Google Drive is an online storage system that allows you to store files in the cloud and access them from any computer with an internet connection. Drive makes it easy to share files, documents, photos, and videos with your friends, family, and colleagues. With five gigabytes (5 GB) of free storage, Google Drive is a great way to start using the cloud in your everyday life.

Watch this video from Google to learn more about how Google Drive works:

Google Drive also gives you access to Google Docs, a popular suite of editing tools that allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more! If you’re already familiar with Google Docs, it’s important to realize that Google Docs is now a part of Google Drive. All of your Google Docs will be stored on your Google Drive. When you’re ready to make the switch, a few things may look a bit different, but you’ll still have access to all of Google Docs’ great features. Take a look at this video from Google on Exploring Google Drive if you need help getting started with the transition.

If you’ve never used a cloud-based storage system or Google Docs before, our tutorial will teach you how to:

• Download and install Google Drive to your computer
• Upload and access files on your Google Drive
• Manage and organize your files
• Create, share and edit different kinds of Google documents

Whether you’re new to cloud-based storage or an experienced Google Docs user, check out our tutorial on Google Drive and Docs and let us know what you think. Are you ready to start using the cloud?

A lot of you have been asking for QuickBooks help and tutorials for a long time—we hope this proves to be a good start! Our guide below will help you choose the right version of QuickBooks for your needs, direct you to free tutorial videos and provide a variety of additional links and resources.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks was originally designed for people without accounting experience, but there are now many different versions depending on your skill level. If you’ve never used QuickBooks before, we recommend starting with QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks Online is completely free to try and does not require you to install anything on your computer—all you need is an internet connection and a web browser. This is an easy way to learn about the different features QuickBooks offers, whether you’re looking to beef up your resume or just start keeping better records for your business. We should mention that you will have to start paying a monthly fee to use the program after the first thirty days.

QuickBooks Online also offers a wonderful series of free video tutorials if you need help getting started. These should look very familiar if you’ve ever seen any of our videos on GCFLearnFree. This video provides an excellent introduction:

QuickBooks Mobile App

Another added feature of QuickBooks Online is the QuickBooks Mobile app, available on the App Store and Google Play Store. This simple app is free and allows you to create receipts or check payments on the go. Plus, anything you add on your mobile device will automatically be updated the next time you log-in to your computer! You must have a QuickBooks Online account to use the app.

Need a Little Extra?

Perhaps your needs are more complex: do you want QuickBooks to help manage your payroll or track your inventory? You might consider purchasing QuickBooks Pro. Because this program costs a little more than QuickBooks Online, about $200, we recommend using the following low-cost options if you need help learning how to use its features:

• Learning QuickBooks is a reasonably priced, step-by-step software program for learning QuickBooks Pro at home, with versions for Windows and Macintosh computers. If you would prefer to learn at your own pace this might be the right guide for you.

• Lynda.com provides a comprehensive training program for QuickBooks Pro. A monthly subscription to the site costs under $30. This is a great option if you have a little accounting experience and would like to start using QuickBooks Pro.

Additional Resources

If you have a working knowledge of QuickBooks and would like to start learning about its other features or find help for a specific problem, we recommend you visit the following resources:

• QuickBooks Blog A blog run by Intuit, the company that produces QuickBooks. Here you’ll find notices about updates to the software and answers to common questions.

• QuickBooks Users Blog An independent blog run by a long-time QuickBooks user. This post offers five simple rules for success when using QuickBooks.

• QuickBooks Community Intuit also provides a space for users to help each other learn on the QuickBooks Forums.

Whether you’re an experienced QuickBooks user or looking to start using the program for the first time, we hope you can put these resources to good use.

If you are new to Chrome, our tutorial will show you how to:

• Download and install Chrome to your computer
• Navigate the Chrome interface and become familiar with it’s features
• Explore customization options and themes
• Download applications from the Chrome Web Store
• Add, organize and import bookmarks for your favorite webpages
• Understand and manage the security and privacy features

• Your laptop or computer seemed to be working fine yesterday. Today it turns on, but it won’t boot up and the screen won’t turn on. You are worried you’ve lost all of your personal files and photos.
• Your children have been playing computer games on the family computer and you discover later that they have deleted folders from the hard drive. You aren’t sure which ones are missing.
• You’ve worked hard on a presentation at work. You save it on your flash drive and put your flash drive in your pocket before you head home for the evening. The next morning, the day of the presentation, you realize your flash drive is still in the pocket of the pants you wore the day before. You’re not sure how you’ll give the presentation.
• You discover your laptop has been stolen. It had everything you’ve saved for the past three years on it.
• Before heading to the computer lab at school, you email yourself the file that you need. When you get to the lab, you discover your email service is down and you cannot get to the file.

These are all common scenarios. We depend on our computers and storage devices to help keep us organized and to store important and sometimes invaluable information, such as tax documents or family photos. To lose any of these things could be devastating in the short term and time consuming to try to piece together and recover in the long term. Fortunately, there are options available that can help you to avoid getting into situations like these.

Backing Up Your Computer

Backing files up online has become a widely used practice for helping home computer users and businesses keep their documents secure and automatically backed-up. These services use the cloud to keep files, photos, and other data accessible to you when you most need it. Many offer mobile apps to give you even more access to the files that you need. We’d like to tell you about two of these online back-up services: Mozy and Carbonite. Both services are available for Windows and Mac users and they have been highly rated by Consumer Reports (“Computer backup system buying guide“) and by TopTenReviews.com (“2012 Best online Storage Comparisons and Reviews“).

If you would like to have control over when your data is backed up, Mozy offers automatic or scheduled back-ups so that you know exactly when your computer’s information is being secured. This service can accommodate personal files, music, photos, videos, and business data such as financials. Mozy also features a synchronization tool called Mozy Stash that allows users to keep their most active files up-to-date across multiple computers decreasing your need to email files to yourself or store files on a flash drive. If you’d like to access your files on your iPhone or Android device, you can have access with Mozy’s mobile app.

Mozy has a variety of monthly pricing plans to suit your storage needs, starting with an offer of 2 GB free storage. From there you can have up to 125 GB for $9.99 per month, with an additional 20 GB of storage for a small charge. Mozy also offers tech support and tutorials to demonstrate how to use their service.

If you like the idea of having your computer backed up continually while you work, Carbonite is the option for you. This service is offered to the home or small business user and its automatic backup feature makes sure your files are always up-to-date. Carbonite can back-up photos, email, documents, music, settings, and videos. In addition to the ability to retrieve your information using the internet, Carbonite can ship a copy of your files to you, or you can use one of their Carbonite Access apps to get your files instantly on your Apple or Android device.

For the home user, Carbonite has no limits on the amount of storage you can use, and it offers a 15 day free trial of its service. There are several pricing plans beginning with basic service for $59.99 per year through premiere service priced at $149.00 per year, which will back up your computer’s operating system.

If you find that you would like to look into a few other options to find the service that best fits your needs, here are some to consider:

• Justcloud
• IDrive
• GoogleDrive
• Dropbox
• Microsoft SkyDrive

As you consider the benefits of these online backup services, it’s important to point out that these and most other backup services should not be used to free up space on your hard drive. If you decide to remove files from your hard drive, most services will wait 30 days for you to recover any files that have been deleted. If a file is not recovered within 30 days, it will be deleted from the storage service’s system, as well.

To learn more about backing up your computer, visit our Computer Basics Safety and Maintenance Lesson. Once you’ve backed-up your files, photos, and videos from your computer to online storage, you can have peace of mind that they will be safe and you will be able to access them whenever you need to.

It’s important to mention that the complete Adobe Photoshop software package retails at $699.99. If that is a little out of your price range, we have found some other options to choose from:

• Photoshop Elements ($91.88 – $149.99): This is a basic Photoshop package and is great for the home user or hobbyist. It has many tools for editing digital photographs including cropping, reducing red eye, and adjusting colors.
• Photoshop Extended Student/Teacher Edition ($192.00 – $199.00): This software includes most Photoshop tools and accessibility and is great for digital art students or educators. Purchasing this version will require the buyer to register as a student or a teacher.
• Photoshop Touch for iPad ($9.99): If you are looking for a basic photo editor, you may want to try this app available in the iPad App Store. It includes some of the same features as Photoshop including selection tools and the ability to apply filters to photos to create interesting effects.

Photoshop takes some time and patience to learn. In order to use it to the best of its potential, the user should have some artistic ability. Unfortunately, Photoshop does not make someone a better artist; it offers the artist another tool to create with. The good news is that with practice, using Photoshop can become second nature. There are many internet resources to help you learn the basics of how to use this software, but these are a few that we recommend:

•  Adobe TV: Adobe, the creator of Photoshop, has produced this collection of video-based tutorials. It is a great place to get started.
• Lynda.com: This comprehensive website offers many tutorials ranging in topics from the basics to more advanced skills using Photoshop. Some videos are free and others are available for a reasonable monthly subscription of $25.00.
• dalearners YouTube tutorials: A photographer/artist interested in educating the community shows the learner fundamentals of Photoshop, starting with understanding what a “pixel” is. In his videos, he offers explanations and examples, and provides project files to accompany his lessons.

If you already know a little about Photoshop and would like to learn more about creating great digital effects using this software, we’ve found some resources for you, as well. Learn how to create scenes, posters, and other digital effects here:

• PhotoshopStar
• PhotoshopEssentials
• PsdTuts

Once you are more comfortable with Photoshop, feel free to experiment with the software. Consider visiting some online digital galleries to get some great ideas or follow the work of a digital artist. You can also try learning with others by looking for Photoshop groups on Meetup or Facebook.

Sometimes all the choices can feel overwhelming

If all this sounds a little too familiar, you might consider using one of the many powerful apps for your mobile device that collect and organize news. These apps, often called news readers or news aggregators, gather updates from different news outlets and compile everything into easily readable pages, transforming all of that content into a digital magazine. You decide what kind of content appears in your magazine, allowing you to stay informed about the things that matter most to you.

While there are lots of news readers available, this post is going to focus on three of the best. Each offers some unique features and you will probably want to try them yourself before settling on the one that’s right for you. Fortunately, they’re all completely free, so there’s no harm in exploring.

Flipboard (iOS)
All of these apps advertise themselves as a sort of digital magazine, but Flipboard is the only one that truly simulates the experience, allowing you to move through content by flipping pages. The motion is seamless and feels natural after using the app for only a few minutes. Flipboard offers a wide selection of different sources to include in your magazine, from national newspapers and magazines to your Facebook and Twitter streams.

Flipping pages on Flipboard

You can also add blogs or RSS feeds into your magazine, but Flipboard doesn’t always do the best job of incorporating those sources into your magazine. Often you will have to view an article on the original webpage, which can feel a little clumsy, especially if you’ve become accustomed to reading other articles within the app. Flipboard is currently available on all iOS devices, but it remains evident that the app was designed for use on the iPad. The experience of page flipping does not translate easily to the iPhone’s smaller screen. Still, Flipboard usually proves to be a very satisfying way to view news and information from a variety of different sources.

Zite (iOS, Android)
Zite finds content based on your interests and organizes articles into a neat, clean layout, with a design that feels similar to a traditional newspaper. The more you read, the more Zite learns about the kind of content you enjoy. This allows Zite to focus your magazine around the topics that you care about. Zite also allows you to read the entire text of almost every article within the app, providing a more pleasant reading experience than Flipboard.

Browsing articles on Zite

While Zite provides perhaps the cleanest interface of these three apps, it is also the least customizable. Zite does not allow you to view any personal news feeds like Twitter or Facebook, nor does it allow you to add independent sources like blogs or RSS updates. The design of the newly released version of Zite for Android also lacks the beautiful stying of the iOS version. Because of its smart recommendation features and beautiful text integration, Zite is a great tool for discovering and reading new content.

Pulse (iOS, Android)
Pulse offers the least traditional approach of the three, displaying updates in a visual mosaic of pictures rather than organizing stories under headlines or pages. Each source is condensed into a row, allowing you to browse through many different stories. Scrolling through a series of updates suddenly feels much easier with Pulse, allowing you to digest a large amount of information quickly.

Scrolling through updates on Pulse

In addition to a variety of news sources you select by category, Pulse also allows you to add Facebook, Twitter and blog feeds. Pulse often does a better job than Flipboard of incorporating external sources like blogs right into the app. Pulse also enjoys a variety of features that are limited in Flipboard and Zite. With Pulse you can save an article to external services like Instapaper, ReadItLater and EverNote. While Zite and Flipboard allow you to save to some of these external sources, Pulse offers the most choices. You can even save an article to Pulse while browsing the web on your computer via a bookmarklet. Pulse seems to offer many advantages over Zite and Flipboard, but some users may find its content organization distracting after a period of extended use.

So go ahead—download these apps and start exploring. You might find that you like Flipboard for browsing through your social networks, Zite for reading long articles, and Pulse for discovering the latest trends. There’s probably at least one feature you’ll like about each of these apps, but if not, here are some other news readers to consider, as well:

Google Currents
Flud
News360

However you decide to use them, we hope that these apps allow you to stay more connected with the news you care about and help you discover information you didn’t even know you needed.

This video from CommonCraft provides a great introduction to the basics of Meetup:

• To connect with others who share their passions. Whatever you’re passionate about—be it sports, art, politics, writing, food, music, travel, or almost anything else you can think of—there’s a good chance you can find a Meetup to attend!

• To make professional contacts. Meetup provides great networking opportunities because it allows you to meet people face-to-face that you might never meet otherwise. Consider attending a Meetup about a topic that interests you professionally. With any luck, you’ll be able to meet other people in your field and make the right connections to help land a job!

• To meet new people. Maybe you’ve just moved to a new city and need a new group of people to socialize with, or perhaps you’re just ready to make new friends. If this sounds like you, Meetup will be a great tool!

To get started, go to Meetup.com and click Sign up—creating an account on Meetup is free! Once your account is set up, it’s time to search for a Meetup.

Finding a Meetup:

1. Click the Find a Meetup Group tab at the top of the page. Meetup Groups organize local Meetups, which you can attend.  You will have to join a Meetup Group to attend their Meetups.
2. If you don’t know what kind of Meetup Group you want to join, you can browse Popular Meetups and Groups on this page; they appear under the Topic or interest search bar. Maybe you’ll find a new interest to explore!
   

   Browsing popular Meetups

3. If you know what kind of Meetup you want to look for, enter an interest into the Topic or interest bar and click Search.
4. The search results will show different Groups in your area that match your interest. If you see a Group that looks interesting, click on the Group name to view the Group profile page. The Group profile page will provide extra information, like how long the Group has been active and how many Meetups they plan to have soon. If you’d like to be a part of the Group, click Join us!
   

   Viewing a Group Profile page

5. Some Groups you can join right away, but most require that you give the organizer a little information about why you’d like to join the Group.  Don’t worry!  This just allows the organizer to make sure you’re serious about joining. Once you’re approved by the organizer, you’re ready to RSVP to a Meetup! Click RSVP next to an upcoming Meetup to let the organizer know you’re coming.

Things to Remember When Using Meetup

• Use good judgment when attending a Meetup. Your first Meetup with a Group should probably be in a public place. You might consider bringing a friend if you don’t feel comfortable meeting a new group of people on your own. Review our guide, Precautions to Take When Meeting People Face to Face, for more information about the right mindset to adapt when meeting people offline.

• Meetup Groups occasionally require a small membership fee to join, especially if the activity has an extra cost, like bowling or rock climbing. While it’s free to join Meetup, creating a Meetup Group costs money, so some organizers simply need help paying the bills. Never agree to give more than you’re comfortable with, especially if you have just joined a Group.

• Meetup Groups can have a lot of members, so some Meetups will have a limited number of RSVP spots available. For example, if you join a big Meetup Group that likes to explore different ethnic restaurants, there’s no way every member could attend each Meetup! Be sure to RSVP early if you want to attend. At the same time, make sure to treat your RSVP as a real commitment. The organizer will expect you to arrive if you said you were coming; you might even keep someone else from attending if you don’t follow through. If you realize you can’t make it to a Meetup you have already replied to, change your RSVP as soon as possible. No one likes a last minute cancellation!

• If you’re a more experienced Meetup user but haven’t been able to find a Group that truly fits your interests, you might consider organizing your own Meetup Group. Running your own Group is a big commitment, both in terms of time and money. An organizer is expected to pay about $150 a year in costs to Meetup for hosting the Group. You’ll need to be ready to put a lot of time into making the Group a success. Meetup provides a great Resource Guide if you’re thinking of organizing your own Group.

Now that you know more, we hope you can use Meetup to connect with new people and engage your passions. We’d love to hear from you. How do you Meetup?

For example, the text you’re reading right now is formatted with HTML, a language that your web browser can read. So, when I type something in HTML — for instance, if I decide to underline a word by writing something like <u>this</u> — your browser reads what I wrote, then displays it like this. To get an even better idea of how different HTML can be from what you see on a web page, check out the images below. To the left is a page of GCFLearnFree.org as you’d see it in your browser; to the right is the HTML for that page.

It may look daunting, but learning the basics of HTML is not impossible, or even all that hard. In fact, you can learn some basic HTML formatting tricks in an hour or less. Learning how to write actual programs with languages like JavaScript, C++, or Python is trickier — but far from impossible. People of all ages and from all around the world have taught themselves how to code, and you can, too.

Currently, GCFLearnFree.org doesn’t have any plans to offer tutorials in HTML or any programming language. However, there are many excellent free coding tutorials out there on other sites. I can’t promise you that any of these will teach you everything you need to know. After all, I’m just getting started with coding, too. That said, these resources can give you a great start. While there are sites out there for learning all types of coding languages, the ones I’m listing here focus on:

• HTML and CSS, for building websites
• JavaScript, for building simple applications.

 Codecademy

Javascript // HTML

This is my personal favorite site for learning to write simple programs.  The people behind Codecademy believe that the best way to learn how to do something is to actually do it, so the excellent JavaScript tutorial uses interactive tools to show you code, then let you write your own code and test it out. The first few lessons are meant for complete beginners — you don’t have to know anything about coding to get started. If you’d rather learn how to format websites than build programs, Codecademy also offers some lessons on basic HTML. Note that you’ll have to create a free account to keep track of your progress and get emails when new lessons are added.

The first JavaScript lesson in Codecademy

Lifehacker Night School

JavaScript // HTML/CSS

While these tutorials are intended for beginners, they won’t take you through the process of writing code step-by-step like Codecademy does. Instead, they give you an overview of the basics, complete with examples and some in-depth explanations of tricky topics. If you prefer watching videos over other types of learning, you’ll enjoy these tutorials. They can also be useful if you’ve done the Codecademy lessons and still feel like you don’t quite understand all of the concepts.

An excerpt from the first lesson of Lifehacker Night School's HTML and CSS course

w3Schools

JavaScript // HTML // CSS 

W3Schools offers tutorials on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more. However, I think it’s most useful as a reference guide. I use it to refresh my skills when I’m having trouble remembering how to do something, or if I’m not sure why the code I’m using isn’t doing what I want it to. (For example, the list of HTML tags is a resource I’ve used while writing lessons for GCFLearnFree.org.) In addition to giving instructions and other information, W3Schools also offers a tool called Try it Yourself. This lets you test your code to make sure it works. This is useful, as you can experiment without the risk of messing up anything important.

Practicing HTML with the w3Schools "Try it Yourself" tool

Have you seen any other resources out there for learning how to write programs? What about sites for learning HTML? Don’t be shy! Comment and let us know about any other resources you’ve found helpful! I don’t know about you guys, but I know that I need all the help I can get.

UPDATE: A reader has pointed out that some developers have questioned w3schools.com’s usefulness and accuracy. I’ve used w3schools often, especially for HTML and SQL, and haven’t found any errors that have affected my work. Our excellent web developer also uses the site as a reference. However, it’s worth noting that some of lessons on the site may contain inaccuracies.

As always, a warning about sites we link to: while we do our best to make sure we only direct you to resources that are worth your time, we can’t fully vouch for any information on any site besides our own. When you’re learning a new skill, it’s always a good idea to use multiple resources. As you get familiar with coding, you may want to switch to more comprehensive sources, like SitePoint’s HTML reference  and Mozilla’s JavaScript Reference.

We’ve had a lot of fun playing the game on the iPad and on our computers (You can play the game on your computer too through our website:  http://www.gcflearnfree.org/math/goodatmath). So much so we decided to look into creating our first application for Facebook.

Today we launched Good at Math on Facebook!:  https://apps.facebook.com/goodatmath/  Like many games you may play within Facebook, you can share your scores and progress with friends.

We recently updated the game for the iPad too. In this updated version, we addressed various technical issues, including the text entry. Entering answers has been simplified and the response time has been increased, which will make it easier to answer math problems quickly. To download the Good at Math mobile application visit: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/mobileapps/goodatmath.

Good at Math allows you to choose between practicing addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, or all four skills at once. As Good battles the bad guys using her math moxie, the math questions increase in difficulty. In each level you reach, you will be given less time, challenging players of all ages in a fun and exciting way. Just like Good, you will be able to improve your math savvy each time you play and feel more confident with each new triumph.

So, play the game and let us know what you think! We’re really excited about it and we hope you’ll enjoy it too!

What led you to working at GCFLearnFree.org?
I came to GCFLearnFree.org in a very roundabout way. My undergraduate degree is in art history (one of two on staff-odd, huh?) and my graduate degree is in education. I spent some time in the classroom, was the executive director of two small non-profits, and worked at the local NBC affiliate. Out of these experiences I discovered three things about myself: 1) I really liked working for an organization that did good in the world; 2) I enjoyed discovering ways to communicate that organization’s positive story to other people; and 3) I didn’t like fundraising. My position as Online Media Marketing Specialist at GCFLearnFree.org offers all of these things.

What is your favorite thing about working at GCFLearnFree.org?
It’s what a lot of other members of staff have said but for me it’s definitely the staff. I’ve never worked with a better team of people that all 1) enjoy what they do and it shows daily in their attitude; 2) are incredibly creative and talented-we really have some of the best in the industry assembled here; and 3) are really quirky and funny-I find myself laughing everyday.

What’s one thing you wish people knew about GCFLearnFree.org?
I wish more people realized the number of tutorials we offer. I think that perhaps people that do know about GCFLearnFree.org may not think we have content that fits their needs but I really think we have something for everyone. You can be old, young, college educated or from the School of Hard Knocks-there are tutorials here that everyone can benefit from…and if not, then you probably know someone who can, so you should spread the word!

What is something that not a lot of people know about you but you WISH more people COULD know?
That I have a slight (ok, incredibly crippling) fear of water and can’t swim yet I’m SCUBA certified and go white water rafting. I do these things to prove to myself that I won’t let fear dictate my actions.

Where is the most interesting place you have ever visited?
I caught the travel bug a little later in life, having never left the Southeast until I was in college. I haven’t gone to too many places but by far the most interesting place I’ve ever gone is New Zealand. Like no other place in the world, New Zealand is a magical land with glaciers in the middle of lush tropical rainforests, boiling mud and geysers, fiords and waterfalls, sandy beaches and snowcapped mountains. Other than the harrowing experience of driving on the left side of the road, the whole country is pretty perfectly awesome.

More staff interviews to come!