Why you need DropBox.

First, because it is awesome.

Previously, I’ve written about how the interwebs is not just for porn and there are actually a lot of useful tools out there. My current favorite is DropBox. It’s been my favorite for quite some time now, but with the rumors circulating about Google’s GDrive, I’ve been holding off posting until I can test it out. However, I’ve lost al my patience.

You need DropBox. Stop emailing yourself the latest file you need to print or carrying around that thumbdrive.

Basics.

What is DropBox? It’s a seamless file-syncing program. You download a small program and it creates a folder on your computer. Everything you add, remove, edit, or delete in that folder gets mirrored with a folder on their website. You don’t notice it, you don’t need to do anything, it’s simple and efficient.

But how it is useful? Imagine never having to email yourself files for printing or for class. Instead, your latest version will always be posted on the internet. Or perhaps there are certain files that are very important to you–tax documents, special images, your purchased iTunes songs, etc. In event that your hard drive dies or your house burns down or you lose your computer, you will always have the latest version of that file. Imagine that you do a lot of your work on your personal laptop. Wouldn’t it be convenient if you accidentally left your laptop at home or it was stolen, but you could still perform your duties?

More advanced uses.

There are, of course, much more advanced uses.

For one, whenever somebody needs a file that is larger than the gmail 20mb limit, I just put it on my DropBox and I can send them a link that will allow them to download it–once they have it, I can delete it. No more dealing with uploading to a third-party site and waiting for it to get there and then emailing them the link. This all happens in the background while you’re doing other things.

I also have my torrent program set up to automatically download torrents in one of my DropBox folders… Now, if I find a torrent I want to start downloading, I can just upload it to my DropBox via the online interface and my computer at home will automatically start downloading it.

If you’re doing a large group project, you can share folders and collaborate.

Or if you’re like me and running both WinXP and OSX on your computer, you can run DropBox on both and never have to worry about copying files over or editing the latest version.(1)

The details.

So there’s a 2GB limit. I’m currently using 21% of my 2GB and I’ve never gone anywhere near 50%, but other people might need more space. 50GB accounts are available, but you have to pay.

This also will only work if you’re using a broadband connection. I guess you could do it over that 9600 baud modem, but that’s just ridiculous.

The very awesome thing about DropBox is that they will keep different revisions of your files on their servers for a limited time. So if you accidentally delete something or updated a file unintentionally, you can always just go back online and find the older version.

PS — If you’re going to start using it anyways, help me out and register through this link so that I can get a couple extra gigs of space.

Footnotes:
  1. Note that this means you’ll also be taking up twice as much room on your hard drive–a small price to pay for that kind of convenience, in my opinion, but not everybody will agree. [↩]