Fiddling with Dropbox

Just in case you've never heard of it before, Dropbox, I'll start off by saying that it's essentially 2GB free online storage. It works best with it's PC software, which runs in the background and doesn't really have much of an interface. What it does do is create it's own folder which is constantly synchronized with that online storage. It comes into it's own when you install dropbox on a second computer, meaning anything in the dropbox folder is then updated elsewhere too. In addition, anything in your Dropbox is then available on the website and via the mobile apps. 

I've used dropbox for ages without going on about it but I've become more actively interested after a recent update to the Android app. This means my phone now has the ability to immediately upload photos to my online storage as they are taken.

This was possible before but needed a third-party app. This update probably means Dropsnap will soon see it's last days. It's probably just as well, considering the Dropbox app has made it a much more simple process. There are only two settings to look for: 'Camera upload on' & 'upload by wifi & data/wifi only'. Immediately after I activated it, the app uploaded what I already had on the phone, and of course any new photos from then on..

My phone is configured to upload automatically while on wifi, and when at home I can take a picture and see it arrive on my laptop only a minute later.

Back in the real world, it's unlikely that I'd need to have the pictures so promptly. I have been quite pleased to find that any photos I've taken while I'm out are usually waiting for me on the computer, having uploaded themselves in the time between the phone coming in range of wi-fi and when I sit down.

Another way I've used this once or twice is to host images to use on the web. There is plenty of image hosting out there but the beauty of dropbox is that the contents Public folder can be directly linked, so there the image can be embedded wherever I like, or viewed on its own, with none of the intrusive borders you get on sites like yfrog. It can be a little simpler than uploading to these sites too, since there's no website to go to, just moving it to the public folder and right-clicking on any such file brings up the option to copy a public link, like this:

Which gives you something like this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19414945/Blog%26Twit/rclickdb.png
(yes, that is the URL of an image that shows how to get the URL of an image)


To be honest, Dropbox probably won't supersede twitpic as my twitter image sharing medium of choice but it does have some useful applications.

The meagre 2GB offered to everyone for free isn't that attractive, so I thought I'd offer a few tips on how to expand this as much as you can. The most effective way to get more space would of course be to pay for it which starts at $10 a month for 50GB.

Anyone in their right mind will of course be looking to get as much as they can for free, and there are a few ways to expand without lifting your wallet. There are a handful of triggers which reward additional space. I made my way up to 5GB without really trying to but it certainly helps that I've had mine for over a year.

The best place to start is of course on the 'get started' page, which lists a few tasks to complete. It might not make it clear that some of these will award you with more space though. For example, making use of the Photo Uploader on any platform, which will bring you an extra 500MB.

The most difficult of these tasks is to refer others to the service. You can be rewarded for 32 referrals and get 250MB for each! I'm yet to make any, so if you suddenly find yourself interested, you'd be doing me a favour by clicking one of the links I've scattered around.

That's about it for above board ways of increasing your space, but I do know of one less legitimate way of gaining space.
This paragraph probably isn't for you if you don't have a rooted android phone, so it might be worth overlooking. The forthcoming HTC One series of phones promises to better connect Dropbox and Android. More importantly, it comes with a 2 year, 23GB increase to the owners dropbox! Despite the fact that they aren't released for another 2 weeks, the software has already been leaked and developers at XDA have ported it to run on other phones! If you've already gone through the process of installing a custom rom, it might be worth switching to one based on Primo just to gain this reward. Switching back immediately afterwards hasn't yet been reported to revoke this reward.

G'bye- and if I have by some miracle convinced you to try out dropbox, you'd be doing me a big favour by giving me a referral.