Would you like to have your documents available anywhere you have an Internet connection?  How about having those same documents automatically downloaded and installed on a computer of your choice?  Would you like your documents to be saved each time a change is made so that you could have multiple versions of the same document to either backup or restore?  How about the ability to easily share your documents with other people?  Would you like to do this all without changing the way you work or adding any complicated new software?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, there is a new solution out there for you.  The solution is Dropbox .  Dropbox is a new product that provides an online storage solution for your documents.  The killer feature is the ability to seamlessly share these documents with other persons of your choosing while having those same documents downloaded to your computer as a backup option.  The ability to have the documents automatically downloaded to your computer requires you to install a small unobtrusive program that works in the background.  While it is not necessary, this little handy application provides you with updates when new documents are added to your repository or if changes are made to your documents.  In this way, the online repository and your computer are automatically kept in sync so long as you have the program running with an Internet connection.  You can install the application on as many computers as you like so you always have working copies of your documents.  Changes made to your documents either on your computer or online will automatically sync to all other installs of the application.  Sharing with other users is as simple as using the online invite feature which only requires that you type in the other user's email address.

The install and use of Dropbox is a piece of cake.  I recently switched from Microsoft Sharepoint to Dropbox to manage all of my client file and document needs.  The beauty of the system is that I do not have to work differently in any way.  If you can use the file manager for Windows, then you can certainly use Dropbox.  For my purpose, I simply installed the Dropbox directory on my law firm's file server.  Then I copied my client files in their present directory format to the Dropbox directory.  Dropbox then took care of the rest by automatically copying each of the folders and files to its online repository. Once all the documents were copied, those documents were then available online as well as through normal access on the file server.  However, from this point forward, all versions of the documents would be automatically retained and safely backed up online.  In my case, Dropbox takes care of several needs simultaneously.  First, it gives me online access from anywhere with a browser.  Secondly, my documents are now backed up online.  For example, in the event my file server was to crash, my online Dropbox repository would still have all my documents.  Third, I can now share individual directories with my clients giving them online access to their own case files.  If the client chooses to install the Dropbox application, all their documents are automatically synced to their personal computer and they are also given updates when new documents or changes are made.  All documents are safely stored, password protected and encrypted.

Dropbox is relatively new and is working on adding several improvements.  The only notable fault at this point is the fact that if a document is accidentally deleted by one user that document is then deleted for all users and removed from any computers that the online repository syncs to.  Obviously this could be a problem if mistakes are made, however this really is only an inconvenience since all deleted documents can easily be restored through the online system.  Dropbox promises to have a solution in place soon where you will be able to remove a user's ability to delete files.  Once that feature is implemented, I see no faults with the Dropbox system.

Dropbox is a subscription based service.  The free version gives you 2GB of space.  That amount of space will easily let you test out the service to see if it is sufficient for your purposes.  The paid version comes with a whopping 50GB of online space.  That amount of space should be more than enough for most users as I only use half of that for all of my legal files including my closed file archive from the past 15 years.  The paid version costs either $9.99 per month or $99 for the entire year.  For what is offered, this is an amazing value when you realize that the cost for backing up that amount of data online is often more expensive than what Dropbox is charging.  Overall, I give Dropbox a hearty two-thumbs up.

 To give it a whirl yourself, click here .

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