Why I Love DropBox and you should too!

As a freelancer that fixes people's PCs, I felt like I needed to write about DropBox for a bit. DropBox is a must-have service/utility for anyone with a computer.

What is DropBox?
It's 2* Gigabytes of storage online. Why does this matter? Can't you get more storage space from other places? Yes, you can, but none of them work like DropBox.

*=The free service comes with 2 GB. There are paid versions available.

DropBox installs as an application on your computer and it gives you a folder, known as "My DropBox". This allows you to simply drag and drop anything on your computer into the DropBox folder. There will be little icons that appear under the files which will either be blue arrows or a big green check mark. When you're files all have green check marks, that means those files are safely stored on both your machine and a secure online server.


Why DropBox?
One thing students tend to do (I did it many times) is e-mail themselves copies of their projects or work. That's handy in case something happens to their files. But wouldn't it be nice to skip the steps of going to your e-mail application, putting your own address, attaching the file, and sending it? Just writing those steps was too much work!

With DropBox, you simply take all your important data such as documents or projects and drop them in DropBox. They're synced with DropBox's online server and always there in case something happens to your own computer.

When you're not at your own computer, you can log into the DropBox website. If you've just finished working on a project/paper, you can upload your file directly to your DropBox account. Whenever you return to your computer with DropBox installed, that file you uploaded should magically already be there (both on the DropBox server and your own PC).

Why am I talking about DropBox?
Because people often hear that they should "back up" their data and the majority do not. People simply can't be bothered to back up or don't know how. DropBox is the simplest form of back up available. Anyone can do it!

If you don't have DropBox yet, go sign up for a free account! You get 2 GB free and there's no pressure to upgrade to more storage unless you need it. DropBox works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems.

Link: Get DropBox