sugimoto

The cloud has got me!

Recently I discovered a web service which I now use almost every day: Dropbox. This service offers online storage for your files (documents, media or other stuff), which you can use for backup, data transportation to other computers or data sharing with friends. While I would have (limited) space available here on my personal web space, Dropbox offers some really nice features:

• The basic package (2GB) is free, with the possibility to recruit friends and extend the space to 3GB. If you are willing to pay you can extend the space to 50GB (10$) or 100GB (20$)).
• The possibility to determine which folders are private and which are public. Anybody can access files in public folders, you just retrieve the url of the file and publish it. Hence you can use Dropbox to host your website, with free 2GB!
• You can share private folders with selected persons, which means that a link is sent to those persons that you want to share the folder with, and they can then access your shared folder. They need to create an account however to verify that they have access permissions.
• A very nice web interface, with which you can easily download and upload files and folders. Folders are downloaded as zip-files, while the upload works only with files (so you have to generate a folder before manually using the web interface).
• For large number of transactions there is the possibility to install a local client: this will generate a folder on your local system that automatically syncs with your dropbox account. This works seamless on my Mac and on my Linux PC, where pre-build packages exist for different distributions (I tested it on openSUSE 11.1 with KDE4 and it works with the Dolphin filemanager straight away). It should work with Windows as well of course. After installation of the client you have to define where to put your sync folder and off you go. Periodically the client application will check if there are any changes within the folder and if so it will transmit the changes to your account (and only the changes, which saves internet bandwidth). When you access another computer where the cient is installed the folder will automatically be synchronised.
• When using the client application, there is no restriction in filesize (using the web interface the mizimum filesize is capped to 350mb). Often you would email files to yourself or others, just to fetch them on another location. Some email providers however limit the maximum size of individual messages or of mail inboxes, which prohibits sending large files. Just put the file in a private directory, if only you need it, or in a public directory and send the link.
• As I wrote about version control earlier, this is offered by Dropbox as well: when you have changed or replaced a file from your account, you can retrieve an earlier version or a deleted version on your web account afterwards (although I have no idea how long back they are stored).

So all in all a really great service, which I would recommend to everybody, and as it is for free, you have got nothing to loose (except for your data, I know, the “big brother is watching you” advocates will stand up here ). If anybody decides to sign up why not use this link and give my name as referral – thanks.