Dropbox for Business

Dropbox currently has over 300 million users and its For Business version has gone a long way to improve security of your information so that is becoming much safer for businesses to use this product. We have recently added Dropbox for Business as one of the many cloud base services that we can offer our clients. We are, after all, a Solutions Provider and we are strongly focused on Security for our clients networks, computer systemes, devices and information.

I started using dropbox almost from day one that I got my first iPad and as I continued to add new mobile devices to my personal inventory it became clear how important it is to have a service that is available on any device that I possibly know. I don't want to have an issue of having to find just the right device so I can access the data that I'm looking for.

What is Dropbox for Business?

 Individual Dropbox for each user in your team

• 5 TB for 5 users, with more as your team grows
• Unlimited file recovery and versioning
• Centralized billing for all team members
• Admin controls and phone support

With all of this control and security doesn't it make sense to include Dropbox for Business as part of your business applications?

 The cost is just hundred $150 per year per user with a minimum of five users to start. Let us know if you have any questions about this product.

New Notice on Dropbox Pro updates

What’s new with Dropbox Pro?

• We're giving you 10x the space — for the same price. You'll have 1 TB of space for your photos, videos, docs, and any other files you want to keep safe in Dropbox.
• With new sharing controls, we’re making it easier to manage access to the stuff you share. You can set passwords and expiration dates on your shared links and grant view-only access to shared folders.
• Keeping your stuff safe is our top priority. For extra peace of mind, remote wipe lets you delete your Dropbox files off a lost or stolen device.

Learn more about Pro changes

Dropbox Platform Announcement plans to sync everything in the cloud

Dropbox held its first developer conference and used this meeting to announce an new initiative called “Dropbox Platform” that provides a set of APIs that are said to deliver an easy cross-platform syncing solution for just about any form of data.

At the heart of Dropbox Platform is a new API called Datastore, which allows apps to sync almost all types of data, including settings, to-do lists, and game saves, across a number of platforms. The new platform was detailed at Dropbox's event and on its official blog.

"When you use an app built with datastores your data will be up-to-date across all devices whether you’re online or offline," writes Drew Houston. "Imagine a task-tracking app that works on both your iPhone and the web. If it’s built with the Datastore API, you can check off items from your phone during a cross-country flight and add new tasks from your computer and Dropbox will make sure the changes don’t clobber each other."

While a few apps have already been using Dropbox in this manner, the new API will offer developers an easily accessible method to tap into the company's cloud.

Here is their Live from DBX blog post from today.

Dropbox Upgrade includes Photo Albums Now!

So if you have allowing Dropbox to upload your pictures from your devices to your storage area then you are probably accumulating a lot of pictures there now. If you want to find a group of images around a theme you can now associate them with an Album. This will help facilitate showing them off when you want family or friends to see just a specific group of images. It would appear that each image can only be associated with one album at a time. Which is too bad.

This is a good start but hopefully they will keep working on it to give us some more capabilities.

IOS received updated Dropbox app this week

If you are a big user of Dropbox as a note taking application, and you use it on an iOS device, then this may be of interest to you. There are several new features that allow you post a file now directly to Facebook and Twitter.  It also now supports iOS AirPrint as well. So now you have the options of emailing a file, text messaging a file, message through Facebook, post to Facebook, Tweet and copying the link to a clipboard. If you post to Facebook the file link will be posted and can then be found on your timeline.

I’m not a big Facebook or Twitter poster so these two things don’t hold much interest to me but the AirPrint capability makes sharing a file much simpler. If you haven’t downloaded take a trip to the iTunes store and get your updated copy.

Thanks Dropbox!

I had a very nice surprise email this morning from Dropbox notifying me that they doubled the sized of my Pro Account storage. It may be a promotion from them to have solicit your friends and family to join up for a Dropbox Pro account but that’s fine with me. So now the Pro Account gives you a base of 100GB’s storage which will help me out quite well.

You can get a 3 month free subscription to a Pro Account as well for up to 3 friends by submitting their email to Dropbox for an invitation for the service. The Pro Account is now available in 100, 200, or 500GB Plans at $9.99, $19.99 or $49.99 respectively. You can also add on their Packrat Plan for $39/year that gives you unlimited undo history. Packrat Safeguards files you delete in case you need to undelete them and Saves old versions of files in case you need to view them later. Dropbox's "Packrat" feature keeps an unlimited number of these deleted files and old versions. So if you are putting things up for long term storage or you are constantly editing documents that you may want to go back to earlier versions, this could be a very important addition to your plan purchase.

The free plan is still available and provides you with 2GB’s of storage and you can increase that up to 18GB’s for each referral you provide them. They allocate 500MB’s for each referral.

Dropbox’s third option is Dropbox for Teams. Get dedicated phone support and as much space as you need for your team, starting at 1000 GB. Manage licenses as your team grows, and monitor activity and storage usage per person. Get a single centralized bill for your team. Your files are accessible from any device (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry) and synced to your computer so you can work both online and offline! Share and collaborate instantly with your team or keep certain files private. Send large files to clients and partners with a link — even if they don't use Dropbox! Get more information here.

Dropbox for Teams starts at 5 users with 1TB of storage allocated for the group. It also includes Unlimited version history, phone support and administrative tools.Priced at $795/year each additional user costs just $125/year and adds another 200GB’s to the pool of storage. Compared to an equivalent Dropbox Pro account this is quite a savings.

Changes to Dropbox Public Folder

One of the most important things that I use the Dropbox app for is the ability for me to easily share larger files with people by including a link to that file and e-mailing the link in an email I send to clients or friends. I was looking at CNET's tutorial on how to use the link function in Dropbox and I don't quite understand the difference between old and new versions exactly. As far as I can see, there hasn't been any change in the way it works.

When I'm using my PC, and I am in the Dropbox public folder, all I need to do is right mouse click on the file that I want to share the link of, pick copy the link and then go to my e-mail application and paste the link into the body of my e-mail. It is that simple.

When using Dropbox on my iPad I highlight the file that I'm interested in sending to someone and I pick the link button and choose e-mail link.

The primary difference seems to be that you don't have to only do this from a shared folder or a public folder anymore. You can do link a file from any folder so now there is no need for a separate or dedicated public folder anymore. This is probably why any new Dropbox accounts when they are created after July 31st will no longer automatically create a public folder for the account.

The biggest problem that is going to arise from this change is for software partners that utilize the Dropbox account and the public folder share function will have to rewrite their current code to use the share function which is now part of Dropbox API.

However in the long run, I think this is a positive step forward, and we will all benefit from the simplification that this gives us for sharing files which for some of us is the primary reason we use Dropbox .

Free 1GB of Additional Dropbox Storage

Michael Hunter, our Show Room Sales and Service Specialist has forwarded this notice to me on how to get an additional 1GB of storage for free on Dropbox.

https://dropbox.com/dropquest2012

For solutions to the questions, see http://dropquestguide.com and click “Just the Answers”.  It will take a few minutes to do all the puzzles, but once you complete all the steps you will have an additional 1GB of storage added to your account for free.

What is Dropquest?
Dropquest is a multi-step scavenger hunt that has you solve a series of puzzles (inspired by the likes of MIT's mystery hunt or notpron [though not nearly as time/effort-consuming]). Everyone who completes Dropquest will get at least 1 GB of space (even if you participated last year). Also, everyone starts at the same time, but the questers who finish the soonest get amazing prizes!

Which Option should you choose for storing your music in the “CLOUD”

With Google relabeling its cloud storage system for movies, books and music, called Google Play, there is another option to choose for placing your music into a location that you devices can get to with multiple devices. If you have an IOS device or and Android device then you have a multitude of options at various costs.

For general storage there are a lot of choices with my favorite being Dropbox (2GB free), but you also have Google (10GB free), Microsoft (25GB free).

Microsoft SkyDrive provides 25GB’s of free space and is integrated well with Microsoft Office Applications and has some interesting things that it can do in regards to information sharing with OneNote.

iCloud (5GB free) and Amazon (not free). When it comes to your media files (mainly music oriented). It also integrates with a few document applications but this is solely an Apple based product for Apple products only.

Google allows up to 20,000 song titles. This service is primarily associated with Android Devices and desktops for access. It will now integrate with a central interface for accessing movies, eBooks, and music. It will be interesting to look at once it fully comes available. This is separate from Google Doc Storage which I talked about above.

Amazon Cloud Player for your music is limited to 5GB for free and all of you purchased MP3’s are stored for free.

Dropbox can also play back you media but unless buy into the large file storage levels and there isn’t a media player associated with it directly. But I like using it for everything that I throw at it for work, home and play. It is integrated with the largest number of application on your IOS and Android devices and that is one of the things that I am continually reaching for, high availability between applications and devices.

Another service that is out there that has a fairly close comparison with Dropbox is SugarSync. It provides a free 5GB account and reasonable larger accounts. It is more of a file share program that allows you to synchronizes between PC’s. Dropbox is pretty much limited to its file structure that syncs while SugarSync has more of a backup flair associated with it.

So if you ask me what I have, well, I have them all. Which do I use the most? Dropbox at this time. However, in reviewing these services I started thinking that SugarSync looks interesting and one that I didn’t even mention Box.com is something that I want to explore as well.

Let me know how you are using these types of services and let me know which one is your favorite and why.

How to Stay Connected

I talked a little bit about how I pick the devices that I use, in this post I want to talk about the what I am using to accomplish this. First, let’s go down the list of devices that I use both for the office and my own entertainment. At the office I have an i7 Workstation with dual 19 inch monitors in the traditional square or 4:3 format. At home my primary system is again an i7 but I am using a 32 inch TV/Monitor as my secondary monitor and a 22 inch widescreen for my primary screen. I also have three mobile devices, an 10.1 inch Acer NetBook, an iPhone 3gs, and my newest acquisition an Apple iPad.

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Tech Toys

It is such a sad thing to open my desk drawer and see all of the my tech toys of the past just lying there with their sad faces staring back at me, no longer seeing the light of day. no longer being touched with loving fingers, no longer being recharged to provide the enjoyment that they once did. I do love my toys. I love trying to find new uses for them

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