Many Drive - Episode #88 of CloudFocus Weekly

Machine transcript generated in 2026 from the episode audio (Whisper speech-to-text with automatic speaker separation). Speaker labels are automatic and may be wrong in places. Timestamps shown every few minutes.

00:10 Jason Atwood: This is the 88th episode of CloudFocus Weekly last week of April 2012. This episode is titled Many Drive. a to the channel. experts. Did a lot. More. It was released yesterday, and then we have a blog post by a fellow Salesforce MVP As yourself and it you're not you're not you're not I use that term. I can use the term I'm saying your fellow my your viewers Matthew lamb Matthew Well, I will do that.

Justin Edelstein: That is better essentially allows you to associate one one task to more than one act the who? the many being the many useful for many times asked for over the years I want to be able to relate an activity to more than one person because the I think he found a few shortcomings that are worth mentioning more than the bonuses. I mean, you get the bonuses, right? You add a task and you can add multiple people and it shows up in all the different places places. and that's fantastic. I think where we saw some of the the dumb falls or missing pieces was

04:51 Jason Atwood: Was in the blog post was in the blog post no meaning that you need to go to the blog yeah I mean that comm to read it sure

Justin Edelstein: I was gonna say my one that that I thought was missing that I was no I hadn't realized it was missing was it leads. Why does this work with contacts but sort of weird? There's only two who's it's contact me. So why does this work with me? either as you Write a post or I had asked him to look and he's like it doesn't work for leads. Yeah There's one little tidbit of information you can go to the blog post at blog.archessinc.com and read it. It should be live, relatively soon. It should be live. It should be live. It is ready to go.

Jason Atwood: If you were looking for the, how to publish your app on the AppExchange blog post, and you never actually listened to the blog post, and you went to the blog post,

Justin Edelstein: That is not really available.

Jason Atwood: Next up is Louie! I mentioned this a couple months ago. I was very excited about it. You gave me a ho hum. I feel like this is the many, many scenarios in our lives. You and my lives together in our relationship. That I say something is very cool. You say ho hum. Months, months later you come back to me and go, you know what's really cool? That thing that you said was really cool like six months ago. I haven't come back to you on this yet, have I? It's been out for a day.

Justin Edelstein: Alright, yeah. You haven't even sold this. This is a 24 hour news cycle, my friend. That's right. So, let's get the... So,

Jason Atwood: Anyway, as we've been talking about for a while and as we've made many picks of Dropbox and Box.net and iCloud. There's been a wave of applications or companies offering- Did you just mention Google Wave subliminally? Oh wow, I didn't. But now maybe I did. Oh by the way, for you wave users, get off because you got five more days. Five days to migrate. Five days to get off the- We recommend Google Docs. Yeah. So anyway, there's been many, you know, it started with Dropbox, the idea being I want to have I want to not just have my files in the cloud, I want to be able to sync them down to my local drive as But you can usually just get to them. So Dropbox is an example.

Justin Edelstein: You can just get to them. You can't edit them on the web.

Jason Atwood: You can't edit, you can edit them on the web. Well you can't edit them on the web, but they're files. You can edit them. You can go to them, download them and edit them on them. You're not downloading the file from oh, yeah, I'm sure I'm saying all right. Thank you. for R for mobile devices. So Dropbox, you can browse. I enjoy the Jungle Disk mobile application.

08:24 Justin Edelstein: I oftentimes go look at our spreadsheets on my iPhone. So why? But I do. I find it interesting.

Jason Atwood: So anyway, and there's always been this this basically. hovering mass which is Google saying with this thing called the G drive which has been really been rumored for many many years and a lot of the you know the hubbub in the media has been well when Google comes out with this thing it will squash all the others. Now a couple things have happened the last couple days for Macs.

Justin Edelstein: Oh, okay. So they... I knew of SkyDrive. I did not even know it didn't work for Macs because I never went to go use it.

Jason Atwood: Well, they now have a SkyDrive for Mac version and they're offering seven gigabytes of data for free. That's a nice amount. Right. I think Dropbox is 2.5 something. There are... Definitely like different ones in fact. There's a great chart on Gizmodo that lists them out what each one does infographic No, it's it's sort of a chart like here's what this one does this one. This is one I wish it was an infographic. It's not an infographic. That's too bad because I like it. We should rap about that So anyway, So it was released yesterday and with really not much fanfare I mean they they do their trip their typical release which is they post a new drive.google.com. They have a cool video Which this is one of the worst videos ever because it's like things floating around but they don't actually show you what it does because what it does is it gives you a folder You can access that you don't, even have to have the application for.

Jason Atwood: So PSD files, you don't the have to have Photoshop to see the photos of the PSD file on the web.

Justin Edelstein: Just massive because that allows people to look at it in like a picture viewer foothold. Docs or something like that.

Jason Atwood: I opted to the beta yesterday. I got the invite now, like an hour ago. I downloaded, installed it for my personal Gmail, because our Google apps hasn't been enabled yet. Right. So I did my personal Gmail just to try it, just to see. I literally played with it for five minutes. But I know some things about it. One is you have one quick sharing. So you can right click on a file and then just give you an URL and you can place that URL into anywhere you want and it's automatically shared instantly. So for big files, there's no more worrying about. Our jungle disc does that. Our jungle disc does it, but not very well. It doesn't all right. It creates a web thing. It doesn't do as well as this. This is like right on your desktop, right click.

11:43 Jason Atwood: Give me a five. I feel like my jungle disc does that. No, your jungle disc doesn't.

Justin Edelstein: I beg to differ. Try it out. I'm good at it, as you keep going.

Jason Atwood: So the space is good, the syncing is good, it's very fast, it does all of what you expect to happen. All your collections, so you have collections in Google Doc, they become folders on your desktop.

Justin Edelstein: Yeah, you testing the thing that I told you wasn't right clicked I said share with jungle this yeah, what's happening now? I don't know. I think it's trying to open something Okay, it's not.

Jason Atwood: Oh, I'm not really sure how it opened up a browser.

Justin Edelstein: Okay, actually I didn't open a browser didn't open anything Okay, I don't know why I don't know what it's doing. So it works just the way you thought it was working I've done this before I don't know why it's not working now I don't know what I honestly don't even know what it's doing. It's doing something.

Jason Atwood: Something just happening People are listening to you talk something is happening on your browser Actually, nothing's happening. It's kind of weird. So anyway back to Google Drive It's it's a big deal because it is Google who owns all these businesses who and it's basically it's included in your Included in your Google apps. It's included in your Gmail. They up Gmail the 10 gigabytes now It basically takes over docs.

Justin Edelstein: So you're in my Gmail more than 7. Something. I thought it was like 25. That's my Google Apps account. That's your Google Apps account. Yes. Your Gmail was 7.7 something. Can I ask you some questions about Google Drive? Sure. Because I just don't know the answers. If I can. If the five minutes I play with it. I know more about Jungle This than you do, so maybe I know more about Google. So can I create subfolders in my Google Drive that are shared with? Other users so I write like Dropbox you can have like shared folders and anything in the folder is shared across Right.

Jason Atwood: I'm sure you've done that with people before so if I create a full on You know you can create you can create a collection and share the question sure yes that you can do on

Justin Edelstein: But the G Drive is different than creating a collection in Google Apps.

Jason Atwood: No. So a collection in Google Apps turns into a folder on your desktop.

Justin Edelstein: And it can be shared. So if someone else has a Google Drive account, they go into their desktop G Drive and there's a folder sitting there that's been shared with all files. With all the files. Yeah. That's just a different Dropbox. Got it. the different you were talking about like jungle disc and Dropbox like they have the web interface but you couldn't edit on the web so this has the ability to have Google Docs in the G Drive so yeah it's a combination of Google Docs and Google Drive that's where it's powerful so when I'm sitting on my desktop in my G Drive there's like pointers to Google documents that I can click open it opens in the browser start editing that's correct But if there's a Word doc, that's not editable in Google Docs.

14:43 Jason Atwood: No, it's viewable in Google Docs, right. You go into Google Docs, you'll view it, and you can collaborate on it, you can do comments. So I posted a picture into one, and then it gives you the tools, so you can do file, edit, create, whatever. But you can also do comments. So, whereas in Jungle Disc, if there's a file, a JPEG sitting on, or even in Dropbox. There's a JPEG sitting in your Dropbox, and you and I want to collaborate on it. That's it. We could send each other emails. We can't really go to a web-based version of it and collaborate around it. You can just download it. Yeah, but that's not collaboration. So I think this is where I think this becomes big win. Plus, they're opening up APIs for it. So there's going to be APIs available.

Jason Atwood: So I can you can you cano So I can grab files from a place I don't know where I store files. Chatter Chatter files. I can have them go into Google Docs. I can have them show up on my desktop. I mean there can be some interesting stuff that happens with this. Again, Dropbox owns this space right now. Pretty much. you know relent But when you sort, sort of get the five gigabyte, five gigabytes works with Google Docs, which I think is the thing that makes it more powerful is that I can do both. I can both have that sort of desktop version of stuff, but I can also go collaborate on stuff. And as we have become huge users of Google Docs recently,

Justin Edelstein: Right? I mean, you're love for Google Docs. Oh, I love Google Docs. I love it. So what was all this hubbub about their terms of service that came out yesterday? out of some conversations yesterday on Twitter that we were having with Zach and with Nick and Roger and just throwing people's names out there who may or may not listen to the podcast. Some I know do, some I'm not sure. I think Zach does. I know Zach does. You know, he sent a little snip it to us about the terms of service. Yes.

Jason Atwood: So you're saying that this was sort of taken slightly out of context If you look at the term if you look at the bottom of this article, yep Let's go all the way down update updated at 8 p.m.

Justin Edelstein: To clarify the first sentence of the Google term states So let's read the first your content in our services when you upload or otherwise submit content to our services You give Google and those we work with a worldwide license to use host store, reproduce, modify, create, derivative works such as those resulting from translations, adaptations, blah blah blah blah blah communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute such content so now let's read the update to clarify that first sentence you retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold on the content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours. For more on this topic, read something else. That's, it's weird because it reads differently than what that little update states. Right. And I, it reads like, once you put this file on our servers, we can do whatever we want with it.

17:45 Justin Edelstein: And that's that.

Jason Atwood: I guess there's two points of looking at this. I side of the hundreds of thousands of lawyers that Google has. They always are gonna make things that because basically what they're saying is, listen if you're gonna put this file onto our servers we have to have the ability to move it physically and sync it. And if, so what they usually write it is to say, okay, we can do anything we want with it, sync it across and do this, and then the language gets bigger. This happened in Dropbox. If you look back a year, Dropbox had the same problem. It turned out that somewhere deep in things, it said that Dropbox files were owned by Dropbox, or whatever, everybody freaks out, someone comes up, updates the statement saying, no, no, no, it's yours, but we have to, we have to in our terms of service, have the ability to move it.

Jason Atwood: It. around because that's what we do. It's weird that like some of the words that are

Justin Edelstein: In there like you know you give Google a worldwide license to use to publicly perform to publicly display like these are like weird Words like they make you they make you quiver a little bit there well there it's like ooh ever also you're gonna take my stuff and publicly display it like ooh that's not what I want you to do with it like maybe they mean display it to you in a public place but like like a web browser but it makes it gives me a little shivers down my spine like oh you're gonna take my dock that has My you know my Excel spreadsheet that's near and dear to me that I've been keeping my finances in and my budget And I want to store it in a place where I know I can get to it So I'll put it on my G Drive, but Google has the right to the publicly display this anywhere.

Justin Edelstein: They want it's like this weird Feeling you know Hope I don't care.

Jason Atwood: I hope that there's no you know here's the thing you want my budget I mean, I'm not gonna make it a public. I'm not gonna share with the world but I don't know. I just I've lost that I've lost that. Oh, that's a song not a rap I've lost that loving feeling for privacy. I don't care anymore I really don't like I feel like there I feel like any privacy. It's kind of way I feel about germs if you think that germs if you think that you're not interacting with germs in the day-to-day the existence, then you're just ignoring the facts. So, if you think that you have any privacy, then you're just ignoring the facts.

Justin Edelstein: That's directed directly at Roger. At Roger. At Roger Mitchell.

Jason Atwood: Yeah, the same with privacy. If you really think that you have any privacy, you're ignoring the reality of the fact that you have chosen a hundred times in the last probably month to give up your privacy. You have signed in to places that tell you that they're going to take your privacy. You have given up personal information. You have postured into files. You've sent it over to you mortgage broker. You've done so many things over and over again to give up your privacy. That really privacy is not, it doesn't exist like it used to exist. You have to redefine what privacy means. And so in some ways I'm like, I'm not gonna fight it. There is certain information that might be uncomfortable if you were to find out, like, oh, you found out how much I earned or how much I paid for a book or how much I'm gonna spend on...

20:58 Jason Atwood: Usually financial. Well, drinking, fine. It's usually uncomfortable information, but it's not, you know, to me it's not game changing. It's like, fine, everybody knows I make a buck 15 hour, whatever. I mean a dollar fifty right like one dollar and fifty cents, that's right

Justin Edelstein: That's just Arkus spends all its money sponsoring this Dollars a day would let me ask you a question about Google Docs and I love Google Docs I'm a Google Docs with Google Drive both. I I'm kind of talking about Google. It's now hard to it's called Docs and Drive. Yeah, it's hard to it It's hard to now decouple them now that You know you think about Google Docs are stored in your Google Drive Right like you you can access them from your Google Drive I Have a friend, of mine. He's writing a book okay, and I know he's not ready your friend thinking about suicide as well I don't even get the comment.

Jason Atwood: Oh, because usually I have a friend.

Justin Edelstein: Oh no, no, no. This is a real person who's having a fair. No, no, no. I don't know what to do about that. This is a real person who's really writing a book. His name is Buston. Buston Nettl's name. Right. No. Real friend, not imaginary. Really writing a book. Real book. I'm a couple hundred pages in already staying positive staying positive positive mental you know now there's been a lot of time invested in these got a couple hundred pages would you write that in a Google Doc thinking like like I don't think about we have so much important stuff in Google Docs I don't even think about like, what if that just disappeared one day, like if Google messed up, right? We have all this stuff in Salesforce and I guess it's sort of antithetical to the cloud.

Justin Edelstein: Buying into the cloud, but would you like write a book on Google Docs or would- you be like, oh, I'm gonna write this, maybe I'll write it because I like to compose things in Google Docs, but I'm gonna download it every so often and store it like in a bunch of different things. Well, I think you're asking,

Jason Atwood: To me you're asking two different questions. Are you asking would I use a tool that allowed me to... It's more a philosophical question....coaborate in... Well, but you're asking me a practical question. If I were to have something extremely important anywhere, it doesn't matter where it is, would I consider that I needed to back it up? The answer is yes. The more important it is, the more you have to back it up and the more ways you gotta back it up. So the question is, do you consider Google Doc backed up by itself?

Justin Edelstein: Backed up. Because like, what am I going to do, download this thing every time I change it, that's like every time I change something in Google Docs it saves. Well, I guess the question is, you just put the thing on your desktop.

Jason Atwood: Do you consider it backed up? No. Well then, do you consider something in Docs more backed up than I do? I do. There you go. There's my answer. I'd say, I would feel more happy putting things in Google Docs than not. Like having something on my desktop that could be overwritten and corrupted and whatever. Another part of Google Drive is they're having versioning in so as documents get changed they're going to keep different versions. So in some ways, unless you're using, you know, OSX 10 or 12 or whatever, not 10, whatever, 10 point whatever that has versioning built in or using Time Machine or Crash Plan or one of these other millions of things like you have to be always thinking about how important this is to me and what's my plan if this were to go away?

24:38 Jason Atwood: So if Google were to go away it's a consideration. I don't know. I don't know. Something like a... so for me what I would say is if I were writing a book and it was something so important in Google Docs, something with like Google Drive now, I would just... turn my little crash plan, and I'd say, back up that as well. So then Google has a copy, and then I would be sweeping up a copy nightly to crash plan, and I'd turn time machine on and say, back that up as well. So then I have a local copy on my time machine at home, I got another copy up in crash plan, and then Google Doc has his copy. And then I feel good. I used to do that with mobile me. I used to back up my mobile me, because I almost lost it like twice, and I had all my files there, like files from 1996.

Jason Atwood: And I almost lost it once and I so I backed it up I made a hard copy of the whole thing. It's just a drive or it's basically a it's a sparse bundle Whatever and I'd back it up to my drill bow locally So if mobile me were to go away, I know I had a copy So I think that's you know That's with anything but you have to you can't look at any service and say even salesforce salesforce has a weekly export that you should do If you're going to, you know, what's the value of your data, what will you do without it? Back it up.

Justin Edelstein: So that's Cool J I'm excited to try it out more today. Me too. I'm excited to try it. I haven't even signed up for the beta though.

Jason Atwood: I'm excited more for when Arkus gets access. I feel sorry for... I-I-I-I- I think that it's now time for Dropbox and for Jungle Disk is certainly one of the ones that because Jungle Disk did that one thing that we wanted it to do that now this does which is it syncs all sorts of files and makes it available in a file system format. Now this thing does it and it comes free and if it doesn't come free, if I need more space, I'll just go purchase from Google which is already connected to my account. I can control access I think that's you know easier anyway alright moving on moving right along.

Justin Edelstein: Let's talk about Matt's Blog post real quick so fellow MVP and guest author on the Salesforce community blog wrote a post entitled chatter files a better option for attaching files to records And I can agree with him more. He has this right on. As most of you sales force users know at this point. If you were to attach a file to the Chatter Feed on a specific record. The file gets the file gets pointed to in the notes and attachments section. I do not think a lot of people know this. Well now they do. They should know this. I actually think it should. Did I believe Salesforce should actually rename it Attachments and just do away with notes because that's what chatter is I was I was out a new client yesterday and I was showing them chatter and I said just think about it as notes Because they were having a hard time getting their head around.

Justin Edelstein: I'm like you put notes on accounts and on opportunities Like you have a column in your spreadsheet and it's got like a date a note. And it's got a date field on chatter notes. ahh Can you report on notes notes?

27:57 Jason Atwood: No, but you can add this is this is a consideration. I go down that path with my clients or your clients as well and it's one thing. So, oh, well then I can report on it, right? I'm like. No.

Justin Edelstein: Well, can you report on notes notes? No. So then what's the difference? No, that's why I say put in activity history. Or install compliance for chatter and then you can, then you can report until your heart's contact. So Matt writes this this post about how instead of uploading a file using the standard attach files to the notes and attachment sections, much better idea to just load it into the chatter feed. Because A, it's in chatter, so now it's more collaborative. People can comment on the file itself. B, it makes its way into the notes and attachment section anyway. It breaks itself out there. Right. Right? You can version, you have version control over these documents. So now you can go to the document, upload a new version, and that gets reflected as part of it.

Justin Edelstein: And you can also deliver it. You can actually, you know, using the file sharing capabilities of Chatter files, you can...... a-......., in this example, you can send it out to your customer. On top of all that, there's a file size limitation to what you can, upload in the notes and attachment section. I believe it's five megabytes, as opposed to. 2 gigabytes in chatter so I mean there's there's literally no reason not to use the chatter feed for uploading files on a record as opposed you know you should absolutely be doing that if you're not doing it already except for you're not using chatter unless It's a great topic for a blog post.

Jason Atwood: It is. It's a great use of it and I think people need to go and get into what chatter, chatter files can do because it's clearly the future. And this is where I come back to my, what are you thinking Salesforce moment, which is, we've got to consolidate some of this stuff. Again, notes, attachments, chatter of intent, stop. I didn't even mention documents. Oh yeah, the other thing that Then they have case comments, right?

31:12 Justin Edelstein: Which are notes. It's done perfectly and you can have workflows off of case comments And you can have you know, you know all sorts of fun stuff triggers on case comments I don't know why all the objects aren't like that. I don't know, why cases is special in that way, but Anyway, good blog post man.

Jason Atwood: Yeah, it's actually on the blog.salesforce.com. Right after you do the blog.arkusinc.com. It's in the community blog.

Justin Edelstein: So, you know, if you go to blogs.s salesforce.com slash community, you will get there faster. So just a note for next week.

Jason Atwood: Oh yeah. A little planning note. Yeah, I'm headed to a conference early in the week, so I think I'll probably be coming back and reporting on what I learned at that conference. I'm going to integration room. I, I will not be there. We're not going. No. You're actually moving. They banned me. Yes. Yes, I'm moving. I will be doing that arduous task. So next week we should dig in to summer 12. because summer 12 has been the actual release notes have been released not just the preview sort of whatever release I've read them I'm going to reread

Justin Edelstein: Them because as I like to do well if you read the if you look at our blog calendar next week is the summer 12.

Jason Atwood: Reaction blog post by me by me and you never give up the one out.

Justin Edelstein: All right, so next week So since we've been talking about Google Drive and G Drive and Google Docs, I figured I'd pick my favorite mobile app for accessing accessing for accessing access to Google Docs, which is an app called GoDoc. All one word for.

Jason Atwood: R the I O M so bad we don't have Android I know none of us have it how am the I don't know. I forgot it. That was the one from last week. No, that was three weeks ago. It was one from last week that you forgot. You had this. We should do that and then you of you forgot. No, wasn't that it? No, that wasn't it.

Justin Edelstein: Someone should have written down. Anyway, GoDocs! It's just a really nice native application on the iPad or on the iPad. It's universal, so download once, it goes to both places. It's $4.99 and it allows you to view all your Google Docs in a really nice, easy... you know iOS way to get the folders docs you can edit them really nice just app for getting to Google Docs and I love Google Docs so the, I like I you, and I could do?

35:07 Jason Atwood: I couldBoom.

Justin Edelstein: I could do. I could do. I could do. I mean I have a- I might try it.

Jason Atwood: I might try it. I might try it. I might try it Go docks by I have a- Go docks by Lightroom. That's right. Alright I'm gonna, I I don't pick. So, so reading my site the other and I love my site. And I came across the article about how to use Google+. So it's all Google episode. And Iiasco I was like, oh I'm interested in reading about more about Google+, and what Google I can do more about Google it was a review of an art of a book called What the Plus. Google Plus for the rest of us. What the what? What the plus. Right a little bit on it, but it's by Guy Kawasaki. Who I a it's a quick little 90 page whatever about using Google Plus. Did,

Justin Edelstein: Did you do this like late last week? theres a little chattered post telling me not to neglect our google plus accounts? probably. so thats the pick one.

Jason Atwood: So what the plus is 99 cent e by guy kawasaki. i think its kawasaki, but! What he then what what one of things I found in that was in Google-plus one of things you can can do that you know they have that timeline and in Google plus they have sort of the same thing we have a a picture and a bunch of pictures behind it but you can break up like four or five pictures but they and he said you know you want to get the G plus pic which is at gplusclick.com and I the link will show you if you go to my profile, so you can take a a you can and it you've uploaded to this this website and it breaks it up into five different pictures and makes you and makes you use it as your sort of, background.

Justin Edelstein: I had no idea go to it. I do not care to and I just don't I I gotta be honest I don't use Google Plus at all. I just don't care.

Jason Atwood: It means nothing to me Yours is mine yours is that it's whatever it came with Which is the green green? Yes, I disapprove of your pick this week. right?

Justin Edelstein: It's lame. Who cares? It's fun.

Jason Atwood: It's not that fun I mean, so it took one picture But that's, that's for you. I'm talking to people who actually want to use Google Plus. Who wants to use Google Plus, really?

38:26 Justin Edelstein: You just read this book, is it like, is it like, did glared all these like, things like, oh Google Plus is the greatest.

Jason Atwood: It didn't recover that Google Plus while it's being slammed a lot in the media. has the best of Twitter and the best the Google was 100% behind it. From my apartment, which is a sunset over Manhattan and it's cool. Anyways g Plus pic So that's it. G plus pick. It's free. It takes like five minutes. Even last, the hardest part is finding a picture that looks good and kind of elongated. And that's my pick of the week. Great. Even with your negativity. Even with my negativity. We are going to battle rap right now. Alright, so go to blog.vacu-sync.com. You can read on all our blogs and our podcasts as they arrive up there Follow us on arkasync, twitter.com slash arkasync, twitter. where you'll get or you can follow any one of those other places we'll also post the podcast to all those other places including our Google Plus page which we have the same picture that we have on both our timeline and on Google Plus.

Jason Atwood: So do that we will see you next week where we'll be talking pretty much all summer 12 and until then Join those cloudy days.