5 Unusual Ways to Use Dropbox You Might Not Have Thought Of

18 Dec

Dropbox has just been upgraded to version 1.0, so we thought weâ€™d take a look at some great ways to use it that might not have occurred to you.

A free Dropbox account allows users to store up to 2GB worth of files and access them from any other Linux, Mac or Windows machine running the Dropbox application. Or, those files can be accessed from any browser.

In fact, the new 1.0 version of Dropbox is so tremendously useful, I decided to invest the $9.99 per month to increase its capacity to 50GB. Dropbox can perform some slick tricks. Here are my five favorite examples:

Chat Logs

Many chat programs let you change the location of the chat log. Clients such as Pidgin can be modified to save those chats wherever youâ€™d like, so point to a folder within the Dropbox for complete portability.

Multiple chat client Digsby is especially useful when you save its chat logs in Dropbox, and there was a portable version available until just a few weeks ago.

Itâ€™s still possible to make this happen, but it takes a bit of hacking. If youâ€™re so inclined, it might be worth it â€” it lets you save all your Facebook, AIM and Google Talk chat logs in the same place.

Gaming Saves

Most games let you designate where youâ€™re going to save your progress, so why not put that saved game data in Dropbox? Then, no matter what computer youâ€™re using (as long as you have the game installed there), you can pick up where you left off.

Documents Folder

Have a group of documents youâ€™re always working on and adding to? Place them all in a Dropbox documents folder and you can modify them at home, work, and on the road. This works especially well when youâ€™re writing with a team, allowing you to see when someone else has begun working on a document.

Teamwork

We like to shoot videos, and it often works out where one of us is shooting and another is editing. One of us drops the unedited video clips in a shared Dropbox folder, while the other picks them up and edits them as soon as theyâ€™re synced. Then, someone else can share the finished videos on YouTube. This works especially well if you spring for the 50GB upgrade.

Any App With a Watch Folder

Any application that lets you create a watch folder is fertile ground for Dropbox. Hereâ€™s an idea: if youâ€™re a Photoshop user, create a watch folder in Dropbox, leave your powerful PC running Photoshop at home. Then, when you drop a photo into that folder when youâ€™re on the road, itâ€™s automatically processed to the dimensions you designate back at the mother ship. You can also use this idea for BitTorrent, dropping torrents into a watch folder and having them download on your home machine while youâ€™re at work.

Weâ€™ve grown to adore Dropbox in the past year, and now that itâ€™s reached version 1.0, its subtle improvements make it even more appealing. To see for yourself, download it here, and find out more tips and tricks here.