dreamingreal.com

So I've been using an online utility called "dropbox" - you can find it at "getdropbox.com". Dropbox is a 'cloud storage utility', that allows you to store stuff "out there". Sure, there are lots of such critters in the wild, of all stripes. I've tried most of them, and dropbox kicks their collective asses. None of them have such a seamless, flawless, 'just works' vibe - and I'm a .mac subscriber who pays Apple $100 a year for the privilege of storing stuff on their servers.

The biggest deal is the background syncing. You never even realize it's syncing unless you look. There are no delays in local access, and files just 'appear' when they're synced. I do a lot of writing and note taking, and I simply save whatever I'm working on to dropbox, and when I get to work, or to my laptop, the files are 'just there'. It also works on Windows, OSX, and soon, Linux.

You can also share stuff between friends by creating a shared folder and adding them to access. This creates a central repository for everyone to drop stuff that the others might be interested in - like "Hey, check out this new riff I just came up with!". The *only* negative about this is that apparently everything in the shared folder counts against every member's storage limit, which is 2GB right now.

This service is so compelling that when it goes live (it's beta now), if they offer a paid program, I'm going to sign up. This is the ideal Web 2.0 product - seamless, "just works", and useful.