Dropbox – your own 2GB virtual, sharable, secure thumb drive

Ahh yes, easy data portability. What a pain in the arse. Moving data between multiple locations and keeping it synced is such a hassle. There’s lots of ways you can do it – email it to yourself, burn it to a CD, put it on a thumb drive, even using Microsoft Briefcase (if even you remember its still there in Windows XP). Any way you cut it, its a pain to move files easily and keep it synced up at all your locations – until now.

Some of you may have stumbled across it a while back when it was just a demo video, but now Dropbox is alive and kicking – and it rocks. Dropbox doesn’t look like a whole lot right off the bat, but it really starts to shine when you install the desktop application. Installing the desktop application creates a folder on your computer and keeps that folder synchronized with your Dropbox account and all other computers you have setup the application on. The fact that the Dropbox interaction is just a regular folder makes moving files, updating files, and even sharing files so simple even my mom could do it.

Dropbox also makes it easy to share files with co-workers and friends. Just right click on a folder in your My Dropbox folder and click on the Dropbox->Share options link to add new people to the access list. Now any time someone copies a new file to the folder, updates a file, or deletes a file you are immediately notified. The file activity is also logged in real time down to the second so you can see a nice history of all thats been done. All files are transfered over a secure connection and only those you have specifically shared the folder with will have access to it so your data is safe.

If you telecommute, like to work from home, work from multiple locations or need a place for your designer to toss a PSD file for approval check out Dropbox. 2GB of free, secure storage space that remains up-to-date and synchronized with little to no need for tech knowledge makes Dropbox a great file sharing solution.