Have you ever been working on a file on your laptop, then go to retrieve it at work and realize you left the laptop at home? Do you have several computers in the home, and have to kick a family member off of one computer so you can email a document to yourself or save it to a flash drive so you can work on it on another computer?
Well, I’m completely sold on a new idea that has solved this problem for me. It’s made my life much simpler, and it generally works as advertised.
It’s called Dropbox, and if you work on several different computers, it will change the way you work – for the better.
Go to www.getdropbox.com, download the program onto any windows, Linux or Macintosh computer. The program creates a folder on your computer – anywhere you designate. Download the program on each of the computers you use, and sign in with the same email address.
Whenever you are working on any file, you simply save it to your Dropbox folder, and it is available nearly immediately on any of the computers where you have Dropbox installed.
Dropbox accepts nearly any kind of file, making it easily accessible. Whenever you update a file and save it to your Dropbox, the updated version is saved to all computers. You can also access your Dropbox folder from any other computer by going to www.getdropbox.com and logging in with your email address.
While there are a few glitches from time to time (it took me a couple of tries to get one of my computers synched), the system is overall great. It provides online backup storage, seamless document access, and stress saving file synching.
You can make files public if you wish, providing a link to a public folder in your account. The recipients do not need to have a dropbox account to access the files. You can share photos with family or work on a group project without having a single flash drive involved.
There is a free level of service, or you can upgrade to paid status if you need more storage space.
For anyone who regularly uses more than one computer, Dropbox is a service you’ll want to check out.
