synchronization and the cloud

Over the past few months, I’ve grown to really appreciate the power of the cloud in allowing me to synchronize my data.

Dropbox

I had known about Dropbox for a couple of months. Even had an account. But it wasn’t until I read this article and this article and started my senior design project that I really started to use – and appreciate – the ability to synchronize.

Now, I use Dropbox for:

• maintaining a todo.txt file, sorted and updated regularly to display my latest priorities.
• storing all my school files (from 5th grade til now)
• storing my “library” folder – all references, textbooks, articles, and everything in between that I’ve stumbled across and deemed somewhat helpful.

I’ve considered storing music on Dropbox, but I don’t think I have enough space to make it work. And I’m not yet willing to pay for more space. A next step might be adding a second layer of encryption (BCrypt or TrueCrypt) for my more sensitive files.

SimpleNote

I believed in the importance of ubiquitous note-taking and stumbled upon Simplenote, which provided fast plain-text editing and storage. Now, for me, Simplenote has many different applications: media to-do’s, grocery lists, blog ideas, taking sermon notes, etc. One issue I currently have is that the accumulation of notes can sometimes prove overwhelming. Sometimes I forget what tags I’ve stored for a note, or if I’ve even stored the note at all.

Google Docs

Google Docs has also proven helpful in creating and sharing spreadsheets and documents. Quick and easy, and allows for export to PDF. I use it for most of my school assignments nowadays, given its quickness and ease of use. Not much else need be said, really. It does what I need.

XMarks

I really enjoy bookmark synchronization. As someone who constantly switches computers, I find the ability to drag-n-drop links onto my bookmarks bar (and then having it appear moments later on another computer) valuable. When I made the switch from Firefox to Chrome, I was grateful for Xmarks‘ support for both browsers. I’d tried delicious before, but I find Xmarks to suit my needs better.