My latest fave: Dropbox
Up until a few weeks ago, my “backup” process was pretty sad. Occasionally, I’d remember to boot up my external hard drive and I’d drag-and-drop some files over. More often, I’d e-mail important files to my Gmail account.
E-mailing files to Gmail also enabled me to move between my desktop computer with its big screen, and my laptop computer with its lovely portability. Unfortunately, I never got good about remembering I’d e-mailed myself files, so more often than not I found myself confused as to which version of my WIP was actually newer.
I tried copying files before I worked on them and renaming the new one with today’s date. That solved some of the issues, but I ended up with multiple copies of a file clogging up my hard drive and email.
But Dropbox has fixed all that. No more remembering to do anything. No more wondering if I’m working on the latest version. No more having to make backup copies before editing a file, in case I mess something up.
Dropbox looks like a folder in My Documents. Whatever I keep in that folder is automatically backed up to a secure remote server, anytime I connect to the internet. And Dropbox keeps a revision history for every file, so my previous edits are always saved. I don’t have to remember to do anything - I just keep my WIP in a subfolder underneath My Dropbox, and that’s it!
If you’re interested and want to know more, here’s the official Dropbox tour, and here are the FAQs. (And no, I’m not getting paid for this. <grin>)
In early 2008 Michelle left a fulfilling career as interactive director in an integrated marketing agency to pursue her passion for writing great stories filled with fascinating, intense, real characters who will do anything necessary to achieve their dreams. She’s co-written the audio-play of a Louis L’Amour short story produced by Bantam and Beau L’Amour, worked as an executive assistant for a Hollywood publicist, taught English in Spain, and enjoyed the lofty title of Romance Director running the personals sections of a newsweekly in Los Angeles. She lives in Austin, Texas and spends her spare time adding poems to
You should also try out nomadesk. It even gives you multiple fileservers, and you can create them as you need them. The data is all locally encrypted, so it is very safe. You can share the fileservers with whoever you want. Just invite them on one or more of your workspaces.
Nomadesk looks interesting, but I’m sticking with Dropbox for now as 1) it’s always going to be free for people like me who are using less than 2GB of storage and 2) it was recommended by Joel Spolsky of JoelOnSoftware, whom I respect.