Cool Technology – Dropbox

Everyone online has heard about cloud computing, and how it’s going to change their lives. Most people, however, have never really seen what the cloud can do. Due to massive efficiencies of scale, file storage online is a perfect fit for cloud computing. Today, I’m looking into an intriguing cloud based file service that has the promise of making your digital life a lot simpler – especially if you have multiple computers running different operating systems. It’s called Dropbox, and has the unfortunate URL of http://www.getdropbox.com.

What Dropbox does is to synchronize a folder on each of your computers up to a central server they manage. This is done in the background, and incrementally. What this means is that if you write 10 more pages on the next great novel, the first 300 pages aren’t copied up to the network again – just the parts you changed. This may not sound like much, but it also applies to any type of file – if you add a new layer to a Photoshop document, only that change is sent up when you save the file. Better yet – this applies to any file saved in the Dropbox folder, which appears along side Pictures, Movies and Documents in your home folder. These files are copied up to the central server, where they can be viewed and managed online, as well as synchronized seamlessly back down to any of the other computers you have registered to your free account. This can be any number of computers running Mac OS X, Windows XP or Vista, and recent versions of Linux. It all happens silently, when the network and the computer aren’t busy.

The other amazing thing that Dropbox does is to keep previous versions of the files you send up to them. So, if you need to get back the version of your final report from this morning, and not the one you just saved, it’s easy to do. Even better – if you accidently delete a file, or even a whole folder of files, these can all be restored from the web interface. I’ve used this many times to back out of a an accidental Command-Delete.

The final feature of Dropbox is that it allows you to pick folders within the Dropbox folder, and share them with other users. Any files you put in the folder are sent over to anyone who you are sharing the folder with, and any changes anyone makes are quickly sent back. It’s great for casual collaboration on projects – and it makes the multiple versions feature even more important. If someone over-writes your current copy, you can simply log into the web interface and restore the version you need.

The free account allows you to use 2 GB of space on their servers. You can upgrade to 50 GB of space by paying a monthly fee of $9.99 USD/month (appx 35 AED/month) or $99.00/year (appx 350 AED/year).