Those of you who are regular readers of my Blog are well aware that my girlfriend's hard-drive had crashed several weeks ago, and that just recently I was given the task of extracting some of her more important documents and files before reformatting the drive. Well, if you were lucky enough to have followed the comments associated with that post than you've already read the conversation I had with Kid Disco regarding GSpace. And if you didn't... shame on you, but thank you lucky socks that I've decided to Blog about it today.

For those of you without out a clue, GSpace is a special FireFox add-on that is set to interact with a designated Google Gmail (email) account. The outcome is a free 2 Gig easy-to-use and easy-to-manage mobile storage solution... more than capable of storing all of your important documents and files.

After chatting with Disco, I went ahead and downloaded the necessary FireFox add-on, opened a new Gmail account, and began playing around with GSpace. To my surprise, the GSpace interface is very similar to an FTP program, where once a user is logged into Gmail they can highlight and move any file from their hard-drive to GSpace. Files are then stored as attachments within your Gmail account.

One of my favorite reasons to use GSpace is that its 100% mobile. Because files are saved within the confines of a Gmail account (as an attachment), users can access their stored items from any computer that has the FireFox browser and the GSpace add-on. I enjoy being able to transfer files from the office to my home or to my hotel room (when I'm away at a conference) and back again without a single worry or problem. Also, as Disco highlights, GSpace is a great place to back-up some of your more important digital information in the case that your hard-drive should someday crash.

If you're interested... here is the set-up process:

1) You must have the FireFox Internet Browser. If you don't, download the latest version here.

2) Create a Gmail account. If you already have one, you might want to consider creating a new one specifically for this project. I was advised to do so, and so I'm advising you to do the same. I'm guessing that the reason is because the stuff you upload will become intertwined with your actual email files... and that's not a good thing.

Gmail is still in beta and so one cannot just go to their site and sign up. What you'll need to do is track someone down who already has an account and ask them to send you an invitation to join. If by chance you don't know of anyone (or don't want to take the time to think about it) just shoot me an email and I'll hook you up.

3) Download the GSpace add-on here:

4) Once GSpace has been downloaded and installed, open up your FireFox browser and click on "Tools" on the top menu and then select "GSpace" from the drop-down menu. Doing so will bring up the GSpace interface.

If you already use GSpace or know of another really cool FireFox add-on that's worth downloading please feel free to share.

Enjoy!