A friend said to me the other day, when discussing some new geekery “We are toolsmiths” and he was quite right. I love new shiny toys and tools. We were discussing Google Wave* at the time but the tool I want to bring to your attention today is Dropbox – a fantastic tool for anyone working on more than one machine or in more than one location.. It’s not new by any means but it surprises me how many people are not using it.
So what is Dropbox? basically an online storage bucket which you can sync with any number of computers (Mac or PC) or access online. Simply drag a file to your Dropbox folder (or upload if you’re not at your own machine) and as if by magic a short while later it appears in your folder in all the other places you have set up. You can then access your file, do whatever you want, save it and it updates everywhere else. It saves lugging machines around to clients half the time as you can access the files you want via the web interface
It is simple, easy to use and functional. The web interface is basic because it doesn’t need anything else. A quick download and you are set up and ready to roll. Items stored in your public folder have a URL which you can share with anyone you choose making it handy to distribute big files such as photo albums. You can set up a ’shared’ folder and issue invites for group projects and multiuser files. Again, everyone’s files will be synchronised and updated. It does exactly what it says – drop a file in the box and it’s available to anyone you want to have access.
Price – free for up to 2g, there are premium plans which run at around $10 a month for 50g. You can click here to find out more – Dropbox
In the interests of full disclosure that is an affiliate link, you won’t pay any more or less but I will get some extra storage for free if you use it, and if you do – my thanks. I’m not providing a non-affiliate link because I have quite strong feelings on that subject as anyone who has read an older post here will know, you can find it here – Cut the C***, It’s OK To Make Money
On an entirely separate note, the redecoration here is coming along, still not quite finished but we are getting there, hopefully by the time of my next post everything will be in place.
* I do have some Google Wave invites left if anyone would like one , just put a note in the comments.
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Love the Dropbox. Simple — reliable — and, if you don’t toss too much into it — the price is right. I use it primarily for my daily writing projects. I don’t generally work on these in the evenings — usually too darn tired — but if I do feel the muse whispering in my ear, it’s nice to pop open the laptop in the living room and whatever work I did during the day on my desktop in the office is sitting on the laptop completely updated.