GMail Drive Shell Extension

krmpradeep writes "GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google GMail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium. GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to."

Comments

Interesante

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, thats pretty neat.

Re:Interesante

[colaco]

Interesting in portuguese is "interessante" with two S's, not interesante.

I wonder if they'll try to license Mac

[ebooher]

Makes me wonder if they will try to license the Apple iDisk format for this as well for Mac users. I wouldn't mind having a 1 Gig internet drive to access files from home, work, and school without the need to carry DVD's around.

Re:I wonder if they'll try to license Mac

[Srass]

I wouldn't think they'd need to license it... iDisk's mainly just a DAV share with a pretty face.

Re:I wonder if they'll try to license Mac

[ebooher]

Ahh!! RTFA, right? I thought it was *Google* who had put this out there. Yeah, these guys wouldn't have any thing to worry about putting up a hack for Mac as well. I was working under the assumption that the thing was Google sponsored, meaning that even though it is DAV based, to put it out there as a "Hey, hit us up with iDisk" would be begging for a cease and desist.

Re:I wonder if they'll try to license Mac

[jrockway]

Why?

jrockway@powerwifi$ mount_webdav
usage: mount_webdav [-o options] dav-enabled-uri mount-point

It's built in to the OS. Why would Apple want you to not use it?

Re:I wonder if they'll try to license Mac

[trash eighty]

well you can already use iDisk fine from Windows

For Linux too!

[x4A6D74]

http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-files ystem/gmail-filesystem.html

Haven't tried it yet; I keep meaning to but school keeps getting in the way.

Re:For Linux too!

[Hobadee]

I tried it. I added it to /etc/fstab (not automounting). I never use it. Why? Simple. It takes to flipping long. When I was all excited and playing around with it, I stuck a text file that said "Hello World" on it. I did an "ls". 30 seconds later I got the response from "ls". I then catted the file. Again, at least 30 seconds before it came back with anything. It is incredibly horribly slow - and this was with a recent version. (1-2 weeks ago)

I don't see how this is "news" at all - this has been around pretty much since Gmail went beta.

Re:For Linux too!

[nicolas.e]

The article is about similar software for windows, which, presumably, is new.

Re:For Linux too!

[toremini]

Link seems to be down right now, 404. :(

Re:For Linux too!

[Anonymous Coward]

there is a bad space in the supplied url, try: http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-files ystem/gmail-filesystem.html

Nice, but doomed

[BristolCream]

This won't last long. One of the reaosns Google and others can offer so much space is that they're confident that it won't be used.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[robot captain]

I don't see how it could be doomed. So long as google doesn't implement a maximum file size to incoming e-mails, what would prevent anyone from sending an email to a gmail account with a large file to leave on the google system for any period of time?

Re:Nice, but doomed

[polecat_redux]

This won't last long.

They may have tolerated the concept if it had remained within the realm of Linux, but now that the Windows floodgates are open, I suspect that they will put an end to this very quickly.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Sneeper]

Actually Gmail *does* have a file size limit to incoming e-mails. As one person on the GMAIL Drive Forums states:

It appears that Google has put a file size limit on "attachments". I've installed GMail Drive and tried a couple quick uploads. One was a tar.bz2 file that weighs in at 23MB. After dragging the file over to the GMail Drive window, it worked for a while then returned an error message stating that "File is too big. GMail does currently not support files larger than 10 Mb."

The response confirms:

Great point Steve. GMail does have an attachment size limit which does limit the usefulness of these file system extensions. One solution would be to handle file splitting in the tool.

I don't have a gmail account, but anyone who does should be able to easily confirm this.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[krymsin01]

Even if they did set a maximum file size (and I think they already do), all you would have to do is split the file up into chunks that are less than gmail's maximum file size. This hack probably does that, and if it doesn't it should.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jeffb]

I wouldn't hedge my bets. It is, after all Google -- they have a lot of machines (worldwide), networked together by a solid infrastructure (that many of us could only dream of) and all other things considered, disk space is pretty inexpensive.

Then again, even though there may be no problem with everyone fully utilizing the space that's available, Google may take offence at you violating their TOS in order to do so. :)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jericho4.0]

Google is a volume buisness. They pay very little for a Gig of storage, and they make $ off ads.

Google might have a problem with widespread use of this as you don't see there ads, but I don't think they're too worried about the space.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[wibs]

yup, 10MB max attachment size. the help page for attachments also mentions that the encoding is so bloated that attachments of 6MB might hit the size limit, too (alright, they didn't use the word "bloated" but it seems a little absurd to me).

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Facekhan]

I will say one thing though. Google has nothing on the credit card companies. Visa's network has more redundancies than anything I have ever heard of. I bet that my Visa card would work until the electricity went out even if the whole world went into social meltdown (mass riots/wars).

Re:Nice, but doomed

[PayPaI]

No, it's not really absurd. Base-64 encoding increases file size by something like 3/2. If you do not use base-64 encoding, then your files may become corrupted in transit.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[wibs]

good to know, i was under the impression that it generally did not increase file size by that much. learn something new every day, I guess.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[sik0fewl]

They already have a cache of the entire [public] Internet. What makes you think they can't handle this?

Re:Nice, but doomed

[eMartin]

They might have even tolerrated the few Windows users that would actually use it, but now that the Slashdot floodgates are open...

Re:Nice, but doomed

[secretsquirel]

"I bet that my Visa card would work until the electricity went out even if the whole world went into social meltdown (mass riots/wars)." Not after all currency becomes useless and we resort back to a goods trade economy. Hey, it could happen.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[renoX]

That's why the yencoding format was created: to have a lower increase..

But I don't think that it will replace base64 anytime soon, unfortunately.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

A byte is technically 0-255, and base-64 basically utilizes 6 out of 8 bits of the byte. (0-63, only using A-Z,a-z,0-9,and two others)
Therefore anything base-64 encoded will be exactly 25% larger than it not.
I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[polecat_redux]

My point was that since the sheer volume of Windows systems is far greater than that of Linux, Google may not have had a problem with the few Linux users that would utilize such an application. But its availability on Windows systems will open it up to much more widespread abuse. I think that fact was lost on the idiot who modded me a troll.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[chewy_2000]

It'd be trivial to implement, you would think - just about every archiving program out there has a feature to split up files. However, I have no doubt that if Google wants to, they'll be able to stop this - even if they just limited the amount of incoming emails to any one account from one IP address, or something similar. If this gains any kind of popularity they probably will stop it, although it'd be interesting to see some kind of varient of this from google (probably paid for, since I can't see how ads would tie in here..).

Re:Nice, but doomed

[strider44]

actually I think the volume of people who would actually use this is larger in linux!

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I think so too.
Time to sell that Maxtor, Seagate, WD stock again :-)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Alioth]

It'll last plenty of time.

It's impractical to use much of this storage unless you have an OC-45 to hand. The vast majority of people have internet connections with pathetic upstream bandwidth (128K, 256K - occasionally 512K - and very rarely more than that). It'll be fabulous for storing small files you want easy access to from anywhere, but pretty useless for storing large files or large quantities of small files simply due to the time it'll take to upload/download the files.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Except on usenet porno groups of course. Where BW really matters.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Kn0xy]

Though I agree that this opens up some more gates to abuse, I don't agree it will be more rampant depending on what system of choice your on. (Hence probably why you got modded negatively, people tend to view OS bashing as flamebait around here, especially when it really isn't factual or called for.)

As for abuse of Gmail and it's offerings already, Google isn't just a handful of servers in someone's basement anymore. Now a days, it's a decent sized company that has employed some people with minds. I'm somewhat sure they have already thought ahead on how some might abuse their products.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[polecat_redux]

people tend to view OS bashing as flamebait around here, especially when it really isn't factual or called for.)

I wasn't bashing Linux (I use it myself). In fact, I was simply pointing out that far less people use Linux (in a home-user context) than Windows - something that is entirely factual. Linux does not possess anywhere near the market share of Windows. This is the reason usage of that app would be more widespread... plain and simply, more exposure.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[blane.bramble]

I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

Where exactly do you think "binary attachments" are stored - they are part of the email text. email (and specifically SMTP mail) was designed to carry text - MIME and attachments etc. are implemented as specially formatted text within the email body.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Ford Prefect]

Where exactly do you think "binary attachments" are stored

I think Mr Coward thinks Google probably converts the Base64-encoded files into their binary equivalents on reception, freeing up storage space.

I would...

Re:Nice, but doomed

[tomstdenis]

Just FYI it's 4/3 not 3/2. That is, base-64 encoding puts out 4 bytes for every 3 bytes it reads in.

So 10MB * 3/4 => 7.5MB

Tom

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they could kill it.. OR give you the ability to use the stored files as attachments. And also use the filenames and or any other applying file info to index the adwords for ads shown next to e-mails. BTW. You are just sending yourself and e-mail with the file attached. Merely a point a click one step method.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[anthony_dipierro]

disk space is pretty inexpensive

Disk space is pretty inexpensive, but the kind of bandwidth this filessystem will likely use isn't. I'm sure google is already spending more on bandwidth than hard drive space. With people transferring all these files without even looking at an ad, it's bound to cost them a lot of money.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Teppy]

Storage costs $0.50/G these days, and all drives are faster than network storage. Why anyone would add another piece of duct tape to their Windows box to save fifty cents is beyond me. Cool hack, but that's about it.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Glonoinha]

Actually the Linux folks see it as a fun hack but don't actually use it because it is so slow.
Windows users will flock to it and probably won't notice the difference.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[1u3hr]

Why anyone would add another piece of duct tape to their Windows box to save fifty cents is beyond me.

Backup.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Quill_28]

Backwards I believe.

10MB * 4/3 ~= 13.3 MB

It does not compress but rather takes all bytes and turns them into readable chars.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[ggambett]

It's *sent* over the wire that way, because originally SMTP only supported 7 bit ASCII, but once it gets go Google they should store it however they please, so I don't think this applies.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[photon317]

s/45/48/

Re:Nice, but doomed

[binarybum]

Agreed, I do not believe this hack does this, but if it did, it might actually be worth using.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

In Sweden, and mid-sized university cities in particular, cheap 10mb and even 100mb lines are very common.
Unfortunately they usually impose silly daily traffic limits to the internet, like a few hundred megabytes per day.

I heard of one neighborhood where they have a 100 megabytes/day limit on a 100 mbit/sec line! They can transfer 100 megabytes in less than 10 seconds, and after that, the bandwidth is automatically strangled down a few kbits/second.

Internet traffic within these cities is usually free though, and thus free of limits, these networks are like big LANs, often colled DMZs (DeMilitarized Zones).

Re:Nice, but doomed

[vivekg]

I don't have a gmail account, but anyone who does should be able to easily confirm this

Visit my blog, and or mail me i will give you gmail http://nixcraft.net/gmail-watch/

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

And when I say cheap I'm talking nabout approximately 10 dollars, the connections usually comes with the apartment, with the cost added to the rent.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Not after all currency becomes useless and we resort back to a goods trade economy.

Why the fuck would anyone want that?

Just a question, not trying to be harsh.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jc42]

..., but now that the Windows floodgates are open, I suspect that they will put an end to this very quickly.

Note especially the comment that "GMail Drive ... enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer.

It's only a matter of time until a message is developed that, when sent to a gmail account, installs software that lets remote software use the account as a relay. Soon thereafter, all those gmail accounts of Windows users will become the Net's biggest anonymizing spam relay.

It'll be fun to watch the gmail developers try to program their way out of this one ...

Re:Nice, but doomed

[gordyf]

It's only a matter of time until a message is developed that, when sent to a gmail account, installs software

How did you jump to the conclusion that this was possible?

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Mr Fodder]

> I don't have a gmail account,
Did you want one? I have plenty of invites wasting away for whoever would like one.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jc42]

From the fact that they're using IE. Of course, it used to be that you had to trick them into opening an attachment to get your code run on their machine. Now, it seems, all you need to do is send them a JPEG file.

A few will be up to date with their patches, so none of this will work. But probably not enough of them to skew the statistics significantly, if history is any guide.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Chris84000000]

Base-64 encoding is a 4/3 ratio of increase.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[secretsquirel]

No one would want it. After say a world wide nuclulear war it might be unavoidable though.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[ComputerSherpa]

And how, exactly, will they get the password that the software needs to access a GMail Drive?

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jc42]

Hey, an easy one!

The password will be sent in from that keystroke logger that was installed a few months ago.

(You just aren't paranoid enough. Your Windows box probably has 5 or 6 such loggers already, not counting the ones that came pre-installed. That's why your keyboard response has gotten so slow. ;-)

So what's a Computer Sherpa?

Re:Nice, but doomed

[ComputerSherpa]

Computer Sherpa: Someone who carries heavy loads for others, knows important stuff so other people don't have to, and helps clueless people accomplish things far beyond what they're used to. See also: resident geek, servant, force multiplier.

Hey, you asked :-)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jc42]

Ah; so like the original Sherpas, you do most of the "heavy lifting", and in the end, its the others who get credit for accomplishments.

(How often do you read that Tenzing Norgay was the other first person to climb Mount Everest?)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[ComputerSherpa]

Not everyone's goal is to get their name in lights. :-)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[blane.bramble]

You'd have to process each email when it was received and everytime it was accessed though (on top of any processing for display purposes). I guess it depends on whether storage space or processor power is cheaper.

Huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been meaning to impliment something like this in OS X, but GmailFS uses FUSE, which is Linux only. I wonder how he did this for Windows.

Re:Huh...

[Nermal6693]

Can't you compile Fuse on OS X? I'm no expert, but most Linux apps simply need a recompile and they'll work.

Re:Huh...

[marinv]

That works only for userland apps. When it comes to kernel code, ususaly you have to rewrite it from scratch.

Re:Huh...

[Nermal6693]

Ah, I didn't realise that it tied into the kernel.

Re:Huh...

[tunah]

User-space filesystem packages generally have a kernel level component to expose the needed features to user-space. It could work if wrote a version of the kernel module for darwin, i guess.

Re:Huh...

[kinzillah]

its a filesystem. has to tie into the kernel :)

Re:Huh...

[jericho4.0]

Fuse is an userspace interface to the linux kernel, and would take a complete rewrite to port to Darwin.

Re:Huh...

[julesh]

I wonder how he did this for Windows.

Its a kludge. It only works through the shell, the same as Windows XP's "compressed folder" system that lets you do stuff with ZIP files. You have to copy the files locally before you can open them.

I don't know if OSX supports such a ridiculous concept, but if it does it would probably be easier to implement than a full filesystem.

Re:Huh...

[ocelotbob]

It would probably be possible to write a userland nfs type system, sort of how certain encrypted filesystem setups worked. Though I'm not an NFS hacker, so don't look at me to write it. Though a hint to the person who writes it - use one meg block sizes, email headers as pseudo inodes.

Re:Huh...

[Nermal6693]

I use OS X so that I don't have to know stuff like that :p

Re:Huh...

[puddpunk]

Zing!

Works as advertised

[erick99]

Jeeze, pretty amazing. Downloaded the filed, installed it, and was transferring files in less than 60 seconds. No kidding! Files transfer faster than when I email the same sized attachment which is pretty nice. When you click/double-click on the drive it opens like any other drive/folder window and you see the files that are stored there. A free gig of off-site storage. I haven't tried to transfer something bigger than the 10MB attachment limit yet, but I will give it a shot. A great app!

Re:Works as advertised

[erick99]

10MB limit applies. Oh well, still very cool.

Re:Works as advertised

[ebooher]

While I will admit that the concept of having a drive on your desktop that lives somewhere other than your local machine is neat, it isn't really a stretch of the technology, is it?

I mean, Apple has had iDisk since even before Mac OS X came out on the scene, I was using it to keep my documents synced at school when I was still using Mac OS 8 (I think.... may have been early 9)

Also, I *know* there was another "freebie" website a couple of years ago that did something very similar that allowed you to connect to their storage via a drive icon in My Computer on Windows.

And we won't even start on *NIX networked file systems ..... But I think this is going to be a very big gotcha for the service. It will really get some crazy attention now. However, I hope earlier /. posts I saw about "How soon before script kiddies and pirates use this as file repositories" don't start immediately coming true. Kill it before it even starts.

Re:Works as advertised

[Anonymous Coward]

Got it installed, works just fine, 10MB limit applies...no faster than actually e-mailing a file here, though.

Of course, I'm one of those losers running WinME on an 850GHz P3. I can't say I'm surprised to have lesser results, but as you said,

"A free gig of off-sit storage."

Still a nice option, lacking ftp access.

Re:Works as advertised

[zalas]

Is there a limit on the number of emails GMail will store for you? Would it be possible to do some sort of block based FS on top of GMail, so you have about 1kB pieces of email. Furthermore, use a log based file system design to reduce the amount of rewriting. That way, you'd get rid of the 10MB limit, but it does require a bit more work than simply mailing attachments.

Re:Works as advertised

[Baricom]

Also, I *know* there was another "freebie" website a couple of years ago that did something very similar that allowed you to connect to their storage via a drive icon in My Computer on Windows.

You may be referring to Xdrive, but they turned pay some time ago. $10/month/5 GB.

Re:Works as advertised

[pk2000]

The attachment is called part01.bin may be part02.bin, part03.bin ... allow to store larger than 10 MB files?

Re:Works as advertised

[inode_buddha]

Big difference tho - Xdrive explicitly supports linux and mac already, and doesn't require any filesystem twiddling. Works just fine for me from moz/linux.

Re:Works as advertised

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most other web based online storage it is as slow as molasses. Is no substitute for FTP or a mounted NFS home directory.

However, due to security concerns by the local PHB, I am restricted to web access on this msWinF***9000 box.

Fortunatly he doesn't know about putty or FTP so at least I can still access my own files. (WEBsence does not a security policy make)

Re:Works as advertised

[LookSharp]

I mean, Apple has had iDisk since even before Mac OS X came out on the scene, I was using it to keep my documents synced at school when I was still using Mac OS 8 (I think.... may have been early 9)

Just as an FYI, iDisk required OS 9 (I'm pretty sure it was the security features included, Keychain etc.) to function.

My iMac with MacOS 8.6 wouldn't do it.

Re:Works as advertised

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using something spanning RAR archives.

You'll make the files stored smaller and will definitely remove the 10 MB limit.

Re:Works as advertised

[speeDDemon (nw)]

Well if their is a 10mb limit on files, just split the files into 10mb chunks, combine when needed.

It came out, has thousands of members

[zaxios]

and now it's being manipulated with third party tools. Is Gmail going to live its entire life in Beta?

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[ebooher]

Probably, consider that while the product is in Beta they can guarantee that they will make no service level oriented promises. This gives them the opportunity to play around with all kinds of new tech that they may be able to spin off into a money maker while at the same time being able to completely walk away if it melts down.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[metlin]

Well, that's the idea isn't it?

And Google is doing a brilliant job of it, IMHO.

Release a product out in the open, let people hack up everything they can that is possible and merely observe and tweak the product without breaking it (come on, "it's in Beta" argument).

And once the product is reasonably stable, release it as a proper version with all the features and viola! You won't be breaking the system for a while, you've eliminated a large number of potential hacks such as this one and your system is already widely adopted.

Personally, that's the idea of Beta, and I'm happy that there is atleast *one* company out there who hold true to that principle.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[lpontiac]

Probably. Google News is still labeled "beta".

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[Down8]

Personally, that's the idea of Beta, and I'm happy that there is atleast *one* company out there who hold true to that principle.

And people bitch about putting out product that's "just a beta", not a finished product - can't do it all.

-bZj

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[Kethinov]

It doesn't need to remain Beta for that. Debian isn't beta, yet is distributed with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRENTY (as it says in caps when you login) and whatnot. I don't think Gmail being beta has anything to do with liability or freedom from promises.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[mrchaotica]

Google News still should be beta!

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is a test. Really is. It is to test whether /. accepts posts from this domain; it didn't sometime back, but now it very well could. What if it did? Will I tunnel into this domain to post? I think I should tweak this without breaking Slashcode.

All in all, I think Bush is gay, but Kerry is fast becoming as much a pansy as well. And oh, your posts suck because you don't use the secret letter ' '.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[hazem]

And people bitch about putting out product that's "just a beta", not a finished product - can't do it all.

Yeah, but I don't pay for my gmail account. I had to pay for Windows when I bought my computer.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[anthony_dipierro]

Not sure if you've heard this, but Google News is still beta because the lawyers won't let them release a non-beta version. [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040929-425 6.html]

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[generic-man]

Lawyers have said that Google News can never be run for profit, not that it must remain in "lawyer-induced beta" like that headline claims. Google News qualifies for Fair Use provisions as long as it is not a for-profit entity. It doesn't matter whether you call it "alpha," "beta," or "Suzy." Google News cannot make money; its entire purpose is to copy little samples of images and news from other companies' web sites.

Now if you want to start syndicating Google News yourself, Google has some news for you.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot different when you're a big company that people come to expect something from. If millions of users switch from hotmail over to gmail, and then google pulls the plug, the PR fallout is going to be bad. Debian doesn't have such issues. They don't have the same market share. They're not a company. And their community is self-serving (i.e., users and developers are roughly the same type of user), so certain things are more forgiveable by users.

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[sulli]

release it as a proper version with all the features and viola!

But what if you prefer the double bass, or a woodwind? Then what?!

slightly OT...

[mp3phish]

Can someone tell me how to get information on signing up for the beta? I went to www.gmail.com and it has a place to login but I don't see a link to signup. Am I missing something?

thanks in advance.

Re:slightly OT...

[James_G]

You need an invite. Try http://www.gmailswap.com/.

Re:slightly OT...

[mqRakkis]

Can someone tell me how to get information on signing up for the beta?

You need a gmail "invite" from someone. AFAIK that's the only way to get an account.

Re:slightly OT...

[peezer]

Um--you still need an invitation in order to receive a G-mail account. it is my understanding that there are plenty floating around. I'm sure there are a few /. ers who would be willing to send you an invite...

Re:slightly OT...

[polecat_redux]

I'm sure there are a few /. ers who would be willing to send you an invite...

Very true. The first person to respond to this post gets one.

Re:slightly OT...

[thermo99]

email me and i'll throw one your way.

Re:slightly OT...

[xlyz]

try also gmailomatic

Re:slightly OT...

[wibs]

I have 6 to throw away... stopped asking if anyone wanted one months and months and months ago after everyone i knew had one/was sick of hearing about them, so these invites have just been sitting there for a looong time.

If someone out there wants one, send me an email at wiberwachi - - at - - earthlink.net (god I love throwaway emails, I haven't had to worry about spam in years).

Re:slightly OT...

[bazooka_foo]

i'll try one -
bazooka_foo@yahoo.com

Re:slightly OT...

[TheRealStaunch]

I've got 12 invites up for grabs, just reply with an email address to send them to

Re:slightly OT...

[LnxAddct]

Email me at sgk25-at-drexel-.edu begin the subject with something like "[GMail] " so i know what it is. I have 6 invites, already gave out invites out to friends who wanted them. Or I could just have 7 gigs of offsite storage....
Regards,
Steve

Re:slightly OT...

[Anonymous Coward]

First five to email hbarker at gmail get one from me. I sure don't need them.

Re:slightly OT...

[TOakes]

Could I have one please? mibble@thomasoakes.plus.com

Re:slightly OT...

[bamse]

Well, if you could send one my way it would be really nice!

sideshow_bob@linuxmail.org

Re:slightly OT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have one too, thanks. Email is arkadasch123@boardermail.com

Re:slightly OT...

[Derf the]

Looks like this is the third one gone...

WF_NA_Taylor@xtra.co.nz

I am now in your debt, so next time you think "Gosh I wish I knew a farmer in South Otago to help me out!" you need not wish in vane.

Re:slightly OT...

[Anonymous Coward]

P L E A S E !

I would really appreciate it if you could send one my way, man.

Thanks a million!

JoshJonson1221@Hotmail.com

Re:slightly OT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.

Re:slightly OT...

[Pretor]

Sure, I would like an invite.

pcmoen 'at' online 'dot' no

Thanks!

Re:slightly OT...

[mp3phish]

I'd like one... Thanks!

mp3phish -- at -- yahoo -- com

Re:slightly OT...

[Anonymous Coward]

still have one available? "dress1" sent to yahoo.com thanks

Re:slightly OT...

[TheRealStaunch]

Sorry, I donated the last of mine to the spreadfirefox.com gmail givaway. You can probably get one at http://moznews.sf.net/gmail.

Re:Requires IE...

[erick99]

It doesn't. I'm not using I.E. and I am not sure what you need a browser for other than initially downloading the application. It doesn't require any browser. Once the app is running you are dealing with a drive icon, that's it.

What about the ToS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Google end up with full rights to all the material you store in the drive like they do with your email?

Re:What about the ToS?

[julesh]

Google don't take full rights to your e-mail. You're thinking of hotmail.

done knew it

[Down8]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/down8/71992.html

My friend called this before GMail had much going for it at all. He's an insightful one.

-bZj

Re:done knew it

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhhhhhh....... he only mentions that you can archive files remotely in a mailbox and give access to others to share the files. People have been doing this to a lesser extent ever since free email accounts came about.

Re:done knew it

[Down8]

So then you're saying this is not a story to be posted to Slashdot at all? And neither was the last article about it?

I agree, but don't dog me for commenting on it. :^)

-bZj

It Works

[Facekhan]

It definitely works, but will probably be made not to work as soon as Google hears of it and you know they read /.

Still its a cool idea and honestly I would pay a very small fee (as in no more than $2/month) to have a 1GB online drive that was dependable. But I always have my little Sandisk MiniCruzer 512MB so its not like I really need it.

Re:It Works

[Anonymous Coward]

look for cheap webhosting, I pay around $8/month for a gig of storage as a network drive, but then I care about quality; you can find them in the sub-$2 range if you don't mind downtime.

Re:It Works

[killbill!]

GMX.net has had 1GB (file storage & e-mail) over WebDAV for free for a while now.
If you have a German or Austrian bank account, you can bump that to 5GB for 3 EUR a month or 10GB for 5 EUR a month.

Btw the features of their email service just flat out rock. I'm quite sure they are unmatched worldwide. ('been a customer since 98 now ;))

(I knew all those years learning German in high school weren't a waste of time ;p... Now then, how about you guys give us back the English version you had earlier?)

Re:It Works

[Anonymous Coward]

At CFP (Computers, Freedom & Privacy) earlier this year there was a panel on gmail and, when it came to questions, there was an exchange like this:
Chap: "If I just send encrypted attachments to my gmail account from my regular email address and mail them back to it will I be in breach of your TOS?"
Google: "No."
Chap: "Thanks for the gig of off-site storage."

Re:It Works

[Anonymous Coward]

minicruzer? have you seen the mp3 player for those drives? i recently had to purchase a usb drive for school and saw a weekly ad advert for the sandisk mp3 player that plays from the usb drives, if this is news to you, check it out.

Re:It Works

[slashdot.org]

Not withing your price range, but still: http://xdrive.com/.

I'm planning to try it out and see how well their new driver works (which actually _does_ create an additional drive) when putting one giant encrypted file on there (like PGPDisk, but then probably BestCrypt)

Re:It Works

[foszae]

Yes it does work quite nicely in fact. of course i tried it instantly and since i already use it store a large number of files, i' already installed it remotely on one of the servers i admin.

i also have a little 512MB card reader which took a 5MB file in 10 seconds (over a USB 1 connexion at that). posting the file to gmail is, um, slower. i stopped counting after ten seconds, started writing this paragraph, and wow i look at the progress meter... and it just stopped. so it's not a faster storage. but then again, some days i just leave the card reader at home y'know.

it has a quirk of naming files as part01.bin which is a small thing, given that the filename is right there in the subject line, but if i download a couple using the gmail interface, i'll have to remember to actually use Save As

and yes as others have pointed out, there's the smegging 10MB limit (which incidentally is the same size limit as half the email accounts i already have) so it's not going to be a practical thing for my daily backups or even any mp3 i can think of.

i'll still keep it though, just because i do enjoy virtual drives. let's see:

1. floppy drive,
2. physical drive
3. physical drive
4. cd drive
5. dvd drive
6. camera
7. virtual cd (nero)
8. card reader
9. network drive (mac)
10. network drive (DFS)
11. virtual dvd (alcohol)
12. virtual drive (alcohol)
13. a couple more virtual dvds
14. physical drive
15. oops another network drive
16. partition
17. shared documents
18. network places
19. ftp site
20. ftp site

oh hell what do i need another drive for?

Re:It Works

[Jedi Alec]

there's 6 more letters left in the alphabet? oh wait, silly *nix user ;-)

Re:It Works

[lew3004]

That would be really nice.....if I could understand German.

prior discussion

[L0stm4n]

People are already discussing it here

Cool hack...

[mcrbids]

But would you trust it? Would you REALLY want to use a hack on top of something that somebody else provided for free for your mission-critical data?

Neither did I. What I don't get is the advantage. I mean, using no-ip.com and your average DSL account, you can turn your home computer into an "online storage" at a cost of around around $0.50 per gigabyte.

Wow. Those google guys are sure being nice! I mean, you gotta love these people, right?

For a community that seems to love google, this sure seems like a stupid, wasteful, and mean thing to do.

Re:Cool hack...

[rzbx]

It makes sense to me. As a business do you not cater to your market? Their market is interested in large email storage, and more. So they deliver. Whether or not it is easy to do, some do not have an interest in doing it themselves. Some want their job outsourced to a company. Not everyone is interested in, or capable of doing it themselves. Not everyone is like the typical slashdot member. Think business when viewing BUSINESS like decisions. Too many submitters here throw out "why" and make their argument yet ignore other points of view. Although the internet is changing business, a business's number one goal is still profit.

Re:Cool hack...

[Anonymous Coward]

"But would you trust it? Would you REALLY want to use a hack on top of something that somebody else provided for free for your mission-critical data?"

Compared to what?

Compared to the ancient, cheap hard-disk in your computer that's starting to click when you access files?

Compared to the local disks that you wipe each time you upgrade your operating-system?

Compared to the CD you just sat on, or the CDs that're sitting in the sunlight?

Compared to your iPod with it's "steal me" white headphones?

Or compared to using all of the above, nicely located in the same building for the convenience of thieves, fires, and floods?

Re:Cool hack...

[Peyna]

Like most things stupid people do:

"Why?"

"Because we can!"

Re:Cool hack...

[KMitchell]

But would you trust it? Would you REALLY want to use a hack on top of something that somebody else provided for free for your mission-critical data?


Of course not. I'd only put my mission-critical data on RAIGA (Redundant Array of Individual/Inexpensive GMAIL Accounts)

Interesting

[Timesprout]

that Google are doing more towards making the network the computer than companies like SUN and Oracle who have been banging on about it for years now but actually achieved nothing.

Re:Interesting

[asdren]

Google could launch a paid service like .Mac
- POP access and GDrive oh yeah!

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Network file systems have been around for decades. This is nothing more than a hack of no real practical value.

A gig of storage? Big deal. Flash cards are bigger than that these days, hard drives a couple of orders of magnitude, and enterprise-class file servers and disk arrays bigger and faster yet.

Accessibility over the Internet? Available for decades.

The usual issues of privacy, availability, and control continue to apply.

Amusing, sure. But "making the network the computer"? Hardly.

this is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome to #oldnews

Why this won't survive.

[opspin]

Has anyone thought about what will happen once this thing gets spread around.

- Who says you can't "share" your drive with others?

Pirates will now have a 1Gig online-drive that they can stuff with movies+warez etc.
All hosted by google on high speed connections.

- So now we have a 1Gig web drive, but why stop there?

With invites to one self and other "friends", you could create a fair ammount of gmail
accounts, and with not too much effort, this program could probably be hacked to
provide access to all of those gmail accounts at once.

Wupti, and google is now hosting a 100+ gig warez server..

Although a great idea, this is doomed to fail..

Re:Why this won't survive.

[almostmanda]

Movies? with a 10 mb file limit?

This might be good for giving your friend mp3s from a new cd you bought. But movies? Probably not.

Re:Why this won't survive.

[evilmuffins]

If you hadn't noticed, most group releases are split in 15mb rars to make releases easier to recover, and send from ftp to ftp faster. All someone would have to do is split movies up into 70 10mb rar files.

Could be good for Google

[n54]

Not sure they would mind people doing this as it will give them more (and likely better) information for their targeted ads which make them money.

Maybe we will see Google expanding gmail into a kind of roaming profile and home folder as well as roaming email? (roaming email is what web email is after all). Put two-party public encryption on top of that (Google and you combined, ie. a fix so they and you can read it but only you can edit it) and the Sun idea of "the network is the computer" is one step closer.

If secure enough it would be great if one could use Google this way - boot your Knoppix cd (or similar) and get your 1GB of "anything" at any machine on the net. All of this is just as possible without Google of course, but letting Google foot the bill has a cretain appeal ;)

Tried it a bit...

[chrispyman]

This piece of software is really nothing more than a nifty hack. It basically sends an e-mail to yourself with the file as an attachment and uses a funky subject format to determine the "Gmail drive" filesystem. It does work, but it can't support files bigger than 10MB. So, nice try for now, but perhaps a feature to "zip & split" big files is in order. That said, don't expect Google to let this app last for that long :-(

Re:Tried it a bit...

[Peyna]

Good point, I didn't even think about the 10 MB message limit on gmail. That makes it a lot more difficult and useless (although most mp3s would still fit under the limit)

Obligatory Slashdot link

[fastdecade]

GmailFS - The Google File System (August 4)

Wow

[downbad]

This is almost as cool as SlashdotFS.

Neat and all.

[Boarder2]

It's nifty, now how do I get rid of it?

Re:Neat and all.

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to Control Panel -> Add/Remove Rograms...

Jackass.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

But what will this do to protect us from terrorists?

Other limitations

[Leikhim]

It seems that google won't let you send some file types. I've tried zips and bats, and both types gave me a "Sorry, for security reasons we can't let you send this" error. Next version should rename forbidden file types to work around this. no .inf, .hlp, .dll.... Well, that's as far as I got before my storage medium got slashdotted.

Re:Other limitations

[Leikhim]

it's possible to add files the old fashioned way, and have them show up in the drive, as long as your topic is GMAILFS: /FILENAME.EXT. Interestingly, it seems that the name of the attachment is determined by the message subject, so it should be realativly simple to scramble up invalid names and restore them from the subject line.

Re:Other limitations

[polecat_redux]

It seems that google won't let you send some file types.

Gah, I hate that. MS did something similar with the Office XP (and later) version of Outlook. Though, at least in Outlook, a simple change to the registry will allow you to enable any extension you please.

Re:Other limitations

[man_ls]

Personally, I like OE2K3's blocking of bad filetypes...It's great for the lusers who I gave it to, who used to download those things and run them. Now their computer tells them not to...and they don't.

Re:Other limitations

[julesh]

Though, at least in Outlook, a simple change to the registry will allow you to enable any extension you please.

There's actually a preference for it. No registry change required.

One of the things that annoys me about it is that PDFs are one of the file types it blocks. I mean... what???

Re:Other limitations

[grazzy]

like: .doc, .xls, .ppt?

Re:Other limitations

[bedouin]

Stuffit files do seem to go through though.

Re:Other limitations

[JAgostoni]

like: .jpeg? .jpg?

Web Server

[philipkd]

Is there any way I can turn this into a web server?

Re:Web Server

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of web sever you wanna have? http? ftp? mail sever? file server?

Re:Web Server

[chewy_2000]

I don't see why you couldn't serve the files on this GMail drive, although you'd still need to run the FTP or HTTP (or whatever) server on your computer yourself. It'd be as slow as dogshit, as well. Waste of time, really.

Re:Web Server

[hobo2k]

Those crazy guys at google have already done the work for you! Your gmail network drive can be accessed through the web at gmail.google.com!!

I can see it now...

[MajorG17]

Just wait until someone invites themself for 120 GMail addresses... then 1000... then starts SHARING terabytes of copyrighted data... eah, this may not last long.

Re:I can see it now...

[Leikhim]

hmm...mind if I patent that?

Re:I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

My thought exactly.
Here you have high bandwidth/low latency/huge storage all thrown into one free package, which even has a certain level of anonymity (they probably log your ip when you log in?)
It's a warez providers wet dream...
Terabytes of storage, each ISO/avi on it's own account as multipart archive, and with some management system you can provide something akin to ACLs for it, backing up accounts is so easy, that it's scary, and all you need (at the moment) are gmail invites? let's start pooling together for the greater good of all piratekind!

Re:I can see it now...

[Rude Turnip]

I'm pretty sure Google has flags in place to see if someone is setting up lots of accounts from one IP address. Something like that would get noticed rather quickly.

Re:I can see it now...

[darkmeridian]

I invited myself with all my invites. Then those accounts then got invites. It was pretty sad. I had to beg people to take the accounts off my hands.

It was sad.

Re:I can see it now...

[satoshi1]

Haha, yea. I have 18 invites over my three accounts... NOONE will take them, but hey, that just means I get more accounts =P

Re:I can see it now...

[LookSharp]

then starts SHARING terabytes of copyrighted data.

Kind of impractical with about a 10MB size limit :)

Re:I can see it now...

[Gunzour]

I suggest anyone with extra gmail invites to spare donate them to this site which is giving them out for free to anyone who asks for them. I have donated all of my invites to them.

Re:I can see it now...

[anthony_dipierro]

Sure, then when some idiot downloads this software and starts filling up their google hard drives, you can get your account shut off too!

Re:I can see it now...

[Gunzour]

Not sure who you meant to reply to... my message wasn't about downloading any software or filling up hard drives.

Re:I can see it now...

[anthony_dipierro]

If you give a gmail invite to someone, and they break the gmail TOS, fill up their account with letters to themselves, send spam, etc., you shouldn't be surprised if your account gets shut off.

Re:I can see it now...

[Gunzour]

Umm... why would they do that? Their TOS does give them authority to terminate any account for any reason, but there is nothing specific in it tying my account to the actions of those I invite.

Sure, they *could* do it, I just don't see any reason why they *would*. They're certainly quite aware (and amused, I am sure) that invites are being sold, begged for, and given to complete strangers everyday. To think they are going to enforce some mafia-esque policy ("you vouched for him, and he screwed up, so you are going to pay") is silly.

I'm amused.

[Awptimus Prime]

I'm having a great time reading this thread. The same people who say things like "I would never run IE" are coming out and acting thrilled about this. What about the requirement of having IE to run this? I guess it is okay when it has something to do with Gmail. Hmmmm.

Selective zealotry at its worse.

Re:I'm amused.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every had enough of a clue to think that the people that rubbish IE are *different* from the people who are thrilled about this?

I know there's a lot of group-think on slashdot, but it still doesn't mean that we're all a single hive-mind.

Re:I'm amused.

[julesh]

Maybe slightly ironic, but I highly doubt any of them are running a recent Windows system that doesn't have IE installed. Too much shit breaks if you don't.

I also don't think you'll have to _use_ IE for it to work. I suspect it just relies on some of IE's DLLs, most probably URLMON for making the requests to gmail.

Re:I'm amused.

[Awptimus Prime]

I guess it depends on what you define as using IE. As far as I am concerned, as soon as you are logged into an XP box you are, in essence, using IE.

It is all meant lightly.. :)

Re:I'm amused.

[horza]

I'm having a great time reading this thread. The same people who say things like "I would never run IE" are coming out and acting thrilled about this. What about the requirement of having IE to run this? I guess it is okay when it has something to do with Gmail. Hmmmm.

Selective zealotry at its worse.

We're thrilled that IE users are able to catch up with what Linux users have had for ages.

Phillip.

Re:I'm amused.

[Awptimus Prime]

So Linux users have been parasites and breaking Gmail's TOS longer than Windows folks? I'm proud of you all.

Re:I'm amused.

[bostonguy]

I may have IE installed (as part of the Windows kernel/shell/whatever), but I am using Firefox. I'm sure the IE requirement has to do with the IE integration into the Windows kernel. Although I may be wrong...

Re:I'm amused.

[Lehk228]

not if i use litestep as my shell and FS commander as file manager, and of course firefox to browse the web.

Re:I'm amused.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what's your replacement for shdocvw, responsible for such things as the file views in open and save dialogs, and which is a fundamental part of IE?

Re:I'm amused.

[Lehk228]

I am not aware of anything which replaces the file open dialog.

Re:I'm amused.

[penalba]

It's not clear to me why Internet Explorer is a requirement; the download worked fine for me in Firefox. Perhaps confusion between Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer?

Don't be evil

[philipkd]

okay, so how does google respond to this.

I think they just have to throw their hands up and go, okay, fine 1GB virtual drive for ppl, how to best make money off of it?

Could they analyze your files and serve ads related to it? If you put up an mp3, could they upsell albums related to it?

If you upload a text document describing to your girlfriend your favorite lingerie, could they flash an adsense for Victoria's Secret?

If you have an excel spread sheet describing mission-critical CRMs, could they analyze those and start throwing ads related to that?

Re:Don't be evil

[evilmousse]

this is what i would expect of google as well.

i can imagine the future slashdot legal
discussions now..
would google cave private email-filestoreage
mp3s to the riaa under a dmca-letter? maybe
not. but what if microsoft eventually follows
suit, and some unethical bittorrent schmuck
puts his xboxnext game collection on it?

some dumbass writing google:
"can 1z have a she11 stra1t to m41 gm41l
s0z t4 uz3 fxP?"

Re:Don't be evil

[GreenKiwi]

Huh!

You'd never see the adds, it's not like the GmailFS has popup windows.

Re:Don't be evil

[sanctimonius hypocrt]

What does Google do?

1. Try to make money off of it;
2. Tolerate it until it becomes a problem;
3. Try to restrict it;
4. Shut it down.

At this point they`re still around step 1 or 2. I think they`re interested in seeing what poeple come up with that they may be able to use.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really a problem.

I trust them to have a very difficult time breaking my pgp key.

Re:Don't be evil

[philipkd]

yeah, duh, very good point. although, gmail could respond and offer their own Gmail drive, maybe charge a small fee, or put ads, but at least ensure that if you use THEIR program, that your files will be safe. It wouldn't be too hard for them to make life difficult for these these gmailfs hackers though. In fact, detecting gmailfs's could be slurped into their spam filters.

So is it a filesystem?

[Chris Hall]

I've not got a gmail account, so I can't easily try it and see for myself how it behaves, but the descriptions are rather confusing.

On one hand, it says that it "creates a virtual filesystem", that it "literally adds a new drive", and that it "acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer".

But then elsewhere, it says that it "is a Shell Namespace Extension", and the only usage examples given all require the use of explorer.exe, which suggest that it's not implemented a full filesystem after all.

So which is it?

• Does it implement a new local drive, from which files can be accessed using any existing program?
• Or does it implement a new network drive, so that at least UNC-aware programs will work?
• Or is it really restricted to force the use of explorer (or other shell-api-using tools) for file manipulation?

Even if it is restricted in this way, it still seems a worthy project -- but wouldn't it be fairer to warn people first? Or if it's not restricted, how about documenting the ability to e.g. save files directly there from any program?

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a filesystem. It is just like a filesystem. It send a mail includes your files as an attachment to gmail inbox when you implement a "save" operation in windows explorer.

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[Anonymous Coward]

whee..let's all nitpick!

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[julesh]

It's a namespace extension similar to Windows XP's "compressed folder" extension (which allows you to manipulate files inside a ZIP file).

Yes. You'll have to copy the file to a local drive before you can use it with most applications. Windows will handle this transparently in most cases.

The linux filesystem implementation mentioned above is much better.

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[imac.usr]

I've not got a gmail account

Thank god, I thought I was going to have to fight off the GMail zombie geek army they're secretly developing all by myself. Stay safe! When the time comes I will call for you!

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[NaveWeiss]

Do you want a google invitation?

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[slashdot.org]

Does it implement a new local drive, from which files can be accessed using any existing program?

No, it's a virtual filesystem that only explorer (and perhaps some other programs) can use. I use command-line apps a lot and can't find a way to access the drive.

Or does it implement a new network drive, so that at least UNC-aware programs will work?

Nope, it doesn't.

Or is it really restricted to force the use of explorer (or other shell-api-using tools) for file manipulation?

From my swift testing, it seems that it is (really restricted).

This is not a surprise, Microsoft has always kept it very hard to add a new filesystem to their OS. If I remember correctly only relatively recently (like 3 years ago or so) they started releasing official information on how to write a new filesystem driver, and you had to sign a hefty NDA. (at least that's how I remember it).

Still a neat program though, but as I've said in another post, I'm planning to check out xdrive.com. Their new (beta) driver sound very interesting. (no affiliation btw, and it's certainly possible that I'd be very dissapointed by the product)

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

For that mater, Ext2fsd for windows is much better. Just launch the service and it adds a REAL file system driver (not an interface hack), which allows you to mount ext2/ext3 and mangle whatever file you want in whatever application you want (including an ms dos prompt).

WHats the point of using a shell hack?

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[julesh]

WHats the point of using a shell hack?

They're a hell of a lot easier to write. You don't need to be administrator to install them.

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[skraps]

Short answer: It is strictly a shell namespace extension - it doesn't integrate as a filesystem driver.

Long answer: Technically, that doesn't mean you can't access it outside of windows explorer. You just have to use a program that operates via Shlwapi instead of the traditional Win32 API. For all practical purposes though, the only widespread program doing that is windows explorer. The Shlwapi functions don't have the same feature set as the Win32 API, though. For example, regardless of the program you use, you won't be able to open a file on your gmail drive, hold a lock on a file, etc. It's limited to copying and other high-level functions.

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[No. 24601]

Thank god, I thought I was going to have to fight off the GMail zombie geek army they're secretly developing all by myself. Stay safe! When the time comes I will call for you!

You're too late! I just sent him an invite. Repeat after me: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS! KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS! KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS!

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[danudwary]

I'll take one if anybody wants to hand one out.

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[NaveWeiss]

Email me and I'll give you an invitation back.

Now what we be really cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

is a generalized way to do this with a webhosting account. I use a php script I hacked together to let me upload and download files to an .htaccess secure folder, but it would be much nicer to just have it map to a network drive.

Re:Now what we be really cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

duah... just enable the WebDav module in Apache and use the WebDav support in windows. (I think it's called Web Folders or something like that)

U can use WebDav on Linux, and mac as well... No need to re-invent the wheel here, the technology exists and works.

Now If Only...

[JohnPerkins]

...it had a setting that would let me connect more than one gmail account to one virtual drive... I could use my invites to create more gmail accounts for myself...exponential progression...free multi-tb drive for me!

is this tool safe?

[johansalk]

1. I'm increasingly alarmed by any tool that requests a username and a password. 2. would google terminate the account? don't they have a rule against third party notifiers?

GNU violation

[Anonymous Coward]

When I installed it, I got an Open Source license agreement, but the source code is nowhere to be found.

Re:GNU violation

[julesh]

It isn't a violation unless the copyright holders say it is, and since they're the ones that have (presumably) failed to release the source code, I doubt they have a huge problem with it.

Re:GNU violation

[doshell]

It isn't a violation unless the copyright holders say it is, and since they're the ones that have (presumably) failed to release the source code, I doubt they have a huge problem with it.

Agree, but still you can't advertise something as Opne Source if the code is not in fact available.

yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

excite was doing that back in '99. only offered 100 meg, but drives were a lot smaller then and you could setup multiple accounts

on a slightly more paranoid note

how many people are actually going to put their gmail passwords into an app like this and HOPE it doesn't forward them (or contact lists) back to some spammer

post the source and maybe...

don't even get me started talking about the possiblities for using this type of util as a spam gateway

Re:yawn

[Bongoots]

how many people are actually going to put their gmail passwords into an app like this and HOPE it doesn't forward them (or contact lists) back to some spammer
[...]
don't even get me started talking about the possiblities for using this type of util as a spam gateway

Are you forgetting that Gmail is all about no-spam? Even if they harvested e-mail addresses.. they will be Gmail addresses and be useless to spammers ;)

Abusing Google?

[adolfojp]

GMail is an excellent web mail service. In fact, it is the best one that I have ever used. They pay for the service and make a profit by pasting ads on their webmail site.

If we use GMail in this fashion, not only are we abusing their trust but also dooming the service and perhaps destroying it.


Cheers,

Adolfo

Re:Abusing Google?

[ender81b]

O Noes! What ever will the billionaires do!

Pardon me if I don't really care how a company's business model depends on how I use their product.

Re:Abusing Google?

[rta]

You're probably one of those people who thinks that downloading mp3s without paying for them is stealing. Don't you understand that by not paying for the music you actually help the musicians make money by fighting against the record companies?! Oh, also you buy more music as a result.

This is the same thing. With gmail, google is further tightening their grip on the disk market. Since google has been on the scene the price per gig has dropped by 80%! Manufacturers are suffering. Once google's stranglehold is broken, hard drive artisans will be able to sell reliable networked storage directly to the consumer at a reasonable price and still be able to earn a living wage.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Peyna]

If you signed up for an account, you agreed to their terms and conditions when you clicked the "I agree" button. If you violate them (using an automated system to access your account, thus circumventing the advertisements) they can remove your account.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're seriously retarded. You should unplug that internet connection of yours and go live under a rock.

It's people like YOU that prevent the world from becoming a better place.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Illserve]

You'll care if they start charging you for it.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

What they'll (possibly) do is stop offering one of the best email services on the net for free to anyone. Most specifically, to those of us who use it as *GASP* an email service. And just a month or so after AOL bought out my other best email service on the net. That's awesome.

I think I'll just haul off and blow my brains out and leave the net for the rest of you people, there seems to be no hope for human civilisation anymore anyway.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you are a jerk and deserve only misery and failure in your life.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll cry my way all the way to yahoo/gmx

Re:Abusing Google?

[GlassHeart]

Pardon me if I don't really care how a company's business model depends on how I use their product.

You could stroll down that road, but don't whine when record labels don't care if they trample on your fair use rights, because their business model requires that they prevent copying. If you don't care to support a company that's trying to do something cool (assuming you agree it's a cool thing), then don't be surprised if one day they're no longer around to do anything at all.

If you really believe in your statement, why aren't you taking your showers at a nearby fastfood restaurant bathroom, so you can save on your water bill? Most will even have free soap, and paper towels to dry yourself off with.

Re:Abusing Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, this is abuse. So many people complain that all these big companies are out to make money and have no conscience whatsoever, and here's one company that offers you a massive email space for FREE with no expiry dates on emails and attachments, and what happens? Some fucknuts have to abuse it, which will no doubt end up in the long run with the service being tightly restricted if not removed altogether. All you assholes that complain about big business ripping off the individual consumer and yet have no problem using this hack, you have NO RIGHT to ever complain again. YOU ARE THE REASON there is not more software available for free or without tight restrictions. You are the reason that what free software IS available is in most cases strongly crippled until you pay for a license. I can BET that when google cripple this gmail account, you will be the same self-centred arrogant bunch of pricks who start yelling about Google not having any ethics. You do not deserve a damn thing imho, so stfu. Bunch of selfish pricks.

This is cool

[mr_tremor69]

I hope they allow us regular mortals to have a Gmail account before they allow people to use theirs as remote storage locations. Aaron aaronATnetadvantageDOTca

Re:This is cool

[Rooterbaga]

Gotta help out a fellow Canuck. Check your mailbox.

An obvoius violation of the Gmail license.

[iceco2]

Gmail makes money by showing you adds,
this kind of automated interface is strictly prohibeted. Just like any automated interface to Gmail, If you use Gmail you must not use any automated tool to read your mail and display it too you out of Gmail.
There is nothing to prevent you from using Gmail as file storage but when you want to access your files you should pay for your privlage by watching adds.

Me

Re:An obvoius violation of the Gmail license.

[ender81b]

Television makes money by showing you ads,
this kind of copying is strictly prohibeted. Just like any copying of tv shows, If you use tv shows you must not use any time sharing device to display your tv shows and display it too you on a different device without the ads
There is nothing to prevent you from using tv shows as entertainment but when you want to access your tv shows you should pay for your privlage by watching ads/

In all seriousness, nice doublethink.

Re:An obvoius violation of the Gmail license.

[lachlan76]

Perhaps Google could release an API for accessing Gmail, which shows the ads? On top of that, (for Windows anyway, haven't had a lot of Linux programming experience) the library could require ads to be shown in the same graphics context as the message, and there it is.

Or, an interface which is entirely meant for filesystems, etc. which sends all the messages as html pages with the ads inside. There are ways to keep everyone happy.

Re:An obvoius violation of the Gmail license.

[Anonymous Coward]

Total BS analogy. Makes no sense at all. Nice try.

GDrive?

[adolfojp]

I just used the program and was simply astonished. Kind of reminds me of the days of X-Drive and such.

Perhaps Google should launch GDrive and provide a web page from where you can upload files to your account. Ok, don't give 1GB, but I think that 50MB should be enough to carry around your bussiness presentations and college writings.


Cheers,

Adolfo

Re:GDrive?

[bvdbos]

both gdrive.com (2002-Apr-04) and gdrive.net (2000-Jan-04) are already registered...

Re:GDrive?

[adolfojp]

Thanks for the info. I find this to be quite interesting indeed.

Re:GDrive?

[ajayvb]

Please, Yahoo! already offers this service since forever. 30 MB free, more if you pay. You can even set up which Yahoo! IDs can share it.

Some Linux caveats

[slobber]

In general it works pretty well on linux.
Some caveats though:
1. It instructs you to put gmail password in fstab. This is kind of insecure.
2. If your gmail password contains non-alphanumerical chars mount will fail. Instead, put your password in gmailfs.py
3. You'll get a bunch of junk messages in your inbox for each file you store.
4. Deleteing files simply moves them intro Trash, you have to empty it out manually.

Otherwise it is pretty neat, just requires some polishing.

please

[Anonymous Coward]

i hate my life

i want to die

Re:please

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you don't have a GMail account neither?

which reminds me..

I hate my life too, let's die together.

3 invites left

[stud9920]

Meanwhile I've got 3 Gmail invites left. The first 3 responses criticizing George Bush's policy OR (to play fair) explaining me how he's not the most lousy US president post WWII America has known, will get an invite.

And the transfer costs?

[BristolCream]

There are lot of comments about the relative cost of hard disks (i.e. not much), but nothing on the cost of bandwidth. This is where applications such as this will hit Google hard.

Why hasn't this been modded up?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all with this idea. In fact, I'm in the process of doing just what was suggested.

Thank you, Google, for solving my hard-drive-upgrade-syndrome!

I hope you find 18 gig worth of Kacey as sexy as I do...

Re:Requires IE...

[Reene]

Internet Explorer 5 or better

Well that's okay then. Firefox should work just fine!...

this hopelessly inane joke brought to you by the letter q

neat app...

[zxflash]

kind of has the same functionality as the linux app released a while back...

what i don't understand is why some people are going wild about having 1gb of online storage space...

if you wanted to you could email yourself 1gb of files split into 10mb chunks and your files would still be online and you wouldn't be violating google's tos...

just a thought...

100GB online filesystem

[intradink]

I've been trying to convince Bjarke to port the Win application to the hriders.com 100GB mail service (that allows 500MB attachments).... No luck so far.

Re:100GB online filesystem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been trying to convince hriders.com to give me a 100GB email service... No luck so far.

Re:100GB online filesystem

[intradink]

After signing up, they send an email with your account details and a request for you to send the webmaster an email to enable your mail account.

The email works but service is a little up and down.

Re:Requires IE...

[julesh]

I suspect it uses the URLMON COM objects to connect back to the gmail servers. These are packaged with IE, so apps that use them state a required IE version to get the version of these objects they require.

For Slashdot Too!

[goombah99]

Slashdot-Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Slashdot login, allowing you to use Slashdot as a storage medium. Slashdot-Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Slashdot account using a combination of the read-write Journal pages and the unlimited write-once comment fields. Slashdot-drive enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Slashdot account directly from inside Windows Explorer. Slashdot-Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to.

It offers high availability, and unlimited amounts of file storage.

Slashdot-drive uses hundreds of slash-dot logins mappens in a raid-0/raid-1 fashion to assure low latency and redundancy in case you are discovered. In the event an account is locked or deleted, SLASHDOT drive automaticaly rebuilds lost raid partiions in new accounts.

Data is stored in ascii-mapping or using the optional stealth-mode which decreaces storage density but improves undetectability by using phrases taken from other posts to encode a data stream,

The downside is that it essentially destroys a useful public good by filling its pages with gibberish and causing OSDN to bear unacceptable server costs. But who cares becaue you are an arrogant prick

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The downside is that it essentially destroys a useful public good by filling its pages with gibberish"

And this makes a difference how exactly?

(take this post I've just made for an example)

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[jeif1k]

The downside is that it essentially destroys a useful public good by filling its pages with gibberish and causing OSDN to bear unacceptable server costs. But who cares becaue you are an arrogant prick

GMail isn't a "public good", it's a marketing gimmick created by a company trying to get market share.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

> GMail isn't a "public good", it's a marketing
> gimmick created by a company trying to get
> market share.

Tell that to the tens of thousands of people who already depend on gMail as their primary email. What are they called again? Oh yes, the "public." And would you say they regard a huge free email account as something "bad" or something "good"?

There are so many companies who do bad things right and left, and that deserve to get kicked in the teeth. Google continually offers innovative projects that vastly improve the public good; why spend energy kicking them in the teeth, too?

On another matter, the original post about a Slashdot drive was the funniest and most insightful post I've read here in months.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[technothrasher]

Data is stored in ascii-mapping or using the optional stealth-mode which decreaces storage density but improves undetectability by using phrases taken from other posts to encode a data stream

Heh, that reminds me of the slashdot Markov program I wrote a while back. Here's a small sample output taken from this article's comments:

But doomed by wonder if it a feature to Windows only takes one is restricted to takes one really plans on your gmail as an easy installation! by but perhaps a hairy reply to school without Google are all their trust also dooming the web - link the relative cost of Linux, but doomed by pages with the bill has thousands of packaging not up and email they analyze those and the Win application to My Computer folder, where can offer so how does google will hit Google don't start immediately coming true. Kill it yet; I will get some people doing that the servers. These are accustomed' - The Google expanding gmail account before storage used the filed, installed in less cross platform version of packaging not like any existing. I wonder if a drive for your current Cool hack... Feed your current Now we won't even "share" folders to mappens in 3. You'll get a bit... I just this is kind of explorer.exe, suggest that lives somewhere other than one hand, it after So which is in this would be quite a setting that whatever makes money and they'll try now.

Now tell me honestly that makes any less sense than the usual rambling slashdot posting ;-)

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo. You read the occasional funny thing here and there on /. but that was funny AND insightful. Just in case the mod points weren't enough, think of this as a little more affirmation.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Ford Prefect]

Y'bastard! That's my idea!

And I've patented it, too...

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[jeif1k]

Tell that to the tens of thousands of people who already depend on gMail as their primary email. What are they called again? Oh yes, the "public." And would you say they regard a huge free email account as something "bad" or something "good"?

Bullshit. "Good" doesn't refer to the opposite of "bad", it refers to something that is produced. And a "public good" is a good that people aren't motivated to produce by market forces. Free Email is a "loss leader", a revenue generator, or simply a marketing gimmick, whether Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google does it.

There are so many companies who do bad things right and left, and that deserve to get kicked in the teeth. Google continually offers innovative projects that vastly improve the public good

They are a for-profit company that makes decent products, nothing more and nothing less.

why spend energy kicking them in the teeth, too?

More bullshit. I'm not "kicking them in the teeth". Google made a business decision with GMail and they are smart enough to calculate the consequences. They don't need your whining in order to succeed (and if they did, they'd be in trouble).

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[SnapShot]

A couple of notes:

1. Gmail has been marketed as a large repository (1 GB :-) ) of space. People are already emailing huge amounts of photos back and forth. I get a vacation picture from my Mom, I don't even bother downloading it locally. If I want to look at it I just search for the email and press view photo.
   
2. Gmail offers a finite amount of space (only 1 GB :-( ). If you start uploading Linux ISO images you are going to fill up your account pretty quickly (whether or not you do it as an email attachment explicitly or through a little shell wrapper).
   
3. The agreeement between the user and Gmail is this: you get 1 GB of space and a really nice search capability. Google gets to display targeted advertisements based on the content of your account. If you start uploading Word Docs or other files, I think Google is within their rights to "mine" those attachments to send you targeted advertisements based on those attachments. Fair deal. If your account consists of 1000 files with names like big_titties1.jpg expect to get some interesting targeted ads...
   
4. Unlike the satire of the previous post (re: Slashdot mail), filling up your account does not negatively impact other users of Gmail. Nevertheless, the previous post was funny and insightful, I just think your interpretation of this project is a little more negative than it needs to be.
   

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[eean]

What, so farms aren't in the public good cause they're making a profit? So cow tipping is not against the public good?

And as to the purpose of Gmail, I'm sure they're planning on making money off of it. This is Google we're talking about, not one of the bubble internet companies that spends all its money on Super Bowl advertisements. Google is planning on a profit I'm sure.

I guess I don't see why objecting to folks using GMail for pr0n storage is so unreasonable.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[eean]

Yea, I don't really see much problem with folks filling up their account (singular), or just backing up a handful of important files (which I actually might do).

But I guess once GMail goes out of beta (and even now that invitations are as common as dirt), I would worry about folks signing up for dozens of accounts. I'm sure Google would find ways to prevent this that might reduce functionality for everyone (start forcing those annoying human verifaction schemes again, size of attachments etc.)

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[jeif1k]

What, so farms aren't in the public good cause they're making a profit?

Basically, yes. "Public good" doesn't mean "something that's good for the public", it refers to a specific kind of commodity.

I guess I don't see why objecting to folks using GMail for pr0n storage is so unreasonable.

What's objectionable to me is to refer to private enterprise as a "public good"--there are real public goods that are being neglected by politicians because people (like you) have become convinced that public goods can be produced by private companies.

As for Google, they can look out for themselves. And what you or I say won't make any difference for what other people do. 1G of online storage isn't worth it anyway.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[irm]

A public good is defined as something that is neither rivalrous, nor excludable. Google is both. GMail is both. National defense is not, air is not, but water is.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[eean]

I went ahead and pulled up the article on Wikipedia, which as you might imagine given its purpose, has a pretty extensive article on Public Good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

And your right in the academic economic sense. "public good" != "good for the public" (though of course the "public good" might happen to be good for the public, though it might not).

Anyways, next time I'd advise you to either cite sources or be clear that your taking a phrase used casually in a literal academic sense. Its obvious you knew what was meant, but you decided to be difficult.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you depend on Gmail you've got more serious problems with your grounding in reality. It's just friggin' email people. You can get a free email account from a hot dog stand. If you're connected to the internet there's a high probability you've already got an email account or 10 from your ISP along with at least a few megabytes of web space for the cheapest plans.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

But doomed by wonder if it a feature to Windows only takes one is restricted to takes one really plans ...

That feature is also available in GNU/Linux.

they analyze those and the Win application to My Computer folder, where can offer so how does google will hit Google don't start immediately coming true.

Can you back this up. Please provide some links to backup these lies.

You'll get a bit... I just this is kind of explorer.exe, suggest that lives somewhere other than one hand, it after

RTFA. You obviously have no clue.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I don't even bother downloading it locally.

You mean you don't save it permanently- any browser downloads to your browser cache directory for any large image, or else you wouldn't be ABLE to view it. Even if the cache is in memory, you do DOWNLOAD the file.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing really academic about it: the word "good" means a tangible commodity even in day-to-day language (as in "goods and services"). It's a phrase that's commonly used in public discourse (check Google).

I'm sorry if you heard the phrase somewhere before and misinterpreted it, but when I said it "wasn't a public good", maybe that would have been a good time to check a dictionary...

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or did that blurb say the same thing three times over?

I don't get it

[PerlDudeXL]

I don't want to sound like a troll, but I look at Gmail what it really is: a webmail provider.
I can't imagine that one is so desparate in need of storage space to use Gmail for that.
Even if a harddrive is almost filled up, 1000 MB should be still available. Just clean up.
As a geek I can appreciate those hacks.

Re:Requires IE...

[Amata]

I'm thinking that this may have something to do with just how deeply IE has been embedded into the modern Windows OS. Explorer and Internet Explorer are nearly indistinguishable, each being able to do the functions of the other. So I'm thinking that whatever makes Explorer able to do this is a "feature" of Internet Explorer.

But that's just a guess, with zero basis in actual knowledge of how this crud works.

webdav

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a gmx.net free email account and I can accesss via webdav, with 1GB storage too.

Is Slashdot the marketing arm of Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do they pay you to post this shit everyday?

feh

[hyperstation]

this is one of those "just becuz we can" things, right?

cuz no one really plans on mounting gmail as a drive, and regularly using it to store all their personal files, porno, and pirate mp3s on it, right?

since essentially, that would be willingly handing over said data to a company that's already told you not to use their free and useful service in such a manner...

right?

cuz you do realize that at anytime, your files could (and very likely will) be confiscated, and they'll be gone, forever. cuz you broke the rules.

and google will have all your porno. ...just a thought

Re:Requires IE...

[Site.to.Make]

You can find more information on http://www.totaldevelopment.nl Here can find you auch more about website's!! (scripts, Tutorials and mutch more...)

Re:Requires IE...

[Site.to.Make]

http://www.totaldevelopment.nl/ Sorry for the bat link

I posted this two days ago, and it got rejected!

[AllNicksWereTaken]

I know this is off-topic, but what the FUCK!?...

I submitted this story 2 days ago, and it got rejected.

Why Slashdot, why!?!?

Just a reminder:

[daisycutter]

Don't trust google. If you plan on using gmail as storage, be sure to use strong crypto. My recommendation would be to tunnel everything through a crypto interface, like linux' device manager or cryptoloop.

Re:I posted this two days ago, and it got rejected

[Anonymous Coward]

rejected by a bunch of smelly geeks, dude you *are* pathetic.

and now they're gone

[wibs]

those went by quick :). sorry folks, no more invitations from me available.

And my advice would be....

[Anonymous Coward]

buy a fucking hard drive.

Why use a hack...

[Anonymous Coward]

... when you can get a better solution for free?

GMX.net (service only in german?) gives everyone 1GB of combined mail and WebDAV-storage (called MediaCenter) for free.

No hack, no illegitimate use of a free email client... You can even share your files with others :)

The only limit is (IIRC) that you have a transfer limit of 2x1GB per month.

I'd be surprised if services like this would not exist in english, too.

GMX does this even better - in its media center

[virtualone]

GMX offers wabdav access to its 1 gigabyte email account.
they have a nice webinterface and afaik no 10 MB limit on files.
you can even "share" folders to the public using a simple url.

with a little program from them, you can mount your media center as a drive letter.

gmailfs for bsd?

[sakura the mc]

linux and windows sure, but where is the bsd love at? i wanna try running my eggdrops and pisg from gmail

more information here

[Site.to.Make]

http://www.totaldevelopment.nl/

The Hell...

[Rie Beam]

Look. Go down to Circuit City, and buy a 60GB Western Digital hard drive. Now leave the computer on when you go out, and setup some sort of SSH program - problem solved. If you have to rely upon an e-mail service for backing up important documents, someone should have removed you from the gene pool many, many years ago. Sheesh.

Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD

[Artifex]

I find this to be an abuse of the resources Google has provided. They're going to have to end up making the interface and access more restrictive for all users as a result.

Re:Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfff.. if you had the skills to write such a hack you would had done it too. Don't scoff at someone else's hacks.

Maybe it's not that usefull, it is however extremely cool that it's possible.

Now we should only wait for mount-able filesystem

[WetCat]

for Linux and/or midnight commander extension

Use and Abuse of Diskspace

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so the floodgates are open. But so what? If 10,000 users use 1GB each that is still only a reasonable number of 200GB drives. And what does it give Google? Why, even more data by which to generate information.

Google introduced pageranking which means the quantity of links implies relevance and importance. With GMail and Google community they can now start asessing also the quality of those that link up an item. Expect ranking, especially of Google Goups articles to improve.

Google is not evil but they are not stupid either.

IFolder?

[NotZed]

Sounds like a more limited, less cross platform version of ifolder.

what an easy installation!

[perler]

when gmailfs was released, i tried to install it, but abandoned it after it didn't work out of the tar. my python was not up to date, my old red hat box had some library missing and gmailfs was not thar important to me to waste an hour just to install that thing.

the gmail drive shell extension was installed in 10 seconds. it may be not quite a fair example, but the ease of installation was clearly on the windows side this time.

problem in the linux worlds seems to me not the lack of packaging systems, not even that there are more than one - problem is that there is no easy way to actual package your software or, more often, that the developer just doesn't care. this is just not necessary..

PAT

Re:what an easy installation!

[Trimbo2]

The parent post is NOT off topic.

Scoring it as such simply because you are annoyed that someone would dare express the opinion that installing software on windows is easier that it is in a linux environment shows the moderator in a very poor light.

I only hope this is meta moderated correctly as unfair to stop this person moderating in future.

I am not the parent poster, nor do I know the parent poster.

Re:what an easy installation!

[Anita Coney]

I feel like an old coot for saying this, but slashdot has changed. Nowadays, I'm always seeing posts that are verifiably true, being modded as troll, posts that are on topic being modded as off topic, posts with original ideas being modded as redundant.

I don't know if it's one person with too much time on his hands, of if slashdot is getting popular enough to attract more idiots. But either way, it's certainly annoying.

Re:what an easy installation!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have a photograph of you?

Self-organizing information

[louisykarma]

Just makes you dream of self-organizing information in your hard disk. That would be beautiful. Like self-assembly phenomena in nature. I just hoped I wouldn't have to hold my breath until Google comes up with it. If MS does before, they'll win my soul, I'll tell GNU/Linux "let's see other people," and become a hairy troll.

Re:Self-organizing information

[vingt]

I suspect/predict that some open source initiative will have an installable, workable implementation shortly (if not already); that Apple'll be first to market with a generally usable solution that will deliver on the concept in such a way that the average user won't find it geeky, intimidating or even particularly remarkable; and that Microsoft will then deliver a rougher product several months later and tout it as a startingly new innovation that clearly shows their lead and command of the market.

Interesting

[Britz]

Of course this is interesting, and shows the talents and ideas that can occur in the world of free/open software.

But Google is a business and they do need to make money and this would be a surefire way for them to lose money (a load of their storage used up, no way to show their adverts, etc) so if anyone seriously used this I can imagine their account disabled.

What I want is google officially creating (or officially blessing the ones that already exist) a gmail notifier app for Mozilla. Technically, using the 3rd party ones that the Mozilla community develop are against their terms of service. They already do an official notifier but it's Windows only - a Mozilla based one would be cross platform.
Googlebomb IE - link the IE homepage to the phrase 'piece of shit'

Sorry linuxci, I am such a karma whore sometimes, but memory seems short at slashdot:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s id=119770&c id=10101654

German GMX.net

[Britz]

GMX, a freemail provider like GMail (only that You don't need invites, anyone can join) offers 1GB storage as well. But no one needs any ugly hacks to use that GB for storage. It is accesible via WebDAV, a standard supported by Windows as well as Linux apps to add this storage as a drive as well.

Nice hack, but you get what you pay for!

[siliconjunkie]

This is a really cool hack, and has a great "Gee whiz look what I did" value to it. But that's about it. I don't think that it would be practical to start actually using this cool little hack due to the fact that no matter how much you may disagree with the GMail terms of use, they still reserve the right to either

A) make it so that this hack no longer works (wouldn't be too hard, in fact it will probably break often as GMail is still in beta and under heavy development if you havent noticed)

or,

B) simply close your account, no questions asked (don't think that people using this hack wont be EASY to detect to to a profoundly different traffic fingerprint in their logfiles for the GmailFS using accounts).

I'm not saying you're "bad" or "taking advantage of google" if you use this software per se, what I'm saying is, don't complain when the Gmail account you've filled to the brim with Bangbus videos get's abruptly cancelled.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, would be: enjoy this for what it is: a cool, neat-o, nifty hack. Period.

Re:Nice hack, but you get what you pay for!

[TheReal_BarkMan]

The general sentiment on this list is that many, many people will take advantage of this. Maybe or maybe not.

I downloaded it and have tried it. GmailFS really works. I will use it for what I really need it for: storing personal files that I do not want to have to copy off this work laptop after they find out how much time I spend on /.

Seriously, I can now effortlessly share files from my home computer.

For Mac too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Code can be compiled on any system w/ the right libraries and other stuffs.

So it's for Mac too! Yay!

others already offer this without hack

[F�an�ro]

Here in Germany we have a free mail provider (GMX) that offers 1 GB (since a few months), for mails AND for files, and you can access them as a file system(link to German site) using the open WebDAV protocol from linux, windows or mac, so no ugly hacks are neccesary. (Konqueror can do that out-of-the-box, I think)

Also offers free pop and smtp, mail forwarding, and configurable filters

Interface is in German only, and you have to give them an existing German, Austrian or Swiss postal address when you sign up. (but those could theoretically be found on the net.)

Idrive

[TheRaider]

This is really a good add-on to my gmail account. But if you're really into a "Idrive" kind of thing, i suggest you try http://zmail.pt .. Gives you 2GB for only 1 / month. And you can use that space to store files through FTP, you can even use FXP. Complete list of features: POP3, POP3-SSL, IMAP4, IMAP4-SSL, WebMail, WebMail-SSL, AntiVIRUS, AntiSPAM, Wap, XML (PDA), FXP e FTP.

What is this "My Computer" folder?

[Anonymous Coward]

The poster mentions something about a "My Computer" folder. I don't seem to have this on my Linux desktop.....

hmm shit

[Anonymous Coward]

i put in the wrong password and ticked "save this login" ,now i cannot login !!

Backup my email?

[anthony_dipierro]

Yeah, but can I use this software to back up my email on my local drive? Interestingly, now that a whole bunch of slashdotters are going to be sending Google into bankruptcy, this might be even more necessary.

Unlike Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people are going to put their username, password, and a ton of other personal data into Windows XP and HOPE it doesn't forward them (too often) to Microsoft?

Nothing new here on the closed source privacy front, move along.

Why not use GMX?

[Gadzinka]

Geez, why not use GMX.de which expressly allows anyone to use 1GB via WebDAV for free? And for couple of bucks you can extend it to couple GBs.

I know, I know... Because you can.

But when you take into account that as soon as people will actually start using this gmailfs or GMail Drive the protocols will change, why waste time for it at all, when better, free alternatives already exist?

Robert

CIFS?

[aapold]

It might be via Common Internet File System... Novell has something similar with Netstorage and Netdrive, both using CIFS...

Now if only...

[Snaller]

...Gmail was available...

integration with gpg?

[duck007]

anyone know of something similar which integrates with gpg to automatically encrypt/decrypt files posted to a "gmail virtual drive"?

Are you sure?

[Gothic_Walrus]

I can fully understand the decision if Google decides to crack down on this. On the other hand, stopping the project would be a very bad PR move. After all, it would violate some of the things that Google has found to be true...

• Democracy on the web works.
• -- Democracy is rule of the people, right? If the people want this function, why take it away?
• You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
• -- Obvious. This would make it much easier to access files and to transfer from one machine to another.
• There's always more information out there.
• -- Easier access to files that you've created.
• The need for information crosses all borders.
• -- Self explanatory. The information that can be gained by this tool should outweigh Google's need for storage space, supposedly.
• Great just isn't good enough.
• -- GMail is great. It can be better if Google allows this.

Besides...wouldn't this be a case of Google being evil? We know that they can't do that...

It's not a filesystem.

[argent]

Shell namespace extensions allow Windows Explorer to give you a file-folder view of resources that aren't in the filesystem. They're not, however, filesystems at the OS level. You can't get UNC paths to the objects, when you open them the shell copies the data over and then runs the program on that copy.

This is actually good, from a security point of view, given Microsoft's ill-advised "security zones" design in the HTML control. It means that an exploit can't pass a UNC path to a remote object in a file:/// URL and have Internet Explorer or Outlook trust it because it's "local".

Apple's equivalent mechanism (for FTP, for example) actually mounts the remote resource in the file system. This is a lot more powerful, but there is a potential for exploits ... mitigated by the lack of the same kind of integration between Safari and Finder.

Re:I posted this two days ago, and it got rejected

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here man. Same here.

Splitting files

[diginux]

Why not split files and save an index of related files to bypass teh 10-mb barrier?

Uninstall?

[DoorFrame]

Ok, it's pretty neat. I set it up and it works. Now, does anybody know how to UNinstall it? Just wondering.

Re:Uninstall?

[phlack]

Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> GMail Drive Shell Extension At least on Windoze 98 SE; dunno if it hooks in differently on 2000/XP.

Installation requirements

[Espectr0]

Installation Requirements
Internet Explorer 5 or better


So it does work in Mozilla.

Makes me remember the "the box said win 2k or better, so i installed linux" joke

hm

[Raagshinnah]

Has anyone heard of something like that being developped but for ext2/ext3/reiserfs/xfs?

Since Microsoft doesn't seem to be too interested in adding support for it, it'd be nice to see a similar project for the alternative filesystems...

Web space?

[Fredge]

This is pretty cool, but what I really need is the ability to access files stored on my GMail account from a web page.

My ISP only gives me 10MB of web space and I'm constantly having to remove older stuff to put new stuff up. If I could store JPGs and video files on the GMail account and reference them from web pages stored on my ISP account, that would be sweet.

Re:Web space?

[sweede]

~s/JPGs/Apps/

Sounds like a great feature to have Mr. Pirate

Re:Web space?

[Fredge]

Are you implying that I want to pirate software using my GMail account?

That's hardly the case. I write software for a living so I have no problem paying for the software I use (unless the authors wish to GPL/Public domain their stuff, then I have no problem using it for free).

The fact is I take a lot of pictures on trips and wish to share them with my family & friends. Over time I run out of web space on my ISP. It's not enough of an issue for me to justify buying more web space, but if I could use the GMail account as web space it would be perfect.

Re:Web space?

[Anonymous Coward]

You write software for a living, yet you're TOO CHEAP to pony up $10 or $20 for some extra hobbyist-grade webhosting somewhere?

It must SUCK to be POOR!

yesh....

[Lord Haha]

I tried to report this on Thursday October 07, @04:54PM - and it got rejected now its up :@...

Somedays you really do question slashdot.

Because we don't speak German

[DoorFrame]

I would say the most obvious answer is because we don't sprechen deutcshe. Just a geuss.

Re:Because we don't speak German

[Anonymous Coward]

and it's only available to german austrian or swiss inhabitants with a proper address and phone number.

Konqueror has limted POP3/IMAP support for this

[mortonda]

I opened up pop3://user@host.tld in konqueror and got a directory listing. I can't write any files though.

imap://... gets a directory listing, but I can't see any messages, and can't write. This could be really cool if finished.

If it is possible, some programmer will do it.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Interesante (Score:0, Troll)
by Anonymous Coward on 12:04 AM -- Saturday October 09 2004 (#10477597)
Wow, thats pretty neat."

How can that be a troll? É interesante, acordo. It's just a first post. Over-rated maybe, but not a troll.

It is neat. It proves the old adage, which I just invented: If it is possible, some programmer will do it.

I'm interested in the sociology of this. Is it possible that the executives at Google did not realize that they were offering a free place to put backups of encrypted files?

That's a suggestion for the Google file system shell. There should be automatic encryption, using a locally stored password. Didn't the Google executives realize that most of the data will not be useful to them, because it will be encrypted? I hope I never see a Google ad for Ö|tè&~1}¥bkä40e)Æ&#243 ;G.

For many people, safe storage is much more interesting than yet another email account. Of course, everything in the entire world should be free, not just information.

--
U.S. Gov.: Borrowing money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion.

Re:If it is possible, some programmer will do it.

[Forthan Red]

Why am I reminded of the old SNL skit, "People Who Ruined It For Everyone Else"?

This story disappeared from the front page.

[Futurepower(R)]

Did you notice? This story disappeared from the front page. Somebody complained, I guess.

Anyone with a GMail invite left?

[www.nitesurfers.com]

You will be overwhelmed with gratitude for your kindness! I just need a few megabytes of storage. Thanks

Re:Anyone with a GMail invite left?

[Anonymous Coward]

there you go... check you're email

Re:Anyone with a GMail invite left?

[Anonymous Coward]

or, rather your email not you're email. my bad

Cool hack, but...

[Salamander]

If it's done as a shell namespace extension it's not quite the same as a true filesystem (some programs still won't work with it) but it's a cool hack just for the heck of it anyway. It reminds me of using Apple LaserWriters as compute servers (back when they had more CPU and memory than the Macs that connected to them) or building an SMP out of 8-bit processors.

everything in software is hack built on hack

[tallbill]

All software is a hack built on a hack. Human civilization is a hack built on a hack.

It can't act like any other hard drive in all ways

[tallbill]

What if you made this your swap drive? It can not act like a real harddrive. My quess is that the driver for it uses the local swap space to cache data before, during and after transfer. Let's see if it runs from a device that has no local storage. I bet it would have a very hard time without some kind of large memory cache at the client.

Hotmail Client?

[colinemckay]

So now all we need is a client for hotmail, and various other mail services.

Requires IE 5 or better?

[Tibor the Hun]

I was under the impression that anything else IS better.
IE 5?

Isn't that like saying "our roads support Yugo or better!"?

oh... that was good!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can people come up with such crazy ideas!!! i am really amazed by such levels of innovation. Tried this thing out and really looks to be a cool idea. It is these kind of ideas that keep things in IT interesting!

How long before a GMail RAID array

[tralfaz2001]

How long before someone figures out group Gmail accounts into a striping RAID array to increase both upload/download and maximum file size?

Ewww..

[segfault_0]

From the link:

Installation Requirements
Internet Explorer 5 or better

...so much for that.

Another cashcow [Re: Don't be evil]

[j.leidner]

Could they analyze your files and serve ads related to it?

Could they analyze your files and give your government access to their index for cash?

--
Try Nuggets , the mobile search engine. We answer your questions via SMS, across the UK.

Thank God SOMEBODY said it.

[shoolz]

I thought this was /. Why is everybody doing flying cart-wheels over such mundanity? All this excitement because the interface appears as a drive icon in Explorer. Well I say big whoop.

Do it for free with the tech you have at hand, and if ya can't do that: Register a domain, get cheap hosting, and stop being a tool of the marketing machines of AOL, Gmail, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

You misunderstood, I think

[idontneedanickname]

I think the grand-parent was trying to show that a 10MB file in the base-64 system is equivalent to a 7.5MB 'normal' file. So the 10MB limit may actually pertain to the file size under the base-64 system, in which case the effective max. file size would be 7.5MB

Actually,

[acariquara]

I believe most files posted would be modded at least +3, Insightful...

Re: moderation problems

[Baron_Yam]

I've gotten so sick of stupid moderations that I post far less frequently (I've had posts modded Troll by multiple mods who disagree with me).

I've also given up on moderating when I get mod points, simply because my drop in the bucket is usually immediately rendered useless by the next couple of guys with mod points and low IQs.

I suspect a large number of other Slashdotters have developed similar attitudes. It's like CB radio - no matter what you do, as the population of users grows, the subpopulation of idiots grows faster.

Now THIS post should be modded offtopic. Let's see.

it works, but limited

[Anonymous Coward]

This extension works pretty well, it's small, simple to install and get going and easy to use.

It does have the 10 meg limit as mentioned, you can't for some reason save .zip files there (if you simply rename the extension it works though), and you can't rename files or folders once created - you would have to delete and re-upload. I also had a few errors when uploading multiple files at once. Also it seems that you can only have one "GMail Drive" per computer, so you wouldn't currently be able to hook up to multiple accounts.

I don't know what I'm going to use it for, but it's nice to have the option.

Thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obrigado. I looked it up; you're right. Normally my spelling is good.

Where is Whoreza's response?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man I hate this about slashdot. Guy with opinion posts it, guy with better opinion posts it, first guy with opinion doesn't bother to defend himself. Whoreza, you lose.

And fuck you slashdot for disabling anonymous posting. And the fucking 20 second time between hitting reply and posting. Too bad I have a proxy server and patience.

Re:Where is Whoreza's response?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Awptimus completely dodged horza's point by changing the subject.

Yes, this program is stupid and almost certainly violates GMail's TOS, but that's not what the original post was about. It was about hypocritically using IE while denouncing it. "Selective zelotry."

horza commented about that directly and Awptimus retorted with a non-sequitor. And got modded up for it.

Re:Where is Whoreza's response?

[Awptimus Prime]

I normally don't respond to AC's, but here goes:

There is a winner and a loser here? We are just chatting. What is the point in defending some dumb windows client which, along with the linux version, will suddenly stop working once Gmail gets tired of the abuse.

The only losers I see here are those who feel Slashdot forums are a combat zone. This mentality kind of ruins the community atmosphere here.

Re:Requires IE...

[Arker]

It's not necessary, it's simply lazy programming. You can use a COM object that's bundled with IE and save yourself some programming time here - but if you do, you make sure your application is broken for those of us that have gone to the trouble of removing IE from our windows boxes - that is to say, anyone that's the slightest bit concerned about security.

Linking Multiple Gmail Accounts

[inkyfellow]

Is there a way to link multiple Gmail accounts together a la a RAID server?

Or put another way-- has anyone figured that out yet?

If/when they get fed up...

[ultitool]

There's a simple solution. They'll put a Captcha on every file access.

Then again if you end up using GMail as off-site backup storage it is not that much of a pain to enter the Captcha text a bunch times to get your rar'ed hard drive image from your inbox in the event of an unrecoverable disaster. :)

Funny math.

[piranha(jpl)]

1. A byte is anything, including sometimes 5 bits, sometimes 9. An octet is technically 8-bits, or can hold values from 0-255.
2. 3 octets of input encode to 4 characters* of output in Base-64:
   01010111 01010100 01000110
   becomes
   010101 110101 010001 000110
   (Where each resulting number is an index to the set [A-Za-z0-9+/].) 4/3 = 1 1/3, therefore you get a 33% size increase. Correct?

* The term "characters" is used since Base64-encoded data may be transmitted on mediums that use 7-bit bytes, or otherwise systems which don't deal with octets.

How 'bout a Mozilla/Win option?

[uncoolcentral]

What about Windows users refusing (or in an increasing number of cases not allowed) to use IE?
I'd *love* to see a Mozilla/Firefox extension to integrate Gmail with the Win file system.

Preemptive response: (to save you the time)
-use Linux!

Uploading email archives

[gregdetre]

Gmail is wonderful in principle. I want to be able to use it as a permanent online repository for all the emails I've ever received. But I have 5+ years' worth of archives in Outlook Express .dbx and Mozilla folders that I want to upload. Until there's a means for me to do this, then it's of little use to me. Am I the only one who thinks this?

Re:I posted this two days ago, and it got rejected

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop being a retard.

Just pgp your data

[Anonymous Coward]

Why worry about google reading your email or files, just encrypt it all?

2 words

[dangil]

gmail raid

Multiple GMail Drives?

[joel2600]

Has anyone figured out how to make multiple g-mail drives on one (windows) computer?

I'd really like to try and take advantage of this to it's fullest extent.

Re:Multiple GMail Drives?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can open multiple ones, but as described in the help file, they dont recomend you do that.

Thank you,

[Anonymous Coward]

captain obvious

my first review

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, just downloaded this software, at first look, it is some very kewl software (make all those files you need easily available from ne computer, downdie though? understandably for new software it is there, the downsides I have noticed so far is A)being that every change you make it must log in to gmail it takes time, B) tried saving directly to the gmail drive, would not allow me to, C) tried saving a webage to the gmaildrive, wouldnt allow me to open the webpage by clicking the link

Irresponsible

[pkarlos_76]

Anyone who uses this oughtta have their accounts closed, this is misuse of a good public service. Your are destroying for the rest of us. Of course it seems people have been destorying things for the rest of us for the last couple millenia.....I guess things never change... Some people are just plain incompetent. I suppose they'll be the ones complaining when googlebegins exercising their rights to close the accounts. :)

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

Have none of you heard of that saying "Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth"? This hack not only looks the gift horse in the mouth, it then proceeds to bash its teeth out!
So many people complain that all these big companies are out to make money and have no conscience whatsoever, yet here's one company that offers you a massive email space for FREE with no expiry dates on emails and attachments and only puts a few harmless banners up and asks that you abide to their TOS, and what happens? Some prats have to abuse it, which will no doubt end up in the long run with the service being tightly crippled, if not removed altogether.
All you asshats that complain about big business ripping off the individual consumer and yet have no problem using this hack, you have NO RIGHT to EVER complain again. By using this hack, YOU ARE THE REASON there is not more software available for free without restrictions. YOU are the reason that what free software IS available, in most cases it's strongly crippled until you pay for a license.
I can BET that when google adds restrictions or cripple this gmail service unless you pay for a license, you will be the same self-centred arrogant bunch of pricks who start yelling about Google not having any ethics. You do not deserve a damn thing imho, so stfu you bunch of selfish pricks.
My recommendation; show you appreciate Google for providing this free service by boycotting any abusive hacks, and if you know who made the hacks, report them to Google. And don't think for a moment Google wont be going through this thread and monitoring/deleting accounts of the dumbasses who said they are using this hack.

redundant?

[Anonymous Coward]

how is that redundant? he was informing people to stop emailing him because he was probably getting deluged with requests.

people and their mod points these days...