... NOT (Score:2)
Didn't Creative Labs have a Live! Drive [neoseeker.com] brand breakout box for its sound cards that fit in a 5.25" drive slot?
Re:That name is so Creative ... NOT (Score:2)
free? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:free? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:free? (Score:4, Informative)
(I say this since 4 weeks ago I had 7 guys come into my house and seize my computers for copyright infringement. apparently judges think an injunction/seizure is an apropriate way to make sure that "evidence" isn't destroyed.)
Re:free? (Score:2)
Re:free? (Score:3, Informative)
Your "e" and "a" mysteriously swapped residences, jumping the two words in between. I have to say, I've never seen a spelling error quite like that before.
Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:5, Insightful)
While it may seem very obvious to us, they might not stop to consider the privacy aspects of these services, be they from Google, Apple, or Microsoft.
First of all, we need to make it clear that no financial data should be stored in such a way. That includes spreadsheets and archived tax filings.
Second of all, any personal documentation should not be placed on such remote drives. This is especially important for the employees of businesses.
Third of all, it must be realized that nothing will ever truly be deleted from such remote drives. One may think they have deleted their files, but it's quite likely that those files still exist on some server somewhere at Google or Microsoft, if not on backup tapes.
We need to have these dicussions now, before many people make costly mistakes. It will save us time and effort in the long run, if we can wake up enough people to the potential issues that arise when using these services.
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:3, Insightful)
How does being computer-literate have anything to do with the "privacy aspects of these services"? Secondly, people aren't dumb ok? If *you* realize the pitfalls of storing archived tax filings on these drives, so does *everyone else* that knows enough about modern society to use such an online service.
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:2)
A hugenumber of largelly computer literate people have filled out a 100+ question profile questionaire on MySpace providing vast amounts of personal information to MySpace and to thier "friends" (many of which they have never actually met).
]{
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:2)
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:2)
It'd be a lot better to educate people about backing up, and hopefully get them to encrypt whatever they send to these services.
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:2)
Is that really a technological issue? Or is it more of an issue of just being familiar with how businesses and government works in modern society? I would still argue that being "computer-literate" (which, by the way, is become increasingly meaningless, based on my own personal observations - everyone is "compute
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:4, Funny)
I find letting people blindly run headlong into the costly mistakes first makes them much better listeners afterwards.
Maybe I don't like my friends and relatives enough
Re:Let's talk with our friends and relatives NOW. (Score:2, Insightful)
I am not an expert but maybe someone who is could figure out how to do this.
This assumes MS and google care about privacy
You'd have to be a fool to use something like this (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care how good they claim their "safeguards" are, they're not going to be as good as they claim, and in any case the companies that host these services are not to be trusted. They do only that which is in their best interests, not yours. Those may be the same thing for a time, but I promise you that's temporary at best.
Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t (Score:5, Insightful)
And dont think it wont happen because the Patriot act permits data trolling without telling the user (go and talk to you public library - they have to hand over data about you [ala.org] and they are not allowed to tell you).
Can you imagine the conversation...
GW: I need access you your Live Drive for anyone named 'ahmed' or 'abbus' or 'abdul' or
BillG: sure - if you can call off your anti-trust watchdogs
GW: consider it done. What is anti-trust anyway??
Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t (Score:2)
Actually I would have thought the gov't already had secret deals with the big antivirus companies, forcing them to scan every "private" file for terrorism-related key words.
But then the IRS nailed Symantec with a $1B bill [forbes.com] for back taxes, which wouldn't have happened in the world of corrupt secret gov't/bizness collusion that I ha
Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t (Score:2)
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Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
-R
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
But why bother?
How much space will they actually give you? 2GB? BFD. With HD's today, an extra 2GB is less than trivial.
You'd only use this as a 'backup' for files you deem critical. And those files are precisely the ones you do NOT want under someone else's control. Go buy a 2GB flash drive, and use that.
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Yes. Buy something instead of using this free service. Something you can forget. Or lose. Or have stolen. Or leave behind because you incorrectly thought you wouldn't need it. Something you can't IM your friends as a way to distribute files.
Flash drives have their place. There are other benefits to them. Like you don't need to have a working 'net connection to use them, and you don't have as much worry about security. (Though see above about losing it or having it stol
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
A general 'personal net drive' doesn't seem, to me, to hold much value over other, more targeted storage/hosting services.
I guess time will tell as to what people may use these services for. The initia
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
All sorts of stuff. Picures for instance. I could put most of my photo album online and let people see it. That's one of the more practical uses I can think of off the top of my head. It might be useful for collaboration purposes.
I *do* know that I use the university's network drives constantly, and suspect I'd use something like GDrive if I didn't have access to them.
IM your friends so they can d/l some files? OK...give them the pw and off the go. Either they are rea
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Right, but without some structure, YOU need to build an interface. Something that is done free elsewhere. You and I may have no problem doing that...but the rest of the people out there...
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
But it has some really nice qualities for backup- it's geographically separated from your systems, so a tornado or fire won't cause you to lose everything. You can automate it... a flash drive isn't a very good backup if the lightning strike that takes out your computer also takes out the flash drive plugged into it. The encryption I mentioned handles confident
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
I read it as applying to any evidence in a federal crime, regardless of wether you have been convicted or charged with anything yourself.
Re:Just encrypt everything before sending it (Score:2)
Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t (Score:3, Insightful)
The only problem I'm seeing is that many of these things are already covered by existing, specialized services.
Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t (Score:2)
Yeesh!
Re:You'd have to be a fool to use something like t (Score:2)
You would be reasonably safe if you encrypt all your files stored using this type of service.
Re: (Score:2)
it's not unpublicly not announced yet? (Score:5, Funny)
it's been publicly unnanounced, how the fuck do you pull that off?
I need that skill.
Re:it's not unpublicly not announced yet? (Score:3, Funny)
Easy.. (Score:2)
Second, utilize your Jedi to complete the 'unannouncement'
(hand wave)This is not the announcement you are looking for.
Re:it's not unpublicly not announced yet? (Score:2)
I might be off by a little, but I think it is pulled of using the "We are at war with Oceania; we have always been at war with Oceania" principle.
Even if the RIAA manages to ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool.
Re:Even if the RIAA manages to ... (Score:2)
Why do people keep saying other's have done it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why do people keep saying other's have done it. (Score:2)
a virtual hard drive for storing hosted personal data is worse than useless. A 'small' personal drive, full of personal data, that you can no longer control.
Too small for much music or video. Not secure enough for really personal data. Too slow for everything.
Ok...maybe...if you frequently access from a public machine or something...maybe you'd keep your current links there or
Every Time. (Score:2)
The repetition is coming from M$. It's called vaporware [wikipedia.org]. Their slavish devotion to anything Google is matched only their hatred of the company.
Compare it to the original, please.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.xdrive.com/ [xdrive.com]
Also, I can't wait for Palm to take them to court because Live Drive sounds an awful lot like LifeDrive.
http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/li
Striping? (Score:2)
Would my information be more secure if the police have to subpoena two companies instead of one?
Re:Striping? (Score:5, Informative)
As a bonus, you get disk encryption essentially for free. Here is a great app [truecrypt.org] for Windows and Linux for creating and mounting encrypted drives in a file that I've used to do exactly this (on SMB servers). For those of you using XP, here is a guide [tomshardware.com] on how to hack XP to enable the raid5 features that are disabled in the non-server versions.
Re:Striping? (Score:2)
Google should 'fight back' (Score:2, Insightful)
LetterRip
"Live [blank]" is today's "Active [blank]" (Score:4, Interesting)
I keep noticing the trend: Microsoft gives their product names a prefix or suffix that adds a sporty/jaunty sense, without changing the name's meaning.
Pure marketing. In the 80s they prefixed their software with "Microsoft"
Re:"Live [blank]" is today's "Active [blank]" (Score:2)
So... (Score:5, Interesting)
OIC!
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
You're not in sync with the Slashdot weltanschauung: Microsoft's secret is to preemptively copy everything Google might eventually do!
Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)
Man google is dead now.
Re:So... (Score:2)
I'm not exactly sure Google has a search result page that uses Ajax
need more than bandwidth for this (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:need more than bandwidth for this (Score:2, Informative)
Re:need more than bandwidth for this (Score:2)
Re:need more than bandwidth for this (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, I bought the .Mac package this year and I was suprised at how slow it is just to traverse directories. Apple needs to make it's .Mac technolo
Can we manage to get real? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you say oxymoron?
Trust Us, We're Microsoft (Score:2)
Re:Trust Us, We're Microsoft (Score:2)
What? (Score:2)
You may as well say that Duke Nukem Forever will be like the yet-to-be-announced Half-Life 3.
I gotta say (Score:3, Insightful)
SoundBaster Live! (Score:3, Informative)
RoamDrive (Score:5, Informative)
Eventually they promise a "pro" version that allows you to link as many hotmail and gmail accounts as your want (equating to essentially unlimited storage).
contains adware (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.virusbuster.hu/en/ [virusbuster.hu]
contains:
Trojan.DL.Istbar.Gen.1
so tread with extreme caution
This is getting complicated! (Score:2)
Go Microsoft, go!
Data rates (Score:2)
What I want is... (Score:2)
So you would be able to both download AND upload files over bog standard HTTPS.
The ideal program would let me share different bits of my drive under different passwords (e.g. one password for all of the drive, another for certain "shared files" etc) and would let me manipulate everything (creating folders, deleting files, downloading files, uploading files) over bog-standard alm
Re:What I want is... (Score:2)
They can get read access just by using an https address in their browser (and authenticate, obviously).
For read/write treat-it-like-a-normal-folder access, there's support built into mac, windows network folders, and kde.
for example, just typing webdavs://www.exampl
Re:What I want is... (Score:2)
Much different than emailing yourself files? (Score:2, Insightful)
There seem to be a lot of naysayers and negativity towards the idea of an online file system, and I wonder whether it is really warranted.
To those who say that an online file system is "worthless" because bandwidth is too low, or because of privacy issu
this gives me an idea... (Score:3, Funny)
Gdrive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is Gdrive even planned for sure?
Funny to compare with a rumored service in the title if not.
Re:Worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
It's almost more useless now than it was when I was using my iDisk 5 years ago on dialup.
Re:Worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
If I want to open a video clip stored on one of these remote drives, it's definitely annoying if I have to wait a minute for enough of the file to be downloaded to start playing the video. But if I have the same video that I want to upload to a remote drive, it's no big deal if I start the transfer, then go and do something else while it's quietly uploading in the backgrou
Re:Worthless (Score:2)
Having a car is impractical because it'd take you 3 days to drive from Kansas to California.
Re:Worthless (Score:2)
Re:Worthless (Score:2)
Re:Technical details (Score:4, Funny)
While notable, this has actually been around for a while. It's called 'ActiveX'.
Re:AT&T recall? (Score:2)