Recently I received my beta invite to try out Dropbox, an online storage solution that has received a lot of positive praise since it first arrived on the scene. Up until now I have tried various methods in sharing data across multiple computers such as USB flash drives, uploading/downloading files via ftp on my server and (shudder) emailing files to myself which usually ends up feeling more like a desperate cry for attention than a solution because my inbox is then full of emails that say from “me” to “me”. What I really wanted was a free, painfree solution that provided a way for me to share files and sync them with little to no effort. When I heard about Dropbox I got excited because it looked promising and now that I had access I’ve been trying it out for about a week.

Please note that my goal with this post is to share my thoughts on the Dropbox experience and to touch on some of it’s features. For a full walkthrough of what Dropbox has to offer, head over to their site and watch the excellent video they’ve put together.

The barrier to entry to Dropbox is dead simple. The first thing you do is create an account which consists of a username (email address) and password. Once that is created Dropbox then walks you through a simple 3 step process to get you up and running. The first step is to download a local version of Dropbox that runs on your Mac or PC. Once that is installed you then link your computer to Dropbox (you can link multiple computers, which is very powerful and where syncing becomes extremely handy), which is step 2. After your computer is linked you’re on to step 3 which is basically a “get started” step meaning you’re done. 

The first thing I did after completing the 3 step process was to run the Dropbox application that I had installed. At first I thought something was wrong because nothing happened when I double-clicked on it. It looked like it had launched but nothing popped up. After a little further investigating I found that the application runs as a background app and actually was working perfectly. A little icon had appeared in my titlebar and I had failed to notice it. A simple click on the icon pulls up this menu:

You’ll notice a small green check next to the icon. That signifies that you are successfully connected to your dropbox. The options are simple as you can see. I can “Open My Dropbox” which launches a window that looks like any other system window in your OS. I can see the folders contained in my dropbox and I can drag files in or drag files out. I can even drag files to my trashcan and they’re deleted. Everything acts just like a regular file window but with one major difference. If I drag in a folder or file an uploading icon appears next to it showing me that the folder or file is being added to my Dropbox. As soon as it has been added the same green check appears next to the file or folder icon. These are nice subtle visual cues that I think work much more effectively than an uploading dialog box that appears on your screen.

The next option in the menu launches my web interface and also tells me how much of my 2GB storage limit I’ve used. If I select “Web Interface” then I’m presented with my Dropbox in my browser and it looks like this (click for full resolution):

It’s a very simple interface which is exactly as it should be. Basically this is my home screen and shows me my recent activity in my Dropbox. At the bottom I see my files which looks and acts a lot like a standard file tree system. A click on one of the folder names expands that folder. This is quick and easy, but one of the drawbacks is that after expanding it removes the other folders and files that I didn’t click on. One would think “Okay that’s fine, I should be able to just click again on the same folder and it will collapse” but no. You have to actually click on the folder or file above it to go back up a level which is a little counter-intuitive.

A click on the small gray arrow next to your files and folders expands a contextual menu of options depending on which one you clicked on. For the folders the options are “share”, “upload here”, “download as zip”, and “restore files” and for a file you have “download file” and “revisions”. The “restore files” and “revisions” options are fantastic because it gives you the ability to rollback to previous versions. I don’t know how far back the revision history goes, but regardless it’s a very handy feature.

I haven’t tapped into the “share” feature yet, so I can’t speak to that. The photos feature is cool and works as you think it should. The photos you have in your “photos” folder are displayed as thumbnails and a click on them brings them up in the trendy “lightbox” gallery method where you can go back and forth through your photos. Dropbox also provides you with a link to your photos which you can share with friends so they can view your photos too. It’s quite slick.

Overall my experience has been positive and I’m finding that it meets my needs for sharing and syncing files remotely between multiple computers. Having this in place a few weeks back would have saved me the headache I experienced recently, but alas my invite didn’t appear until after I broke things.

This app is still in beta and so access is restricted to sign-up or invites at the moment, which brings me to my last point. You may have noticed this little piece of info on my Dropbox web interface:

I’d love to “Share the love!” and I have all 10 of my invites remaining. If you’d like to try Dropbox, leave me a comment and I’ll pass one along. I’m all for sharing, plus I’m interested to see if 1. I can get 10 comments which would be a record and 2. how many of you lurkers out there will show your face now that there’s free stuff being offered.

Since the day Wall•e debuted in the theaters I’ve seen the top two images by artist Eric Tan start to make the rounds on the internet. I love the design treatment he uses that is reminiscent of the trends of the 40’s and 50’s and the illustrations and colors are fantastic. These two posters almost trick you into thinking that they are truly vintage. After clicking around on his site I found the bottom three images and thought they too were quite awesome, the X-Men one in particular. Well done Eric, well done.

I really like these posters by designer Wayne Pate. Clean lines, very nice use of color and the compositions are perfect.

This is ridiculous. Radiohead released a “video” for their song “House of Cards” and in typical Radiohead fashion it breaks away from the norm. The story is Thom’s face was scanned and then interpolated by what looks like millions of points of data which are then displayed in 3D space. You can pan around and view the data as the song plays and Thom sings. It doesn’t look like the used the entire song, just a section of it but it’s still very impressive.

The blog is fixed and I’m back at work after having 2 weeks off. I feel like a new man. Now all I have to do is go through tons of emails, get caught up on projects and peruse the 2355 articles that just pulled into my RSS feeder.

Ah…the immortal words of Chris Farley.

If you’re looking at my blog and wondering what the heck is going on, allow me to shed some light on the situation. First, some background. I’ve been designing sites for over 6 years now and while I have a solid grip on the aesthetics, I’m pretty clueless when it comes to the development/coding side of things. Recently I decided that I should try to better understand the back-end side of site development and so I started to learn CSS mainly with a little PHP thrown here and there. I was feeling confident, I was installing plug-ins and customizing my blog. I was puffed up. Then came my insatiable desire to hit buttons and when I saw the “upgrade to Wordpress 2.6″ message appear in my admin area, I was smitten. After a few failed attempts at the “automatic wordpress upgrade” plug-in I had successfully used with the previous WP release, I decided to go the distance and try to manually upgrade my blog all by myself.

Usually I contact my good friend Ryan to help me through stuff like this because the dude’s a wizard with code, but again I was feeling confident and slightly arrogant. So I downloaded the latest WP release, opened Transmit, and “followed” the WP upgrade steps. Everything worked like a champ, until I realized the very important step of backing up my custom theme and plug-ins. Yes, a very important step.

Hopefully not all is lost as I should have all of my files stored locally on my work computer and after a simple upload things should be back to normal. I’ll just have to wait until Monday. That gives me plenty of time to swallow some humility.

Back in May of 2006 Cynthia and I went to England and Scotland for a business/pleasure trip. Before we left we stopped into Half-Price Books to get a couple of new books to read while we were away. I didn’t really know what I wanted to get, but I had heard of the book “Long Way Round” by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman and so when I found a copy I figured I’d check it out.

I devoured the book.

The book tells the journey of McGregor and Boorman as they circumvented the globe (heading east from London and ending in London) on their motorcycles in 2004. Both actors are motorcycle enthusiasts and become very good friends after meeting on a movie set several years ago. The idea for the trip started when Ewan visited a map store and discovered that it was possible to make a roundtrip around the globe on a motorcycle with only having to take a handful of trips across the water. He pitched the idea to Charley and they put the trip in motion. I love to travel and have often had the desire to take off for a few months and travel the world, so reading a book like this definitely resounded with me. Plus the fact that these are both celebrities who are out of their professional element and pursuing personal passions also made for an interesting read. You were able to get an idea of who these people really are instead of viewing them through the distorted lens of the media.

Another element of the book that greatly appealed to me is how they did it. I don’t own or ride motorcycles, but the idea of packing up your supplies and hitting the open road on a motorcycle sounds invigorating. Often the pair (along with a small support crew) would simply stop off on the side of the road and make camp. Even though both of these guys are well off, they didn’t use their monetary means to live it up on their trip. To them the purpose was to experience the countries and cultures they passed through and to soak up their surroundings as much as possible. There are stories of them pulling into a town and having to find a place to stay at the last minute. There are countless run-ins with immigration officers and locals that make for some tense moments. Plus the times that people recognize Ewan are pretty entertaining and actually happened less often than I thought.

In addition to the book a TV documentary was produced and aired on BBC television. The documentary was then distributed on DVD, so after I finished the book I Netflixed the set. Cynthia watched the episodes with me and we had a blast viewing them. The episodes were a great compliment to the books and those paired together offered the most complete picture of their entire journey.

So it was with great excitement that I found out a few months back that in 2007 Ewan and Charley did “Long Way Down“. On this trip they went south from the northern tip of Scotland to Cape Town. I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of the book and just a couple of days ago Amazon delivered it fresh to my doorstop. I have no doubt that I’ll devour this one just like I did the first and as soon as the DVD set is ready for the US it’ll be in my Netflix queue. If any of you have the Fox Reality Channel, the series will be shown starting August 2nd.

The “Fox Reality Channel”….really?

If you’re looking for a good casual read or something to fill your Netflix queue, check out Long Way Round. If any of you have already read the book or seen the documentary, I’d love to hear your thoughts.