Sharing Data on Multiple Computers

Since I travel around and carry my laptop, I've come up with various strategies to keep my data synced on as many as five different computers with two different operating systems.

So far, one of the ways that has worked best for me is Dropbox. It's a folder that sets on each of your computers and is synced with a master folder kept on the company's servers. The free version gives you 2+ Gig of room, which is plenty for someone who is usually using text files.

I also use GoogleDocs for collaborating with others and MobileMe for moving larger files from one machine to another. MobileMe costs money but the other two are free at the basic level -- and DropBox will give you an extra 250 Meg in the free version if you use the link I gave above to sign up. I'll get an extra 250 Meg too for each one who signs up, but that's not a big deal, really. I haven't even used half of the first Gig yet.

There are other sorts of these services and some are better than others but DropBox is really simple to use and GoogleDocs is amazing at handling actual simultaneous editing of the same document, as long as two writers are not altering the same passage at the same time.

I've tried Scribd, too, which has an additional wrinkle -- you can sell access to what you've written. The deal they offer is not quite as good as Lulu.com's ebooks, nor is it as easy to use as a reader but it's a bit easier to set up as an author. And it's basically free at the lowest level of service.

Just a few possibly useful notes from an insomniac. :)

Hugs,
Erin