More and more bloggers, writers and gurus try to define how to be innovative and how to come up with something that has never been done before. (some even did a damn good job) But let’s not forget that being innovative is about breaking the rules and going further than the others while forgetting about guidelines. The best ideas seem to be those that go so far that looking back on it with reason makes it seem totally senseless:
I though this Geek and Poke comic really illustrated that point very well.
In this digital age lots of people (like me) use more than one computer. One at work, one at home and a laptop for everywhere else. And while the computers we use are different, a lot of the files we use on them are pretty much the same. While this is a common problem and solutions just aren’t that complicated anymore now that everybody has an internet connection, OS developers still refuse to offer a proper build in solution.
So, as with so many things we improvise: We mail ourselves the file, we store our files in a service like box.net, put them on our USB key that we leave in the train which leaves you’re privacy in the hands of whomever takes your seat afterwards. If you’re fond of new stuff like me, you can also pay 79 euro’s a year for a service like mobileme that is perfectly implemented on my Mac but completely useless anywhere else.
And using Ubuntu at work and Windows XP with most of my clients I need something that people actually spend time thinking through and it is here: The solution to all of your file carrying problems on Windows, OS X and even some Linux distros.
It’s called Dropbox and quite frankly I think it is one of the simplest, smartest, most honest and most 
useful pieces of software I came across in a longtime. The principle is easy: you use 3 different computers that are (sometimes) connected to the internet on which you install Dropbox. This basically asks you to subscribe and to appoint the Dropbox directory on each computer. You put the files you need on all three computers in the folder of one of them and hocuspocus: next time look in your Dropbox on the other computers you’ll find exactly the same files! And this is not all! Open a file on any of the computers, modify it, save it and the changes will automatically be updated to your other computers.
So why honest? You can use it with 2gb of storage space for free, which gives you plenty of space for your working documents. If this is not enough you can upgrade your account to 50 gb for a totally reasonable 9,99 dollars a month or 99 dollars a year.
I’ve been using it for a week now and I cannot image life without it anymore. I don’t have to anticipate working on my laptop in the park anymore, I just go. And not just to me, I’ve recommended this to a lot of professionals around me that consider it a real lifesaver!
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