Dropbox: The Online Storage I've Been Dreaming Of

Years back when I was the only geek head in a creative agency, we shared files using the Appleshare server in the shop. We always clogged the server and nobody ever remembers to remove their files once the work was done. So I went around setting up a public shared folder on everyone's Mac. We were running OS9 and setting up was dead easy. I called them dropboxes. Pretty soon, everyone got so used to it they were dropboxing stuff all over the place. It was sheer convenience to share work with someone else by putting it into your own dropbox and telling your colleague to pick it up from there. Or, we could just dump the files into their dropbox. Best of all, you were responsible for your own dropbox, so when you start going low on hard drive space, you just archive or trash whatever's not needed from your dropbox.

So when I came across Dropbox, it brought back fond memories. Dropbox is an online storage solution that's awe-inspiring in its simplicy. They offer free 2GB online storage if you sign up now and there are plans for more storage plans for a fee. How it works is pure simplicity. Once you install it, you get an online shared folder - the Dropbox - that sits in your documents folder or anywhere else you choose. It behaves like any other folder on your machine and you can manage files and folders in it just like any other. But put your files or folders in there and they're automatically synced to Amazon S3-backed storage. You can assess your files from any PC that has Dropbox installed and linked to your account. Or, you can assess them through a web interface. All files are encrypted and stored securely though there is a public folder for you to share your files with friends and family. Dropbox runs with the Mac, Windows and Linux.

I've used Dropbox for a couple of days, and it's just about the most intuitive and transparent online storage solution I've come across. I'm using it to share files between my two laptops running Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux.

You can get Dropbox or watch a screencast of how it works here.