I am a big fan of Dropbox. I use it all the time.
If you’re not familiar with it, it is an online storage service which integrates directly with your computer. Once you set it up, you have a folder on your machine called “Dropbox”. File operations on that folder are done locally so it is super fast. Then Dropbox auto-syncs everything to your online account, and thus to any other machine you have Dropbox set up on. Save a file in the Dropbox folder, and it automatically saves to all other machines.
You get 2 gigs for free, and you can pay for more. Some may be wondering why not use something like Microsoft SkyDrive which gives you 25 gigs for free. The answer is true portability and support. Dropbox is much more popular than SkyDrive and hence it is supported widely in other applications that can take advantage of it. For instance, I just started using Dropbox to store my encrypted password file for 1Password (on the Mac). It is accessible from both of my Macs, my Ipad, and even my Android phone. This kind of cross-platform, universal support is the major selling point for Dropbox.
So, the obvious use for this is simply to put files in there which you want access to from anywhere. Things like documents. However, there are a lot of creative uses for Dropbox that can make your life easier, but may not be so obvious.
Well, PCMech went out to the Internet and found 10 creatives uses for Dropbox which stood out to us.
Many of these resources also talk about yet more uses for Dropbox.
- Sync Your Passwords Among Multiple Machines. Works with KeePass, 1Password, RoboForm, SPB Wallet. And, no, you don’t need to worry about storing this information in the cloud because it is fully encrypted. But, get this… you change a password on one machine, it auto-updates on all other machines. Yes, convenient.
- Effortlessly Create A Website.
- Sync Your Firefox settings between multiple machines.
- File recovery and version control.
- Cheap, share network drive.
- Share your Itunes Library. A big problem since Itunes currently has no way to do this.
- Start BitTorrent Downloads remotely.
- Track theives that might steal your equipment.
- Export images from your digital camera so they can be viewed from anywhere.
- Access important files on your smartphone or tablet.
If you have any other creative uses for Dropbox, please do share them below in our comment section.
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Binfer is a great option to send large files directly from computer to computer, without uploading to a server. Especially very large files that cannot be uploaded. You can send hundreds of files of any size with a simple drag and drop. Binfer will manage the transfers with auto resumes, encryption, notifications etc. Check it out: http://www.binfer.com
But that won’t work with the same convenience as a service like Dropbox. With Dropbox, you can sync files, be able to shut off that computer and then use those synced files on another computer. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it would seem with Binfer that you would have to have all computers turned on that you wanted to sync files to and probably more importantly, a user to operate those computers to except the file transfer.
HOW ABOUT STORING YOUR SCRAPBOOK? YOU CAN ACCESS AND EDIT IT FROM ANY COMPUTER WHERE EVER YOU ARE.
Thank’s David for good additional information how to use Dropbox.