A Blog4Writers subscriber, Andrea Graham, recommended that I try Dropbox, and am I glad she did! I got a netbook for Christmas to help me manage writing on the run. At first, when working on the netbook, I would email a copy of the file in progress to one of my free webmail addresses. When I was ready to work on the file on the home computer, I’d log into the webmail and download the file. It worked, but it was slow and sometimes confusing, especially if I had multiple versions of the file.

When Andrea suggested Dropbox, I went to the site and followed directions:

• Take the video tour at Dropbox.com.
• Download the software.
• Set up a username and password for Dropbox.com.
• Download the software to your other computers.
• Get two gigabytes of storage free.

Dropbox put an icon in my system tray and on my desktop. I can click open the Dropbox folder and drag files to it from anywhere on the computer. Once the file is in the desktop folder, Dropbox automatically syncs with the online account. If I take the netbook on the road for a day, I just open the Dropbox folder, and the file I put in Dropbox on my home computer is right there for me to work on. When I save it there, it will sync to my home computer, and the file will be updated and ready for me to work on again. Warning: If you delete a file from the Dropbox folder, it is gone. To save a file on your computer, just drag it out of Dropbox onto the desktop.

Even if you only work on one computer, the Dropbox folder is a good work-in-progress folder. And, the best feature is that you’re backing up your file online every time you save it to the Dropbox folder.

I’ll probably never need more than the two gigs of free space, but if I need more, I can upgrade to a paid plan. Check out pricing for paid plans here. I’ve used it for a couple of months now, and it’s just what I needed. I encourage you to give it a try.

Readers, if you use another service like Dropbox, comment on this post and give us the URL. If you have extensive experience with such services, contact me about writing a guest post on Blog4Writers. Email: akinemily@gmail.com.

Email subscribers: I haven’t figured out what’s going on with Feedburner subscription service, but sometimes the links in subscriber emails do not work. If your links don’t work, please go directly to this post on Blog4Writers. Copy and paste this URL: http://emilyakin.com/free-online-backup-and-sync-dropbox/

Consumer Reviews of Dropbox:

PC World Consumer Reviews

Productivity501.com Review

Lesson #1: If support tells you that you have to re-format your hard drive, get another opinion first. The local repair guy said that, if I had not wiped the drive clean, it might have been possible to recover my data before reinstalling Windows XP. Just because the person on the phone works for the computer manufacturer doesn’t mean he or she is always right. I wish I had sought a second opinion.

Lesson #2: Backup. Backup. Backup. I had backed up my document files to Mozy.com (free account), so I recovered them easily. However, to avoid having to pay for the storage, I had not backed up my photos. Some of the lost photos were on my old computer, but any photos that I had saved since I got my current machine (June, 2008) were lost. I will be able to recover some that I had uploaded to online photo services, but I probably will never know how many were lost. See my previous post about backup methods if you’re thinking about re-evaluating yours.

Lesson #3: I was totally adrift without my computer. I couldn’t check e-mail without asking to use someone else’s computer. I could work on documents in my old computer, but it did not have anti-virus software, so I couldn’t be online with it. It was three days from the time of the crash until I got my computer back with windows reinstalled. Then, I had to reinstall all my programs, re-activate anti-virus software, and try to figure out what exactly I had lost. And, I’m still encountering things I have to fix or reinstall.

It’s taken almost a month to find and re-install everything I had on my computer. In the process, I have discovered some new ways to do things. I will be sharing that with you in future posts. If you aren’t a subscriber, I invite you to subscribe by e-mail using the Subscribe box in the sidebar at www.emilyakin.com.