In praise of Dropbox
Every couple of years, a new technology has a big impact on how I work. Gmail was one. My iPhone was another. And I rank Dropbox in the same category.
I get three huge benefits in using Dropbox:
All my files are backed up online. The house can burn down and I know I can still get my files. Also, if I’m away from my desktop or laptop, I can still access my files on my iPhone. Online backup is the only sensible backup strategy.
My two main computers are kept in sync. When I finish work in my uni office, I can go home knowing that everything I’ve done during the day will be already on my home PC when I arrive home. And when I go to my uni office, everything I’ve done on my home PC will already be on my uni PC when I get to work. I never have to think about what files I will need; they will all be there.
Dropbox provides a simple version control system. Other people use services like github and bazaar, but I find them far more complicated than I need. When I edit or delete files, Dropbox keeps previous versions in case I wish to restore them (up to 30 days normally, but forever if you pay a bit more). With a couple of clicks I can rollback to a previous version, or download a previous version and use a file comparison tool to see the changes made since that version.
The best thing is that I get those benefits without any work! Once installed, Dropbox just does its stuff seamlessly in the background.
For up to 2Gb, it is free. I pay $99 per year for 50Gb. If you sign up as a result of this post, you get an additional 250Mb free (and I get another 500Mb – although I’d say all of the above regardless). Available for Windows, Mac or Linux.