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Dropbox

Dropbox is brilliant. I can't remember whether I signed up by asking for an invite or if someone I randomly know via the interpipes, but I received an invite in my mail the other day, and had a look at what the craic was.

It's basically a folder, right, that exists on every computer you use. You download the software (Mac/PC) and it sets up a folder on your machine of choice. On the Mac, it sets up it's very own spot in your "Places" in Finders' sidebar, like this:

Dropbox

(on Windows, it sets up a folder in 'My Documents>Dropbox')

The folders inside your Dropbox look like this:

Dropbox

And when you drop something into one of those folders, it looks like this:

Dropbox

The blue "refreshing" symbol turns to an green tick when everything is synced.

Files and folders inside your dropbox also get their very own item on the context menu, as seen here:

Dropbox

The great thing is that this context-menu item will only appear in the dropbox itself, not in any other folder, which says to me that this program(s) was written by someone who has a modicum of intelligence about UI design. The main item of use on the context menu is "copy public link", which, of course, gives you a URL for sharing. This option is also only in the context menu for the "public" folder, which makes things even easier to figure out.

I currently have it set up on my home machine (Mac) and my work machine (PC), and so far, it seems to be totally flawless. Drag, drop, forget. And there's a web interface too, which all syncs up with everything else, so if you're out and about and you want to show someone a photo, video or word document on but you don't have your laptop, you can show it to them on your iPhone, or iPod, or some random internet café spambucket.

Currently, there's 2GB of storage available. Not enough to back up your system and share it with the world, but enough to share some stuff here and there, and have a few things backed up on several machines (contacts, for one).

The developers seem to be a pretty decent bunch of guys too. Example: I left some feedback on their err... feedback page, something along the lines of "An iPhone/iPod Touch application would be the best thing ever. Take your time though, you're doing pretty well already*." Their reply was this:

hey matt,

the dude sitting right next to me is chipping away at our snazzy new iphone web interface, which should have all the functionality as the web interface accessible from your computer at home. there's no word on whether or not we'll pump out a full fledged app, but i'll let you know when the time comes ;)

best,
jon

They call each other dude! They must be decent.

Dropbox is currently in an invite-only Beta. If anyone wants an invite, leave a comment asking for one, and I'll send one to the email address you leave.


Actually that's not "something along the lines" of what I said, it was exactly what I said.

Comments

I agree that it's really cool, and I'm glad you sent me the invite, and I can definitely remember loads of times in the past when I've needed something exactly like this...but now that I've got it, I really don't know what I'm going to do with it.

Wow it seems really cool, would be really handy for college. I wouldn't say no to an invite if you're offering!

Nice review. Now, I really want to try Dropbox. It would be great to have my dev files available anywhere I go.
If you still have spare invites, I'd be very grateful if you could share me one. Thanks! ^^

Shoot, seems I may have been between to the punch.. but if you have any invites left.. ping one at me DUDE!

Invites are on the way to all of you (except Dan, of course, who already has one...).

any invites left?

Thanks! This is really cool. I'm uploading my files now. Can't wait to try it on another computer..

Sounds great. I'd like to try it; any invites left?

Me too please (have a nice time in France!).

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