Hot on the heels of my NomaDesk review, I had requests to review Dropbox as an alternate way to store and share files online. So come along as we delve the deep dark Dropbox, and I’ll promise to stop with the alliteration.

Much like NomaDesk, Dropbox is like a virtual hard drive that you can store and share files on. It’s a fairly straight forward way to sync your files with the added benefit of being able to access them with any computer with Internet access. Simply drop your files into one of DropBox’s folders and you’re done.

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One of the biggest reasons I purchased my laptop was because I envisioned how great a tool it was going to be for working remotely. I will readily admit that although I look nothing like Mel Gibson, I had big plans on becoming the next Road Warrior.

It did not take me long to realize that there is no easy way to sync information between two computers, especially Outlook email, contacts, and tasks. I have a decent size contact list and a full calendar, so it was too late to switch everything over to online applications. For that reason I started a search into easy and affordable ways to sync Outlook between computers.

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Photo by woodleywonderworks .

Ever since my wife and I started our custom software development business, we’ve been making use of remote collaboration facilities such as VNC and Webex in order to give demonstrations to clients without having to visit their site, or have them come to us, as I described in my blog entry on Demonstrating Software on the Web. This has worked well: the majority of our clients are over 100 miles away, so visits in either direction are quite a lot of hassle. We still do make site visits or have clients come to us where desired or necessary, but the use of remote collaboration tools has certainly cut down on the level of travel we
would otherwise have had to do.

The various remote collaboration tools have various levels of cost and functionality. For example, we usually use TightVNC for demonstrations, as it is completely free to use, and just requires that the client has a web browser with Java support in order to use it. However, it does require that you know your IP address, and may require modification to your firewall to ensure that the incoming request is passed on to the VNC server.

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Photo by creo que soy yo.

As you probably know freelance workers do much more tasks than just designing, writing or whatever it is you do to pay your bills.

So why spend time and energy sharing your knowledge?

These days altruism is not very common. We’re so stressed with our work that there’s little free time left, and we want to spend it on anything else.

But moreover, sharing what you know is risky. Someone could steal your ideas or your techniques. It’s even a little unfair! Why share what you learned by yourself, with so much effort and without help from anyone else? And what do you get in exchange? Isn’t it a risk for your business? Is it worth the effort?

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