I am a big fan of dropbox. And you should be too. If you are unfamiliar, go to Dropbox.com and sign up for an account. You get 2 gigabytes of space for free and will change the way you use computers forever and you will officially not be the last person to hop on the cloud computing bandwagon. So what is cloud computing? Short answer, you store your files on a server that is accessible from any computer or device with an internet connection. You can work on a database on your home PC and save it to your dropbox folder and when you log into your netbook or iphone at the library you magically have that same database to use without any effort on your part.
I have my Family Tree Maker folder stored in my dropbox account (if you are interested in the hows or whys of doing this yourself feel free to ask) so I have access to my database and media anywhere I go. I made a mistake last weekend while doing research at the local history library that doesn’t have wifi. I added extensive amounts of data to Family Tree Maker and then headed home where I logged onto my home pc to work on some leads that I developed and noticed that the information I had added was missing. I closed down Family Tree Maker and started up my netbook that I had used at the library. I opened Family Tree Maker to double check that the data was still there… but it was gone! Four hours of research gone (well, I still had my paper copies but it’s still a lotta stuff to type back in and create source info for). So what happened? The library didn’t have wifi so the file on my netbook never uploaded to dropbox and when I connected to the wifi at home with my pc the newest version of my database uploaded and replaced the one on my netbook. Normally not a big deal as you can revert to previous versions of the file by right clicking on the file in the dropbox folder and choosing the previous version of the file that you want to get back. However, I didn’t synch my netbook to dropbox so dropbox saw the actual “new” database as old and did away with it.
So.. the short of it is this: If you use dropbox and change a file make sure that you synch the device that you were using to dropbox BEFORE using a different device connected to the same dropbox account.
I do highly recommend Dropbox though so if you want to give it a try click on the link and sign up (if you click on my link (any of the nice blue words above) you’ll get bonus space and I will too.. it’s like exchanging gifts that neither of us have to pay for!)
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I have heard someone else praise dropbox, but do you feel it is secure?
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Joyce,
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Dropbox is secure as far as information on the internet goes. They utilize high level encryption, the same that government and bank websites use, to protect any information sent to or from their servers. Which makes it almost impossible for someone to steal the information while it is being transmitted and anyone interested in doing so would really really have to be dedicated to stealing it because the encryption works like this: your computer scrambles the data up in a way that only it knows how to put back together and lets their computer in on their secret code and reassembles the data. If someone else wants your data, they’re going to have to hack into the secure connection that is formed when connecting to dropbox and then capture all of the data and then spend a good long while to break the encryption at which point their time would have been better utilized at stealing government secrets or large sums of money from overseas bank accounts. The likelihood of someone getting your data in this way is about as likely as getting struck by lightning twice in the same day.. possible but someone would really have to be targeting you in a very personal way and have a lot of time to do so to make it happen and know exactly when you are sending information. The other way your information could be accessed is if you use an easy to get username and password.. always pick something that no one would guess and something that a computer would have to spend hours to guess. For example: if you choose a password like Bob because it’s your husband’s name and you post something online with your email address displayed mentioning your husband’s name someone looking to hack into your account could think “Ah! her email address is anyname@athingcalledemail.com and her husband’s name is Bob.. good chance that’s going to be her password too!” But if you go the route of having a password like x65h1z$91 (if you are allowed to imput symbols like $ in the password) then a person is not likely to ever guess it and a computer would have to try over 999999999 varieties of numbers, letters and symbols to guess it. So like with your bank or email account, create a strong password and don’t share it with anyone that doesn’t need to have access to the information.
Long story short, you have nothing to worry about while using dropbox as long as you create a password that someone isn’t going to be able to guess in 30 seconds. Trust them like you trust online banking. There is a risk, but it’s very, very small and worth it to have access to your data anywhere you go. If you do decide to get an account (you get 2 GB free, which is the equivalent of 1300+ floppy drives), use the link in my post to sign up. You will get an extra 250 MB and so will I!
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