I’ve been auditing some of the applications that I use day-to-day and thought I might share some tips about them. I’ve found that most people tend to get comfortable with a certain set of applications and rarely break out of that set. The beauty of the Free Software world is that the number and quality of available applications is constantly expanding. Hopefully some of the applications I can share here will make your computer usage more efficient and more fun!

Today I wanted to talk about Dropbox. It is a really simple way to store and share files online. I have been using it for a while now, primarily to share files between multiple laptops but also to share quick files and screenshots with people.

I’ve got it installed on my work laptop (Dell D630), personal laptop (Macbook) and work Desktop.  Anytime I need to quickly share a file from one machine to another (or even all) I simply drop it into my Dropbox folder and its instantly synchronized to the other machines.  Anything you do on one machine is automatically synched to the others.

It also has a nice, simple way to share files with others.  There is a subfolder called “Public”.  Anything in that folder can be shared directly with the outside world.  You’ll find that you can right-click on any file in “Public” and get the public link you can share.  We’ve started using this at work to quickly share documents and graphics that we’re working on.

If you haven’t tried out Dropbox, go download it.  It’s free and blends right into the GNOME Desktop and Nautilus.