I’ve been using Dropbox for several months now, and I wanted to offer it my congratulations.
As I mentioned in my post about OtherInbox, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to my technology; it has to capture my attention and hold it with little to no effort on my part. I’ve tried a lot of different web services over the years and most of them don’t last more than a week. I give these services every chance to better my life, or to make it more interesting, but for different reasons, they fall by the wayside, forgotten. Either they’re too difficult to use, too cumbersome to use, or they just don’t fit into my online lifestyle.
Dropbox has cleared these hurdles that so many sites and services have run smack into and collapsed, twitching in a pile of twisted, useless data.
So, what exactly is Dropbox? Basically it’s a virtual file folder in which you can save pictures, music, documents, and whatever else you want to access on more than one computer. If you’re using Windows, you’ll find a folder in your My Documents called My Dropbox – this isn’t movable. On a Mac, however, you have a choice of where to put the folder. Then, whatever you put in this folder will be synced to the Dropbox servers. To access these files on another computer, you’ll have to set up the service just like you did on the first one. Log in, and the folder will be automatically synced. Depending on your connection and how much data you’re syncing, this could take several minutes.
The beauty and real strength of the Dropbox service is that it’s 99.9% transparent. Unless you’re saving large files to the folder (say, more than 5 or 10 MB depending on your connection speed) you won’t notice the syncing at all. It happens in real time, the instant you put the file in the folder. There’s no waiting, and no need to force it to sync if you’re in a rush to get out the door. 
There’s no annoying popups or alerts telling you that your files have been uploaded, either. Instead, each file icon is tagged with a small, unobtrusive green check mark. While the files are in your Dropbox folder, you can do whatever you’d normally do with them – drag and drop them into different folders, rename them, or open them for editing. When you’re done, save the file as you normally would, and Dropbox will sync the affected files immediately.
What makes the service even more useful and accessible is that you don’t need to have the software installed on your computer. While it does make it much more usable, you might not always be at your own computer. Wherever you are, you can get access to your files by logging on to their website.
Upon installation, there are two folders created inside your My Dropbox folder. Files in the Public folder can be shared to friends that aren’t Dropbox users. You can create more public folders, and invite people to share by listing their email. All the members of the folder can edit, add, and delete the contents. It works great for team projects and online collaboration. The other folder, Photos, will have its contents displayed in the gallery on the web interface. Here, you can get a permalink for each photo to email to friends and family.
You’re given 2GB of storage space, which I’ve found to be plenty. Remember, larger files take longer to sync, so the service works best with small files anyway. When deciding on what you should use your Dropbox to store and sync, you might want to read through the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, etc.
THE SITE, CONTENT, FILES AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.
So in other words, use at your own risk. Don’t store electronic copies of your bank statements, text files with all your passwords in them, or anything else you couldn’t stand to lose.
Bottom line: Dropbox is a wonderful convenience; much more convenient than a flash drive or emailing files to yourself. Go sign up for it now!
I love tech, but don’t have as much time or money to spend on it as I’d like. I get what I need to sustain my Geek vicariously through other sources and pass it along to you.
