Dropbox – snazzy online storage

I was lucky enough to get an early invite to Dropbox, a new online storage application (thanks BNMers!).

Now, I’ll be honest: I didn’t know what Dropbox was, or why people were excitedly swapping invites. But, succumbing to a bandwagon mentality, and ever keen to explore everything new on the web, I signed up, downloaded the application, then wondered what the hell it was.

It seems that the Dropbox website copy has improved recently, but when I registered it wasn’t too easy to tell what I was registering for. I knew it was storage, but questions remained:

• What did it cost?
• How much space could I use?
• Why was everyone so excited about it?

But by using Dropbox, I quickly found the answers to my questions. Dropbox gives you a special folder that you can drag and drop files into. These are cleverly whisked away and stored remotely.

Share large files with ease

That’s nice and easy, but the thing I really like is the Public folder – which allows you to produce a URL for any file you drop here. I’ve been working on a massive document recently, and this feature has made it very easy for me to update my client with the latest version. I just drop the file into the Public folder, then email client the URL.

Another cool thing about Dropbox is that you can access your folder from the web, so you can retrieve anything you put there from any computer.

Dropbox is available for free with a 1GB storage limit. If you want more space you have to pay – but I think it’s money well spent if that’s what you need.

I’ve probably not done Dropbox justice – but it’s very good, so check it out: Dropbox.