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http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm Been in use for a long time... If this is as easy to use as Dropbox and as easy to share as that or as easy as google docs, then sign me up.

I know. That's why I write all my webpages in x86 assembly.

Is EVERYTHING some kind of extreme religious issue for you? Man, you must be a miserable person. Does it take the pain away to post sarcastic and condescending replies on Slashdot?

Wouldn't it be better to stop being a condescending ass who has to take everything to the utmost extreme because he cannot handle a contrary opinion? Isn't that better than being that way, being miserable because of it, and then taking that misery out on various Slashdot users? Like a shorter distance between two points.

I know. That's why I write all my webpages in x86 assembly.

I can see this becoming a popular filesharing tool; I can see myself and some online friends sharing a google account for the sake of making a free high-speed dump to replace private FTP sites, Rapidshare links etc.

Recently? Sure have. I use it twice a day at least. Used it just now. Every couple of months, google changes something. Just check http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm and an update is usually there the next day. I have a drive mapped to it on work machines. Nice stuff.

I've been using the GMail Drive Shell Extansion for quite a while now. Google must have liked it as well.

There is 'gmailfs' which allows you to mount your Gmail share as a local directory. It is apparently not fully secure as it stores your password as text on your system, but well...

I know that it is available for Linux systems, though I have never been able to fully get it to work.

Here is theLinux link.

Here is a link to a Windows Port.

It's not a "one-touch" solution, but what is? I has the potential to be a great deal more than just your average backup.

See: http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

• No-nonsense POP access with other email clients (ie. outlook) so I don't even have to use the web-UI if I prefer. Yahoo's alternative could have been YPOPS but it seemed clunkier with an extra layer loaded in the background.
• No 'Signup for [Hot/Yahoo/*]Mail today!' plug attached to each outgoing message
• Gmail drive functionality (however long that is going to work)

I've personally found the "GMail Drive" (http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm) quite useful for sending files to myself between work and home. Effectively this program just provides a nice filesystem-like interface for emailing a file to yourself using GMail.

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 issues, I ask you if you have ever emailed yourself a file so that you could pick it up somewhere else. The argument that I am making here is that if you are using a mail server as a file server, then you already using an online file system.

Sure, no online file system is going to have the bandwidth of a local hard drive. That's why you don't email yourself 700 MB mpeg movie files. Does that mean it's worthless to ever be able to email yourself a file? I don't think so. There are lots of files that are small enough to send over email yet big enough to contain interesting information. By extension, there are lots of files that are small enough to store on an online file system and still be useful.

Sure, no online file system is going to ever be able to guarantee complete security. That's why you don't email your tax documents and your credit card number to yourself. Does that mean it's worthless to be able email yourself files? Not at all. It just means that you always have to take into account the possibility that your information may get into the wrong hands. This is true for any file system. If instead of storing your files on an online file system you bring a USB key around everywhere you go, you still have to think about what will happen if you leave it in the wrong place and someone else finds it. Just ask the guys selling the USB keys in the bazaar in Afghanistan about that. So, if you can trust the security of your email provider for certain kinds of information, should you not be able to trust the security of on online filesystem provider?

In my opinion, it's a good thing that services like this are being offered, just as it is a good thing that there are free web mail services. But anytime you leave your data with someone else, you need to ask yourself how much you trust them to take care of it, and you need to balance the convenience of easy access against the risk of the data falling into the wrong hands.

Is a Microsoft online file service trustworthy enough to store your data on? Judging by their past security record on Hotmail, I would say don't put too much trust in them. You also have consider that they are a likely target for hackers just because they are a big target. But I would have no qualms about storing, say, photos from my vacation on a hotmail account... or, by extension, on an online file system that was connected to my Hotmail account. So, my point is that even a not-so-trustworthy MSN Live Drive from Microsoft is not worthless.

...I thought this was announcing one of the already-existing third-party Gmail-based drives, like GSpace or GMail Drive, both of which I use. They work fine, why do I need another one? Long live GMail! (And a fiery death to Google Earth...but that's a different discussion.)

Although not created by google, and not guaranteed to work if google decides to block it, you can use your gmail account as a gdrive using this handy little shell extension found at http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

I've been using it for a while now, to make easy backups of my backups (in encrypted zip files of course)

How is this news? You can long ago access google "storage service" on *nix and on windows

Whats the big deal? I've been using gmail for storage since the start.

This project stemmed the GMail Drive shell extension, which effectivly intergrates the same method of using gmail's storage into Windows.

Me Either

Fortunately, they have a link to http://www.gmailtools.com/ which has a link to this article : http://www.sheerboredom.net/modules.php?name=News& file=article&sid=72

It's a full writeup on how to use the Gmail Drive Shell Extension

Integrates into "My Computer" and works* like a charm.

I dunno if the current version still works with the current Gmail service.

I prefer GMail Drive, even if it is a little buggy.
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

you know, that you can mount your gmail account as a network drive, right?
(http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm)

and yes, for source code, 2+ gigs lasts a while ..

Well...one successful way to fill up your multi-gig account on Gmail is to functionally use the tools people have written to use such a site to it's fullest potential.

I get no kickback for this, and it was a /. post some time ago:

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

It makes your gmail account a drive on your computer. Great for having access to your own personal sftp anytime you need it.

If there would be the ability to have a "webdrive" like there's available for google, this might be interesting.

Otherwise, to keep 30G of chainletters, spam, and the occasional email seems like a waste of space. In the line of google's history, they'd come out with 50G mailboxes in no time to stay current and on top. ;)

Well I also like Gmail Drive, it's kindof a neat feature though it's not supported by Google.

nice.
I havent used it, but appears you can do the same using gmail instead, GMAILFS http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

or the open source version:

http://pgd.sourceforge.net/

This is actually a pretty good idea. The storage is large enough for most uses, it's obviously portable, and it's a solution that they can carry with them after they leave a given institution. There's also a hack that lets GMail act like an extra drive on windows machines, which makes it easy for the user: Gmail virtual drive.

Gmail http://gmail.google.com/ are currently offering 2Gb of free searchable storage space, which combined with GmailFS, http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm provides a useful solution for small groups of students, thoughdue to the problem of aquiring a gmail account, maybe not widespread file storage.

well... there is an unofficial windows app that lets you mount your gmail box as a drive... but using it for mysql would be fairly crappy throughput

see here

BTW this reminds me of this thing i found that lets you use a g-mail account as a virtual hard drive.

These? GmailFS (for Linux) and GMail Drive (for Windows).

There is a shell extension (for Windows) to integrate your gmail account as a drive. http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

2 gigabytes of storage might be pointless for just email, but it could be useful if you use a Gmail Drive Extension like http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

You can even mount your gmail "drive", then drag-n-drop files into it. when you go on http://www.gmail.com/, you can see them in the trash with a special title, so they don't mess your mailbox up.
Go here for a windows version and here for a Linux version

(Yeah, I need these karma points !)

Archive them to CD/DVD and also copy them to Gmail as an off-site backup :D (well, a gigs worth at least...)

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

Back up your data off site on GmailFS.

Win32 Version

*nix version

<%@ page language="Asm80386" %>
<%
Str: DB "Testing...", 0

mov eax, -2
cmp eax, 2
jle Label1
xor eax, eax
Label1:
lea esi, Str
push esi
call "Response.Write(string)"
pop esi
%>
<br>EAX: <%= eax %>