One of the most popular pieces of Web 3.0 technology available today is Dropbox.  With this bad boy, you no longer have a single excuse to avoid backing up your files.  Everyone dreads the day when their computer flashes that permanent blue or black screen and they realize, “Oh no, my files are gone!”  Dropbox lets you rest easy, knowing that all the information you hold dear is safe and sound.

Launched in 2008, the service, https://www.dropbox.com/, has attracted a whopping two million plus users and recognition from New York Times, TechCrunch, and CNET.  And after testing it out for a few weeks, this user can’t believe she ever lived without it.  The features, which will be discussed in greater detail below, depict the essence of cloud computing:  storage, multipoint access, and collaboration.

Storage

Sign up for a free account and you automatically get 2 GB of space to use on whatever file types you need.  There is no compatibility requirement, e.g., only .doc and .pdf but no .xls, so you are free to upload anything you have and in any file format.  In addition, the service preserves your filing/sorting system, i.e., that whatever folders and subfolders you upload will be just that – folders and subfolders that you can navigate through online just as you would on your own hard drive.

To download and work on a particular document, navigate to the folder where it’s located or you can always look it up under the “Recent Events” tab if it’s something you recently worked on.  Once you’re done, you can upload to Dropbox and put it right back where you found it – no need to email it back to yourself.  For bulk jobs, just select everything you want on your computer and download it all at once (which is a lifesaver when your hard drive has died and you need to restore all your files on the replacement).

Room to Grow

Just to give you an idea of how much space you’re getting and what you can do with it:

• Five law school semesters of notes (documents, PowerPoints, etc.) ~ 750 MB
• 200 songs (mp3’s) ~ 1 GB
• 250 pictures (jpg’s) ~ 150 MB
• (1024 MB = 1 GB)

There are two ways in which you can increase your storage space – for free or purchase a pro account.  The easiest and quickest way is to buy an account – 50 GB for $9.99/month or 100 GB for $19.99/month.  But if you explore and use Dropbox, then you can earn up to 3GB of additional free space (5 GB total).  You get more space by taking the video tour of Dropbox, installing it on your computer (and others), putting files into your Dropbox folder, inviting other users (and they subsequently join), etc.

Multi-point and Multi-person Access

If you happen to have more than one computer, e.g., several at home or a separate computer at work/school, you can have Dropbox monitor files across systems and keep everything synced.  If you need to print out a file at the office that you worked on at home but your laptop is at home and you forgot to email it to yourself or put it on a flash drive, then just log on and it’ll be right there waiting for you.  You can even access Dropbox from an iPhone (there’s a free Dropbox app!), Wi-Fi smart phone or iPod Touch, or PDA.

Now that you have all these files and folders setup, you can share any of them with whoever you want.  Grant select users access to particular files or folders and never worry about making sure others have the right version of a document or an extra document that you just added to your shared project folder.

Setup

Once you download Dropbox and do the initial setup, you have to realize that you’re going to put all the files you want backed up and synced into a new folder.  Now, don’t freak out.  With some careful cutting, copying and pasting, you can have everything right where you want it to be without remembering new file locations.

NOTE:  I’m not a Mac user so those of you with Apples will have to figure out the equivalent of my PC-talk.

My Dropbox is the important folder here.  Whatever is inside this folder will be synced with the online service, will be accessible from any computer with an internet connection, and will have an option to share.

1. To make things easier, I recommend that you put My Dropbox into your My Documents folder (though you’re free to put it wherever you want).
2. Move (cut, not copy) all your relevant files and folders into My Dropbox – this includes random files on your desktop that you feel are important enough to follow you wherever you go.
3. To put everything back where you can remember it, create shortcuts.  Right click on a file/folder, select Send To and then hit Desktop (Create Shortcut).
4. Now you have an icon on your Desktop with a little arrow on it that points to whatever is in My Dropbox.  You can move this shortcut wherever you want, i.e., into other folders.  As long as the original file/folder (no arrow on the icon) is in My Dropbox, it will all be synced by the service.

And you’re done!

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