File transport and sharing has come a long way. When I was a student, if you wanted to move your data between computers or share it with others you had to save it to a floppy drive. In the past few years, your options have expanded to include burning to a CD, saving to a thumb drive, or emailing it. Now we have the next step along the way – Dropbox!
Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your computers
Put your files into your Dropbox folder on one computer, and they’ll automatically appear on any of your other computers that also have Dropbox installed (Windows, Mac, and Linux too!). You can even download Dropbox apps for your smartphone or mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry). Everything in your Dropbox is available from the Dropbox website, too.
With Dropbox, your files are synced between your computers that have Dropbox installed, and are available in the cloud online as well. With Dropbox, you can organize your files according to whether they are public or private, and you can share individual files or entire folders with people you specify. Dropbox also has a great undo/undelete feature:
Every time you save a file in Dropbox, Dropbox syncs it to our secure servers. Dropbox keeps a history of every change you make so that you can undo any mistakes and even undelete files. By default, we keep 30 days of history for all your files. We also have an unlimited undo option called “Pack-rat”.
With Dropbox, you can access your files anywhere, and share them with colleagues and friends. It’s great for collaboration, and for sharing specific files with parents and students. We’ll be trying Dropbox out in the lab soon as a place for students to access files and templates, and as a way for me to collect work easily.
Dropbox gives you 2 gig of storage free, but if you need more you can upgrade for a small yearly fee. Take the Dropbox Tour and check it out!
