Dropbox syncs files across all your computers
I have not decided just how I want to use Dropbox yet, but I will tell you what: this is one slick program. Dropbox is a very simple, easy-to-use program you install on all your computers, and it automatically syncs your files with a set of files in the cloud whenever you make changes, on whatever computer you have Dropbox install on.
Watch the video. Dropbox is really cool. I do not think it is ready, yet, to use for sensitive client documents, but I can think of a lot of other documents I want to have with me no matter what computer I am using.
4 Comments on “Dropbox syncs files across all your computers”
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While I’ve not down any in-depth investigation of it, ThinkFree Office (www.thinkfree.com) has similar promise to Dropbox. I think that it may be a step up as it provides work-alike replacements for Word, PowerPoint and Excel which appear to act as the interface to the cloud — thus no matter where you are your data is there.
I am in agreement with you that I wouldn’t trust client documents to it yet, but it has possibilities for other uses.
With the proliferation of companies offering similar services, one has to wonder whether they will all survive. Some will turn out to have poor service, poor internal management, an inability to make a profit, etc. If we can wake up one morning and find that major investment houses and banks have disappeared, the same could easily happen to services such as DropBox.
If we accept the premise that some will not survive, then there’s a question of how to determine which ones will make it (and therefore trust them with your files and $$) and whether the services are trustworthy enough in general to rely on for backup or synchronization.
People can do what they want with their family photos, but client and other business documents is another matter.
Longevity is definitely a concern. But remember that while Dropbox keeps a copy on its server, you also will have a copy on all your computers. So if Dropbox were to go under, you should not lose any data.
I am more worried about security, but you can get around this in a number of ways. You could mount a TrueCrypt encrypted volume in your Dropbox, for example, which would ensure data security no matter what kind of security Dropbox uses.
This looks like it could solve a lot of problems for me. I think Jungle Disk is somewhat similar, but may not be as user friendly.