There are some third-party solutions for using Google Drive on Linux. Google Drive sounded great… if you’re not using Linux (grrrr! Seriously, Google?). While working with source code requires a thought-out process of finishing up and checking in files, I didn’t want to have to remember to upload the files for just everyday documents. I had one main requirement for whatever cloud system I found: It had to automatically save files that changed to the cloud storage. Plus, I wanted to share some of the documents with my wife and other non-techies, and she wasn’t up to learning git or svn. I temporarily switched to a version control system for my writing files and general work, but that proved to be overkill for just documents.
Although the Storage Made Easy driver worked great, the Microsoft service was far from great. I started using that and even found a third-party Linux driver called Storage Made Easy. They needed many documents and they used Microsoft’s cloud server called SkyDrive (which has since been renamed to OneDrive). At the time I was doing a lot of writing for a client who was using Windows. I tried a few different ones and came to a very odd decision, which proved to be only temporary before settling on Dropbox. When I got started with this, I had decided to keep my files in a cloud-based server.
I’m going to describe this chronologically, as I began setting up the software in the cloud on on mobile, what problems I hit, and how I came to a solution that works for now. The file management, in turn, has two parts to it: cloud storage and version control. There are two aspects to working with my devices: file management and remoting software. Before getting started, however, I want to address one important point: While downtime and family time are necessary (as some of you wisely pointed out in the comments!) one great use for this is if you have to do a lot of business traveling, and if you’re on call. Then in the third and final installment, I’ll explain how I set up my Linux servers, what software I’m using, and how I set up the security. In this installment, I’m going to talk about the software I’m using on my different devices. In the previous article, I gave an overview of how I’ve managed to go mobile.