Dropbox – Amazing, Seamless, and Just what I needed
This morning I was reading the feeds, like I always do, and came across a reference to a piece of code done right. The author was talking about how the best software gets out of your way and does everything that's needed without you having to think about it. In this case, it was shared, remote filespace. The app/service was Dropbox.
What made this so useful to me was the fact that I had gone through the headache of setting up a WebDAV server at home for just this reason - a place to throw things that I could get at form other machines. The problem is, I was still limited by my home bandwidth, I wasn't being intelligent about sending diffs, and the clients for other operating systems were web browsers or FTP-like clients. It worked, but it wasn't what I wanted.
Dropbox is exactly what I wanted. It's a smart, version controlled, remote file repository. It's got clients for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Once you register for it, you simply have a directory that "hot syncs" to the repository in "the cloud", and sends the updates to your other registered machines.
I have a laptop and two desktops. I register them all. I see on each machine an identical set of files. Make a change in one, and it'll be mirrored to the others in a very efficient manner. Drag a new file into the folder on my laptop, and it'll automatically be sent to my two desktops. Simple.
I still have the file on my laptop - which makes this a ton better than WebDAV, and the syncing is done automatically, but clearly visible so that I know when something's happening. There are default folders for public content, photos, an easy way to make URLs for accessing the files... the list goes on and on.
Certainly one of the nicest features of this is the fact that it's really a file repository so you can go to the Dropbox web site and see the files you've deleted. And get them back! You can't beat that. It's like Time Machine built-in.
The first 2GB of storage is free, and for $9.99/mo or $99/yr you get 50GB. I'm sold. The version on the app is 0.6.402, and I'm guessing they do an automatic update, but we'll see. I feel so much better with the idea of installing this on my machines and then being able to really share files on the 'net. Incredible app.