Files on the Go – Mobile File Management for the Busy Traveler

March 15, 2011 at 3:57 pm

About two years ago I was introduced to two file sharing services have that saved my life.  

Box.net and Dropbox.com (formerly getdropbox).  Countless number of files lost after computers hard drives simply crashed, or having laptops stolen, or even external hard drives going bad – or quickly going out of date!  —— then I found Dropbox. 

Dropbox is a service that allows you to store your files online.  I pay for their 50gig service which runs me $100 / year – better than having to replace laptops and external storage drives, and I never have to worry about anything going out of date.  Best of all, with Dropbox, you synchronize your folders online with your local folders, so it’s a seamless experience.  You use your folders like you normally would, then when you connect to the Internet, everything syncs back up to the server and stored automagically.  If your laptop is stolen, as mine was, you can un-sync that computer on dropbox.com.  

Why didn’t this happen sooner?  A breath of fresh air!  Get Dropbox here – you’ll be helping me out by giving me extra storage if you sign up using my link, and you get extra space for accepting my invite (another thanks Dropbox for the great affilate program).   

Box.net is another great service but less for the independent traveler and more for the corporate group looking to share files.  There’s no desktop component (that I’ve seen yet and as of this writing).  The biggest plus to Box.net in my opinion are its easily shareable links to files.  As a company, we store information both on Dropbox and Box.net that is accessible and editable, and secure, to others we work with outside of our company.  

The shift to mobile file storage makes it possible to be working from a desktop computer in an Internet Cafe in Argentina, from your iPhone in NYC, your laptop in Seattle – and stay on top of it all.