Mike Southby

Up until very recently, if I wanted to share files between my machines, or give access to friends and colleagues I used FTP, the good old fashioned geeky way of doing things.  Doing it properly involved using a whole heap of complicated code, messing around with compatibility of different FTP software, and a lot of patience to ensure that the files were available where I wanted them to be, when I wanted them to be.  Then, through a good friend I found Dropbox.

Available for PC, Mac (there is even an iPhone app; other mobile devices are supported through a mobile browsing portal with a native Android app in development) and even Linux, the idea is that a centralised folder which will be installed on all of your computers or devices will be background synchronised with the cloud.  This is really useful for both home and work use, just how many people only have one machine these days?  The notion of dragging and dropping into a folder and it just appearing across all of your machines in near real time is great.

To get started you simply sign up for an account, install the software and then you are ready to go.  Literally is takes no more than 2 minutes!  You get to choose where you want the Dropbox folder to reside on your machines (the default being within your My Documents).  You’re then ready to put files into your Dropbox folder, and create further folders within.  Interestingly, you are even able to designate a public folder which allows you to give a unique public URL to files within to share with friends or colleagues, really useful if you want to link to a file or photo in say a forum without having to rely on the inherently slow and annoying public file sharing sites; they’re you files, why not keep control of them!

So simplistically, what does all this mean?  Well for example, if you save all of your documents to your Dropbox folder then whenever you make a change and save it, the file is automatically updated on all of your computers rather than just the one that you are working on.  In turn this means the hassle of transferring it to a USB drive or CD to take them to and from the office disappears.  With more and more of us also now using a netbook at home, Dropbox also ensures that all of your home machines contain the same data, synchronised in real-time.  No more having to get off the comfy sofa to run upstairs and get a file off of the office machine.

Good stuff.

If you work from home, or need to share files or photos with friends and family across different computers, another really useful feature is the ability to share folders with others.  A quick invite to a folder and you can easily share work projects or photos without having to email large files around.  There is no limitation of individual file sizes unlike some of the other cloud storage providers so sharing a large (say 100Mb) document with others quickly and easily (assuming you all have a decent internet connection of course) will become second nature.  If you are not fussed about private access to certain people you’ve invited, there is also a public folder as I mentioned before, that allows you to put files within and then give out a URL to anyone; another really useful feature.

Of course, you might not be at your own computer with the Dropbox software installed so are you still able to interact with your files?  Of course, Dropbox have thought of that too.  Connected to the whole system is a simple website that once logged in allows you to view files you’ve got stored, view recent activity, and organise your sharing options.  Needless to say, you can also upload and download your files directly from the site too.  The site is fairly basic but don’t let that put you off, it means that if you are at a random computer, say at an internet cafe or someone’s office you can still access all of your own files.

Dropbox comes with varying amounts of storage, summed up as either basic or premium packages.  The basic package is free and gives you by default 2 GB of storage (though this can easily be increased to 5 GB, read on).  The premium packages are chargeable and give you either 50 GB of storage for $9.99 a month (or $99 a year) or 100 GB of storage for $19.99 a month (or $199 a year).  As an incentive, when you invite other friends or colleagues to use Dropbox, both you and they will be awarded an extra 250 MB of storage when they register and download the software, this applies up to a maximum of 3 GB so as you can see, it’s easy to get 5 GB of storage on the free package if you spread the word.  It’s a win win situation really as by having your friends, family and colleagues also using Dropbox you are able to set up shares between yourselves to move files around easily.

Dropbox is a very clever system but incredibly simple with it;  It’s a cloud sharing solution which saves a lot of time for those of us with multiple computers, or just needing to have access to certain files from anywhere without having to carry a USB thumb drive around.  How many times has that particular file you critically need been on another machine or not on your USB drive?  Even if you run a local area network with file storage already or use some form of NAS, they don’t natively support iPhone access or easy file synchronisation between computers.  Sharing files might be a bit boring for all but us geeks, but really, Dropbox makes it incredibly easy!

To sign up, follow my referral link here which means that you’ll start things off with 2.25 GB of data instead of the 2 GB if you go direct, of course you’ll also be giving me an extra 250 MB which will make me a happy bunny!

Enjoy!

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