Design Woop | The Web Design and Development Blog » Software http://designwoop.com The Web design blog brought to you by Stu Greenham Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:53:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 5 Reason’s to work directly from your Dropbox account http://designwoop.com/2010/01/5-reasons-to-work-directly-from-your-dropbox-account/ http://designwoop.com/2010/01/5-reasons-to-work-directly-from-your-dropbox-account/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:11:08 +0000 Stu Greenham http://designwoop.com/?p=686 Dropbox, the must have app for 2009! Right? Well for most of us with a brain it was and my god it's a life saver! For anyone who hasn't heard of Dropbox yet, in a nutshell, its a piece of software that allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically. Better yet, it works on Mac, PC, Linux and as from a few months back the iPhone too.]]> Dropbox, the must have app for 2009! Right? Well for most of us with a brain it was and my god it’s a life saver! For anyone who hasn’t heard of Dropbox yet, in a nutshell, its a piece of software that allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically. Better yet, it works on Mac, PC, Linux and as from a few months back the iPhone too.

Dropbox can really be a lifesaver when working on any project and here’s 5 reasons why you should be using it too:

Share Files without a Pen Stick

As Dropbox allows you to share folders with other members, this makes a great tool for collaborating with projects. Your files instantly sync to your shared contacts folders each time a file is saved or created ensuring that everyones folders look the same. Although it’s not possible to work on the same file at the same time, it removes the need for removable storage devices to exchange files or having to email files back and forth and back and forth again, thus saving a lot of time.

Reverting back with File Revisions and Undo Deleting Files

This is a great feature and one that I imagine a lot of noobs won’t be aware of, but Dropbox stores revisions of each of your files allowing you to revert back to previous versions via the web interface of your account. This is super if you accidentally overwrite a file and perfect when working on documents or spreadsheets as an example. Extending this further, Dropbox will even allow you to restore recently deleted files meaning that your covered from all angles.

On the Fly Backing Up of Files

Similar to my previous mention of restoring old files and file revisions, Dropbox also relentlessly backs up your files on the fly. For them days when your computer decides to play blue screen you have the piece of mind knowing that should your hard drive decide to pack up on you, your files are nicely tucked away over on the Dropbox servers. What differentiates this from other backup services is that the backup itself is always running, meaning that you don’t have to wait for a specific time at which point the whole backup will begin. Yes yes I know paid for backup services will probably be a safer option, but for specific folders Dropbox is perfect.

At work, I save all my concepts I’m working on straight to Dropbox as I do any code or handy scripts / plugins / links I find allowing any of the other guys I work with to access these from their machines. Once a project is complete, I then copy the files over to the Network Shared drive which is backed up securely.

Mac, Windows, Linux and iPhone Compatible

There are a lot of programs available that only built to support one OS, say Mac or Windows for example. If your in my situation where you use a Mac at home but a PC at work then you will probably have spent hours trying to hunt down similar programs that offer the same features as the Mac does for your PC (As an example, finding a To Do List as good as Things grr). Well fortunately, Dropbox has Windows, Mac, Linux and iPhone versions of its popular software and all work together seamlessly. By the time I get home from work, my Mac is already up to date with any files I have been editing at work!

Saweeet Prices and Referrals earn you Extra Storage

Dropbox offers storage from 2GB up to a whopping 100GB depending on your account and obviously price plan you choose. For a standard FREE, yes free account, you get 2GB worth of storage and you are not limited to features, meaning you can share folders / files, revert to old files and your files are backed up. What’s even better is that if you refer your friends using your unique referral link, you can earn up to 3GB additional storage.

If you have given the free trial ago and are ready for more space then you can pay $9.99 p/m for 50GB’s worth of storage and $19.99 p/m for 100GB!

Conclusion

To sum things up, Dropbox just works, and works well! What other product can you say offers you storage space with on the fly backups, file / folder sharing capability as well as the option to restore deleted files for Free? Well short answer is you can’t. I find myself constantly telling people about this tool and I have my friends, my family all using it to share / send files.

I also think for any students out there, this would be invaluable! I can remember snapping numerous pen sticks when I was at Uni and losing my work, as well as misplacing them or having them pinched and this is not a very efficient method compared to Dropbox, and your files are secure!

Finally, The iPhone app which was recently released is another feature that the guys at Dropbox dropped on us and now I can access my files on the go, literally! I can even make files available offline if I want to.

What are you waiting for, get over to http://getdropbox.com and signup for your free account now and let me know what you think.

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]]> http://designwoop.com/2010/01/5-reasons-to-work-directly-from-your-dropbox-account/feed/ 8 How To: Get Chrome on your Mac with Extensions http://designwoop.com/2009/12/how-to-get-chrome-on-your-mac-with-extensions/ http://designwoop.com/2009/12/how-to-get-chrome-on-your-mac-with-extensions/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:51:19 +0000 Stu Greenham http://designwoop.com/?p=599 Chrome officially rocks! right? I officially made the it my default web browser at work last week which is a big move for me as I have been a dedicated Firefoxian for several years. After Google added extension support to its browser I was hooked! A week later I have filtered down my favourite extensions (which will be a future post) and now I want it on my Mac too!

I’d given up hope that would happen and that I’d have to wait till early next year when Google pull there finger out, but I am happy to say I have found a solution and you can have extensions working in no time!

The Steps

First you need to head over to here and download the latest build of Chromium (At time of writing I am using 34164) and then install it to your Applications folder.

Next run Chromium and enter the following in the Search/URL bar:

chrome://extensions/

You will be redirected to the extension page which will be looking pretty boring right now. To find some extensions to install go to this website:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions

Once you reach an extension that you want to install you will notice that the ‘Install’ button is greyed out. Open another tab and head over to:

http://grack.com/blog/2009/12/08/re-enable-install-button-for-mac-chrome-extensions/

Scroll down to where it says ‘Enable Extension Install’ and drag this to your Bookmarks toolbar. Now flip back to the Extension you just found and click on the bookmark you just dropped. This will enable the ‘Install’ button at which point you can install the extension!

You will have to do this for each extension as Google will disable the ‘Install’ button but thats a fair price to pay for a working Chrome!

Bookmarks Synching

Another nice little treat is that the latest Chromium build has Bookmarks Synching as you will probably have seen on Windows versions which means for someone like me, you can Sync your bookmarks between both operating systems Boom!

You can find this option by clicking on Chromium in the top left and then ‘Bookmarks Synched…’ at which point it will ask you for your Google username and password.

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