The Cibertek Blog

Back in July, I wrote about the ways you can synchronize files between computers over the internet. At that time, I mainly exalted the virtues of Microsoft’s Live Mesh but for some reason I had not mentioned Dropbox, mostly because I hadn’t heard of it up to that point. A reader emailed me after reading the post to ask why I hadn’t mentioned Dropbox and I had to plead ignorance. But that email got me intrigued so I got a Dropbox account to test it out and today I can say I no longer use Live Mesh. Turns out Dropbox works much better and if you are using Live Mesh only as a sync tool and not using their remote access feature, its basically a no-brainer why you should switch.

So, yes I am a little late to the party so don’t take my word for it. Check out what others have said about it:
• 5 cool things to sync with Dropbox on your Mac

• Drop It Like It’s DropBox

• Use Dropbox for More Than Just File Syncing

• Dropbox is the simplest, most elegant file-synchronization tool I’ve ever used.

Here are my top 5 Dropbox favorite features:

1. Dropbox just works better than any online backup or synchronization out there. It works so quickly and so seamlessly that I sometimes forget it’s primarily a “cloud” application. The operating system treats it just like any other folder on the system.
2. Dropbox is free up-to 2GB. If you want more space, there is a monthly cost: $9.99 for 50GB or $19.99 for 100GB.   To compare Live Mesh, which is still in BETA by the way, is stuck at 2GB and does not currently have any upgrade package.
3. You can sync and share files with almost anyone. Dropbox works on MAC and LINUX machines just as seamlessly and simply as Windows.
4. Dropbox keeps track of version history of your files. View multiple versions of your document for example, who changed it, and when.
5. You can use the iPhone app to view your docs wherever you are. This feature is my favorite. Every file is available directly from your iPhone. You can’t directly edit any files but you can read any file that you normally could on the iPhone like DOC, XCL, and PDF.

I know some people are going to read this post and say, “what the fraq is Dropbox?” So here are some ways to use Dropbox in the first place that may help to explain it:

1. You have a machine at work and one at home and you want to share files between the two. This is especially helpful if you cant or don’t want to carry a USB key back and forth.
2. You have a laptop and a workstations (Desktop PC) and want to share files between the two. Again, toting a USB key between the two can be tiresome.
3. You want to share files publicly or privately with others. It think most people now use email to do this.  Problem is, email is not the most efficient method to share files because the file is replicated as many times as the amount of people you send it to.  So having a spot in the “Cloud” to drop files and share it once saves space. For instance, this link will open a file that I have in “Public” folder on my Dropbox: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3079243/UpdateStar%20Install.mp4. I can send someone this link instead of the file via email and there is no “attachment”. This way it never clogs up my email folder and theirs. Keep in mind what type of files you share with others because they have to be able to open that file on their machine also so the same rule applies as in email attachments in this case. Example; If someone doesn’t have Excel on their machine, they may not be able to view the Excel spreadsheet file you sent them, attached or linked.

There are also a few ways NOT to use Dropbox:

1. Don’t keep your sensitive or personal files in Dropbox. Don’t keep your Quicken file or your Excel spreadsheet with all your passwords in Dropbox. Yes, Dropbox is encrypted and protected but its not bullet proof so why take the chance.
2. Yes, you can use Dropbox as a backup device, but if you have more than 2GB of data it can get expensive to keep more than that. In my opinion it shouldn’t be used at all for backup, there are other services that can do that for a lot less money.

Last thing

Once you sign up, you will soon realize that the 2GB free version might be too small You can expand your storage for free if you recommend others to use through their referral system. That is what I am doing right now. Click this link if you would like to join Dropbox right now. https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTMwNzkyNDM5 Everyone that joins will get me an extra 250MB of space, up to 3GB. You can do the same after you join too.

Also, if you have an interesting “Dropbox” story, please reply to this post. I would love to hear it and others might gain some uses from your experience.