You really need to be backing up your data… No REALLY! There is a wide variety of online backup solutions offering pretty fast performance but are not truly full featured backup systems. Many of us uber-geeks have tried a gamut of online backup services both free and paid; only to find them all lacking. Many of us were convinced this was a lost quest. On the other spectrum is those who have never tried an online backup service. Well, I have a solution for everyone… Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)
Dropbox is the holy grail of online backup services that will leave you tickled pink and literally laughing out loud. It is a totally painless backup solution that even my brother-in-law can use.
Dropbox works on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and iPhone and provides simple file syncing, sharing, and backup; like a cheesy Ronco commercial all you do is “Set It and Forget It.” Jump on over to Dropbox.com and sign up for a free account. Once you’ve signed up, download the easy to install helper application leaving all the settings as default (standard configuration is best). Finally, start copying your important files into the Dropbox folder on your computer and the helper app takes care of all the rest.
The software’s main task is to watch a specified folder in your computer. Whatever you have placed in that folder, may it be music files, documents or videos, all will instantly and automatically be backed-up by the software to the Dropbox WebDav(Cloud) Servers. If you have multiple computers just install the helper application on all of them and the files in the Dropbox watch folders will be synced. All the computers will have the same files right down to the last edits. If you should accidentally leave a file at home just go to the website and you’ll have full access to all of your Dropboxed files. It even saves your assets if you mistakenly delete an important file. There is a way the retrieve deleted files from the Dropbox web app… Trust me I know this first hand.
I use drop box to house the database file for many of my apps giving me the same data on multiple machines. I’ll do a separate post on this later.
If you do nothing else this year for yourself, get Dropbox. Start out with the freemium version and soon you will be getting a $99 per year full account that lets you have a whopping 50GB of online storage. Hope you find this useful in the New Year.
