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Dropbox

J

John L

New Member
It's been around for a while, and Ive seen it mentioned here before, but I just discovered it for myself. If you are like me and have multiple computers, and/or smart phones, laptops, etc. then this simple, free service will be a favorite.

Some of the ways I will be using it... sharing large and small files across the board, sharing job photos immediately (from the job site even), sharing our default Flexi drawings and templates, making our company .pdf sell sheets available and always up to date from any of our computers, sharing the font folder so that all of my PC's use the same fonts, having ONE place to go to immediately see live and recorded video feeds from our security cameras at our 3 properties, having all computers use the same Roboform passwords always in sync.

I have 2 shop PC's, 2 office PC's, a new mac, iphone, a laptop, a netbook, and an ipad. Doesn't matter which I grab... that folder is the same.

It's really cool and I just wanted to share with anyone like me that hasn't seen this yet. If you add or modify, or delete a file from the DropBox (it's just a simple folder on each of your computers), that same action has just taken place on all of your other DropBox folders on your other computers and devices, automatically. 2GB of storage is free and more is available cheap (cheap, considering how handy it is).

If you try the free service from this link I think we will both get an extra 250MB free storage. http://db.tt/gMiCMFO

Hope someone else here "discovers" this great tool like I did and puts it to good use.
 
Custom_Grafx

Custom_Grafx

New Member
I might look into that a little down the track, thank you for the info.

At the moment, I don't use it so often, but when I have to, I use gmail (i have a premium account, so there's a ton of storage - much more than i need for this purpose anyway).

Then, I don't know if anyone else uses it, but logmein.com is way cool. It's a remote control system for your pc, and it also comes in an iphone version so you can access a desktop from it.

The impressive thing about logmein, is the ability to share your desktop so easily with someone else remotely.

Why do I need that? ok... here's how I use it sometimes... and it saves hours sometimes.

Customer wants me to create a new layout for a sign - no time to shoot emails back and forth... ask the customer to call me when they have like 10 minutes to spare.

They call, they have a link (which i email them), click on it, and within about 30 seconds, they can see my desktop.

I then proceed to design their layout... they are virtually looking over my shoulder, telling me to make the first line bigger, or move something to the left or right, change font, etc etc.

Within about 10 minutes, we've nailed the layout and my inbox doesn't have 57 emails about changes and adjustments. In addition to that... the customer is like "WOW" that's amazing!

I'll check this out drop box thing out if I end up more on the road one day, it sure would be handy.
 
907customs

907customs

New Member
John,
Thank you for the great info! I just signed up for dropbox from your link. I'd like to pick your brain a little bit about the specifics of how to stream live video feed through dropbox if you could give me the highlights such as camera types, any special software requirements, and any other info.

Thank you

Ken
 
J

John L

New Member
My fault, we actually arent streaming through Dropbox but rather our camera software... http://www.yawcam.com posts a video clip everytime motion is detected on some of our cameras. It's these files I can view whenever I want, from any device or computer with Dropbox installed. It also shoots me an email to let me know when a clip has been sent to Dropbox.

Yawcam is a free download. We use it on a computer that has two 8 port camera cards in it and 8 standard cameras connected to them. It will also work with webcams etc. connected in any standard way.

I'm not a video security expert but this little setup really works great for us and the cost was right.

Thanks for signing up too... We both got free extra Dropbox storage because of that!
 
L

Locals Find!

New Member
I use dropbox on all my pcs and I use the dropbox app on my droid. Its a handy little tool for loading non market apps onto my phone when I am in the development process.

Also, nice to be able to share folders with clients on the fly. Especially when its after hours and you don't wanna get off the couch to send someone a file.
 
M

mortil

New Member
im using it as well. works perfect for sharing jobs etc. a friend of mine showed it to me about 6months agoand now im sharing logos and work with a girl im using for tshirt prints and other clothing. used to mail before but that just took time.
 
M

mountaingraphic

New Member
Amazing tool! Also for those android tablet users there is an app you can get to get your dropbox. I use it everyday in some fashion. Mainly to keep track of customer designs so I can work on them where ever I am and I keep some spreadsheets for pricing as well. Very handy tool
 
theskipman_98

theskipman_98

New Member
Dittos. The designs I set up for the router come from our other shop. If something is missing, I just call them up, and few minutes later it's there.
 
njshorts

njshorts

New Member
njshorts said:
same here- it's one of the easiest ways my shop can stay synched, especially with people out of the office.
Click to expand...

Welp, all good things must end.

After 3+ years, canned my dropbox account, went with a VPN and an extra drive in the storage server.
 
MichaelL

MichaelL

New Member
signcrafters said:
I am always paranoid about security...

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/
Click to expand...

As they said on Tekzilla http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tekzilla-hd-mp4-30fps/id274696205all that is about the fact Dropbox changed the wording on their privacy policy to state that employees are prohibited from viewing files etc in Dropbox accounts and all files are encrypted etc. And as they also said," I would be more concerned about someone actually getting my notebook."
 
MichaelL

MichaelL

New Member
John L said:
It's been around for a while, and Ive seen it mentioned here before, but I just discovered it for myself. If you are like me and have multiple computers, and/or smart phones, laptops, etc. then this simple, free service will be a favorite.
Click to expand...

I use it to sync my 1Password data. Works great and all my 1PW data is strongly encrypted by the program itself before it's synced so it would be useless to anyone even if they were able to access it. So I don't worry about that.
 
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