A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s — D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 5

The Internet Connection

By Michael Sauers
Two Gigs of Free Online Storage
Did you know that if you have a Gmail account, it is possible to use those two gigabytes of storage provided to store your files, as well as your e-mail messages?

In order to take advantage of this potential, all you need to do is download and install the free Gmail Drive Shell Extension (www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm). Installation is as simple as unzipping the file into a temporary directory and running the installation program. Once it is installed, you will have a new "drive" that appears in the My Computer section of your PC. Open it as you would any other drive, and you'll be asked for your Gmail username and password. After logging in, you are able to transfer files in and out of your Gmail account just as you would any other drive. When you access your Gmail account properly (to read e-mail) you'll see each of the stored files as if it were an e-mail message.

The Gmail Drive Shell Extension is not perfect. One limitation is that the filenames of the files you store there may not be longer than 40 characters. More importantly, this program is not officially supported by Google and due to Gmail system changes, may stop working at any time. The program's author does provide updates to his program to overcome these problems when they occur, but there may come a time when the program may no longer work, permanently. So, if you are going to use this, you should view it as a temporary storage solution only.

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