Computers, computers, everywhere so where’s my darn file?
Excuse the language.
Dropbox is a free service that allows you, so long as your computer is logged on to the internet, to access your files from any computer. There’s three main things that make Dropbox a fantastic tool:
- Access your files anywhere with internet
- Invite friends to share and edit documents – updates automatically with no old versions floating aroun
- Back up your files
So how does Dropbox work?
- Download Dropbox and install it on your computer
- Any documents that you store in the Dropbox folder will be automatically synced
- You can create online Dropbox folders, store your documents there, and invite friends to share a folder (group project anyone?)
Automatically synced???
When you’re using Dropbox your file exists in two places. It exists on the hard drive of your computer and it exists in ‘the cloud’ (i.e. on the internet.) So now you have a choice to make. You create a document called ‘Most delicious foods’ and store it in your Dropbox folder. This means that when the file gets edited, it changes in both places – online and in your folder. So if I want to add oatmeal to the ‘Most delicious foods’ list – what, some of us are of Scottish heritage – I would only have to edit the file in my Dropbox folder and the version stored on the cloud would be automatically changed. If I had invited someone else to have access to the folder in which I was storing my delicious food list, the version they had in the Dropbox folder on their computer would also have changed.
This is great if you are doing lots of editing and don’t want tons of multiple versions of a document floating around. Dropbox will keep old saved versions of your document for 30 days. If you want to be incredibly sure that older versions of your document stay around, you can keep them stored outside your Dropbox folder (just on a regualr folder on your computer.) You can still upload it and let other people see and edit it, but the version on your computer and the version on the internet will not automatically synch up.
So that’s how dropbox works. Back to those big advantages:
- Access your files from anywhere: since you’ve got the documents on the internet, you can just log onto your account and look at them
- You can invite friends to a folder: They can edit and add mushrooms as a delicious food (because your friends are gross that way) and it will automatically appear on your version of the document
- Back up your files: Has your computer ever crashed and you’ve lost all your files? Well, I guess you don’t use Dropbox. Because the files that are stored online can just be re-downloaded once you’re able to get your computer to boot up again.
