Synchronise documents and files between multiple computers regardless of whether they’re Windows, Linux or Mac. Dropbox is an excellent free service that uses Amazon’s S3 technology to make file synchronisation easy to use, secure, quick and, lets not forget, free.
[singlepic id=11 w=180 float=left]The free service comes with 2GB of storage space, which is very generous and you can really make good use of this especially if you have an netbook with limited storage space such as Asus EeePCs. If more space is required then an upgrade to a Premium account will give you 50gb of storage.
The great thing about the Dropbox service is that it not only allows you to upload or download files from your secure storage space via a clean, uncluttered and easy to use web based interface but it also allows automated background file syncing to a folder on your PC.
Dropbox provides executable for Windows, Linux and Mac that will create a folder on your computer, e.g. “My Dropbox” and will then run as background services and will automatically upload the contents of this folder to your secure storage area. Any amendments made to these files either via another computer linked to the same Dropbox account or via the web based interface will automatically be downloaded to the “My Dropbox” folder thereby replacing the older version of the file.
The Dropbox service allows netbooks and other computers to use the Dropbox service to keep important files in sync between multiple computers whilst still allowing access to the files when offline.
Dropbox allows the user to selectively share folders with other Dropbox users or make them publicly accessible to the rest of the world.
Should you accidentally delete a file from you Dropbox folder the web client will allow you to restore the deleted or older version of the file.
I have been using Dropbox to keep files in sync between my EeePC netbook running EeeBuntu Linux and my desktop Windows XP based PC without any issues for the past couple of months. I no longer need to carry a USB memory stick with me all the time and can even access my files from other PCs without any trouble at all.