Dropbox allows you to easily set up a “cloud” storage space that you can see on ANY computer, anywhere in the world. That’s 2GB of FREE storage that you can share, backup, or even sync files.

I’ve tried many solutions and found that Dropbox is one of the easiest. Dropbox is similar to Syncplicity and Humyo but for me, Dropbox was easier to set up and use.

Once you’ve signed up for a free account, you download the install and run it on your home machine that you want to sync up. It installs on PC, Mac, and Linux with a mobile version, including a iPhone app.  And you can visit their website to upload/download your files.

You can set up “hidden” (only for you), or “public” folders — public if you want the world to see files without logging in.   You can also set up “shared” folders that allow several people you designate to collaborate on a set of files.

If you are looking for a fast, easy, CROSS-PLATFORM and FREE solution to file storage and syncing, check out Dropbox.

Right now Dropbox is offering an extra free 250Mb to their free 2GBs of storage!

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(click image to view larger with steps highlighted)

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1 Go to www.box.net

2) Choose the FREE, Personal account, and you get the following:
* 5 GB + of web-storage
* 25 MB file size limit
* Simple sharing and collaboration

3) fill out the form with email, password, etc.

4) You’ll receive an email to validate your email address.  Click on that link from box.net and log in

5) choose the icon to Create New Folder. Type in the name of your new folder. Choose “JUST ME (keep private for now)” to keeping it hidden until you are ready.

6) Click on the Folder name that you just created, and click the text that says “Or browse for files” to upload all your files to that folder

7) When you’re finished uploading, click “All Files” to go back to the home listing that shows that folder

Click the “SHARE” text that’s near your folder, to allow you to share the entire folder.
9) A link will appear that you can COPY (Control+C)
10) EMAIL that link to anyone you want to be able to get all those files within that folder

That’s it, you’re done!  Simple, right?!

If you have another conference or group you want to share with, just repeat steps 5-10 again with a new folder name.  If you just want to share a couple of files instead of ALL of them in the folder, find the file and click the “SHARE” text next to it.  Then copy and paste that link to whomever you want.

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Take a look at how easy and versatile Syncplicity is:

• 3GB cloud-based web space
• Windows XP or Vista
• View files online  (download from anywhere)
• Edit your files to Google Docs, Picnik, or Scribd (no need to have those installed on the computer you are using, great for on-the-road use)
• Sync between computers
• Auto-backups
• Share files and folders with others

The cost for all those features? FREE! Need more space? Get 50GB of space, more than enough for most people’s collections for just $10 month!

So, check out Syncplicity and see how easy it is to backup and sync your computers!

—

Looking for FREE set-it-forget-it backups; check out our article on Mozy.

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In other words, you can write up your ideas from work, edit them in the car, tweak it some on your friend’s browser, and have it complete to print out when you get home! You can tag your ideas, like Yojimbo, to make it easy to organize and find. Evernote will even search within your PHOTOS for text to add as tags!

So, let’s say you want to write a journal of your life and work on it wherever you go. Or, a blog article (yep, this one was an Evernote). Or, you find a cool product on the web — take a screen shot and save it for later. Or, for researchers, it’s perfect for keeping track of those “finds”!

Sounds good so far, right?! Well for FREE, it is good! But for $5/month you can also sync any type of FILE, not just photos, pdfs, and text with the free account. Wow! You could even skip Dropbox if you upgrade!

Evernote is a great way to keep your thoughts in sync: a notepad in the clouds…

[Note: originally published on HMAUS.org]

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You can set up hidden or public folders, even share your photos with others through Dropbox. And, best, it just seems to work. I’ve used it since it was beta, and I’ve only had 1 problem with it. And that just was because I was running an older version on one of my computers. Upgraded and all worked fine again!

How does it compare to some other solutions? It’s similar to both Syncplicity and Microsoft’s livemesh, though for me, both of those solutions were more difficult to get set up (and for livemesh, a pain on updates).

If you are looking for a fast, free solution to file storage and syncing, check out Dropbox.

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First, what are the benefits of sharing online?

• You don’t have to burn copies of CD’s of your photos collections for others to see. Instead, simply give the people the URL and they can view them easily themselves. And, most of the sites offer photo printing so the visitors can order copies of the images THEY want, instead of getting ALL of them.
• You don’t have to try to manage your photo inventory yourself. Upload to one of the websites, and let them store the photos there. (Be aware that you may not be able to get the ORIGINAL sizes back off some of the websites, so it’s best have a backup of the original that you keep.)
• You don’t have to worry about clogging someone’s email with tons of photos. Just a link in an email and you are done.

What are some of the photo sharing websites?

• Flickr — one of the best known for sharing with the public in general. In fact, many organizations have a Flickr account to help publicize events. Free for a limited number of images/month. Not the easiest to do “private” photo sharing, more of “open” sharing.
• Shutterfly — this is a personal favorite of mine. You can upload as many photos of whatever size you want. (They have a “Shutterfly Studio” application to upload whole directories quickly.) Easy to set up private shares. Free. Visitors can easily order prints.
• Picasa Web Albums — if you love Picasa, then this can be an easy choice, built right into the application. Free.
• SmugMug — similar to Flickr but with more control on the look/feel of the pages and on privacy. Paid accounts only.
• Kodak Gallery — similar to Shutterfly but visitors have to create an account to view your photos. Free.

As you can see there are lots of options, and that’s only a small sample of what’s out there. Maybe you have a recommended photo-sharing website?

Some Photo Sharing Websites

So, the next time you are tempted to send someone 30 photos in an email, or burn a CD full of convention photos, STOP! See if sharing the photos online might save everyone some time!

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• Editing photos is a Picnik!

That’s where www.Picnik.com comes in very handy.  Being an online resource that allows you to upload, edit, resize, and then save those perfect images back to your computer, means that anywhere you might be — so long as you have an Internet connection — you can tweak those photos.   That means if your images are too large to email and you don’t want to set up a drop.io type account or use Flickr or MobileMe to share them with friends, you could just RESIZE them online with Picnik to email them with others.

If you visit www.Picnik.com you’ll see that you can do a lot of editing with images right over the Internet. Just click their “Get Started Now” button to start editing your images. It will ask you to create a FREE account, which is a good idea, but, if you just want to edit the images without an account, scroll down a little bit on that “Sign In” page to see “Or Try It Out” to bypass registration.

From there, just upload the image you want to work with. Once uploaded, Picnik gives you lots of options — editing, resizing, even adding fancy filters and affects on the image — all for free.

So, if you’re in a hurry and can’t find a good photo editor on the computer you are using, visit www.Picnik.com.

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As you may be aware, file sizes are getting larger and larger now a days. Years ago a floppy drive held less than 2 Megabytes, which seems pretty small when one photo on a digital camera can be that big now. And video sizes get REALLY big really quickly. A ten-minute video can be 500 Megabytes or more.

As you are also probably aware, most companies have a limit on attachment sizes in email. The reason for this is pretty simple; server space. (If someone sends a large file to all the staff, that suddenly eats up a lot of disk space on the server.) If the organization uses Exchange, often that limit is 5MB or less.

So, how can you send big files then?

You have several options, including;

1. Try to make the file size smaller. Zip it will often help. Most XP/OS 10 computers have Zip installed. In Windows XP, it’s as easy as: RIGHT-click on the file and Send To, Compressed File. This might shrink the file enough to get under the 5 Mb email limit.

2. Use a different email account. For example, you might have a Google Gmail account. Gmail’s file size limit is 20 Mb. (Be aware that the person you are sending the file to may have a limit on THEIR email system also, so the file might leave Gmail but bounce getting to them. They could also set up an account to share the file.)

3. Try a third-party solution. There are several sites on the net that allow people to send large files. Some examples are: YouSendIt.com — which has a great “send email” bit connected right into it, Box.net, and the one that I personally really like; Drop.io. (Drop.io is REALLY simple to use and has a 100Mb free file storage.)

Security Reminder: As always there are security issues with any file sharing —
1) the very nature of sharing a file makes that less secure
2) sending over the Internet isn’t by nature secure (passing through various servers, possibly throughout the world)
3) if you use a 3rd-party solution (such as Drop.io or others), you are storing your files on THEIR server.

I’m sure there are some other great sites out there for easily sharing a file or two with some people — know any?

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