If you are like me you may have several desktops that you use from day to day. You may have a Desktop at home and one in the office. You may also have a Laptop and an Android, iPhone, or Blackberry hand held.
As you create and work on various documents you often have the need to transfer the documents from computer to computer as you work on them. What tends to happen is that you end up with different versions of the document in multiple locations. You may have a few in your email. Then locally on each computer’s local storage when you save it to work on them. At some point it may become cumbersome to know which is the most up to date version.
A similar thing happens with information you want to remember. Be it, Website Bookmarks, Notes, Tasks, Restaurants, etc. You might save a link to a particular Website on your Browser at home and forget to email it to yourself. When you get to work, or are out and about with you Android hand held you won’t have access to the saved link.
Two Apps That Help You Save Time and Reduce Clutter
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Dropbox
Enter the elegant file sharing world of Dropbox. Dropbox gives you your own personal virtual file storage. This storage can be used to eliminate most of the saved file clutter we usually generate. The site gives you 2 gigabytes of free storage that is accessible anywhere. That your files are stored on a Web accessible location is no big deal. So what? The magic of Dropbox is its interface. It is truly seem-less and transparent.
– Start off by visiting Dropbox.com and registering for a login and password.
– Download and install the Dropbox application for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, and/or Blackberry.
– Supply the Dropbox application with your newly created Dropbox login and password.
– You are ready for some sweet universal file access.
Now the fun begins. On your PC find the Dropbox folder on your Desktop or whereever you choose to create it during installation. This folder is a synchronized portal for your files. When working on a document in Word for instance. If you choose to save the document into your Dropbox folder it is accessible to any other computer you have linked to your Dropbox account. It is also accessible from the Dropbox Website.
You can also choose to share some of your folders with your Dropbox friends.
Think of the possibilities. You could start working on a document at one location, like at work. Save it in your Dropbox folder before you leave. Then while travelling to meet your friends you can open the same document on your Android hand held and continue working on it. Sharing it back to your Dropbox folder when you are done. When you make it home later you open the exact document on your home computer and continue working. As long as you use the Dropbox folder as the place to store the document it is accessible anywhere!
And, needless to say, you can store any kind of file to your Dropbox folder. Pictures, Songs, Video, anything. Another cool feature on the Android OS is the ‘share’ option most data Apps have. You can easily share data to your Dropbox folder this way.
I started using Dropbox recently and I love it. It is one of those solutions that make me say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Springpad
What Dropbox does for your files SpringPad does for anything you might want to remember and have accessible from multiple locations. It allows you to keep Bookmarks to Web pages, Notes, Restaurant Information, Tasks, Events and files as well. This eliminates saving a bookmark in one location and not having access to it elsewhere.
What is also convenient is the SpringPadIt! widget that comes with your account. Just Drag and Drop this widget to your bookmarks toolbar. When you are on a site of interest and want to save it to your SpringPad simple click on the widget and the URL to the site is stored for you.
Of course, there is a SpringPad App for your Android that again allows you to easily have access to your stored information from virtually anywhere. And, like Dropbox you can share information from other Android apps directly to your Springpad.
You can register for a free SpringPad account at Springpadit.com
I’ve been using Springpad for sometime now. It is one of the most used Apps on my Evo Shift.
Let me know what you think. Do you use any other application that you think does a better job? Leave a comment below.
Terry