Forget my VLE I want to get mashed up....

So you've been reading up on Steve Wheelers learning practices have you? Well although I don't fully agree with all of Steve's points I do see where he's coming from. I don't like feeding trolls so shall just leave my views in the safe middle ground (that's the A-Level Geographer inside me!). Anyway whether you agree with Steve's views on a the use of a VLE or not sooner or later the need to host a document of some sort externally may arise! This could be down to a number of reasons, your wanting to share a file with an unknown number of people and a direct easily shareable (tweetable even) link might be more suitable, or it could just be the file your trying to email is just to darn big!

So where can I put these files?!
There are a number of solutions here the most trusted option in my opinion comes from the big G - Google. In 2007 Google started its bold steps into the area of cloud computing, having your data stored externally and accessible anywhere in the world. Google Docs is in fact a truly magical thing to use first off all you need is a browser so goodbye Microsoft Office (for personal use all my word processing is done on my Google account), and best of all its all free! Google Docs allows you to invite sharer's so you can collaborate and edit the same document together take a look at this little video which explains this all in a bit more depth:

So how do I get started?
Well first log into your Google Docs account with your Google account.. you might already have a Google Account, if you've used Blogspot, Picasa, Youtube, Gmail that account will work... if your yet to have a Google Account then where have you been? Jump on in and become a part of one of the greatest things on the internet!

I'm going to give you steps on how to upload your document, but Google have got it going on when it comes to usablity to I'd imagine you won't need to check back here once you've get started.

1. Go to http://docs.google.com log in
2. Click on the Upload button:
   
   
3. Next Click on the link which says "Select files to upload", that'll bring up the browse to file window find the file you wish Google to host and click ok.
4. Your file should then be listed you can upload multiple files here if you so desire. Ensure the 'Convert documents, presentations, and spreadsheets to the corresponding Google Doc formats' box is checked. When your happy click "Start Upload":
   

   

5. It'll take a couple seconds or so to upload (depending upon your internet connection). Once done click on the file name to check its all ok:
   
   
6. This will open the document up in a new window on the far right side of the page you should see a button titled "Share" click on the little drop down arrow to the right of it. You'll get a couple of options such as 'sharing options', that allows you to select specific people to share your document with which is emailed to them via a specific link, however we want the whole world to see my amazing document so I'm going to click on "Publish to the Web":
   
   
7. You'll get a pop up box click the "Start Publishing" button right in the middle and magically your documents URL will be displayed:
   
   

You can view my document here.

Hope this was of some help you can stop sharing whenever you feel fit, Google's Policy is that if you delete something on their servers they won't keep it, so don't worry about them being sneaky with your files!