Cloud Technology Products – What is drop box? How it is useful? How to install it and make maximum use out of it?

               Dropbox Cloud Storage

In the modern life, you may need to work over different computer systems, for example one computer may be for office job and one may be kept at home. You may also need to refer or modify common files across both computers or may also need to refer same files over your tablet or smartphone.

In such situations, you usually need to email your files from one computer system to another system or to physically shift them by first copying into your USB and then use it on other system. This could be inconvenient and you may end up in maintaining different version of the same file across different devices.

It would be great if you can refer the same file from different computers or laptop or smartphone? Dropbox helps in doing it wherein you can refer the same file from different locations besides various other features. Let us understand a bit in detail.

Dropbox is a cloud storage and automatic file synchronization service. It enables you to create a Dropbox folder on each of your computer.  File put or modified in the Dropbox folder of any computer automatically starts getting synchronized with another Dropbox folder created on other computer. After full synchronization (which requires internet connection), the content of both the folder will appear the same after synchronization. So you will get the feeling of accessing the same folder irrespective of the computer you use. This way you don’t need to email or copy your file from one system to another system.

A copy of the same folder also gets stored on the Dropbox website. You can access, use or modify those files over internet as well which will once again get synchronized over the internet.So whenever you are travelling some location which has internet facility you may not need to carry all the files. In case your computer is stolen or gets damaged your files can be accessed from the website or can be recovered at the other computer. You can also use your smartphone to access files over the internet through Dropbox website.

The good part is that you get up to 2GB of space free of cost on Dropbox. But if you need higher storage capacity then you need to pay a subscription ranging from $9.99 per month to $19.99 per month. But the good part is that only the total capacity of file in use will be counted towards 2GB. If your free capacity limit is approaching you can always delete some old files and create fresh capacity for yourself.

Let us now understand on how to create Dropbox account.

1. Go to Dropbox website by typing www.dropbox.com
2. It would ask you to put your name, last name and email id and select a password of your choice as per screenshot below. Put your name, last name and email ID and select password.

   How to Sign Dropbox

3. After sign in you will be given an option to download Dropbox software as per Screenshot below. Click Save file given in the screenshot and save the file to any folder of your choice.

   How to download Dropbox

4. Now you need to install Drop box by clicking the file saved as per step 3 above.
5. Upon installation it will ask you whether you already have dropbox account or not. In our case since we already created a Dropbox account as per step 2 above. Hence select 2^nd Option as per screenshot below.

   Dropbox Installation step 1

6. You will be required to put your account details. Please put account details as per step 2 above. It will also automatically identify your computer name
7. It will ask you to select the account from the option of your choice. Select Free option of 2GB.
8. You will get a Dropbox notification account. You will get an arrow in Green which will show the place of your Dropbox account at the right bottom of your window as per screenshot below

   Installation steps dropbox

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9. Your Dropbox icon will get created on the desktop.

Similarly, following the same steps you can make Dropbox folder on other computers as well. The only difference would be that you don’t need to create a new account now as per Step 1 and 2 above. Just start with step 3 up to Step 9.

Once you click the Dropbox icon on the desktop it will open the Dropbox folder. Once you put any file in Dropbox folder, the same file will get updated on other computers in their Dropbox folders.. Your files will also get updated on the Dropbox website. But such updating and synchronization of file would require internet connection.

If your file synchronization is under process, it will be shown by a blue icon, but if your files are already synchronized then it will be reflected by the green icon. By looking at those icons you can see whether that file is updated on Dropbox website or not.

Within the Dropbox folder you can create as many folders as you want. You get various features for each of such sub folders like

• Sharing the Sub Folder: – Once you right click such sub folders within the Dropbox folder you can share such folder with your friends. This would mean your entire folder will get saved in the computer of your friends without the option of sending those files in emails.
• Share the link: - You can create the link of your folder. You can share this link with anyone even if they don’t have Dropbox installed with them.

Dropbox keeps your data maintaining a SSL (Secured socket layer) and use AES-256 encryption standard which is similar to the one used by banks to secure customer data. You can install Dropbox on your mobile phone by visiting to their website through your phone.