Dropbox: Managing Your Files Everywhere You Go

Managing files between computers and mobile devices has just got a lot easier with the help from the folks at Dropbox. Dropbox is service which allows you to store your files on a cloud network (which means an Internet-based network, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand)

The benefits of Dropbox includes automatic syncing when new files or changes are detected, automatic backup of your files, and the ability to restore previous versions of your files.Dropbox is available for Windows, OSX and Linux a free Dropbox application for iPhone, iPad, and Android, which lets you access your files anywhere you go. For Blackberry users a mobile-optimized version of the website is also available for owners of Blackberry phones and other Internet-capable mobile devices. 

Dropbox's pricing plans start with the Basic plan which is 2 GB of storage for free. A Pro 50 plan of 50 GB for 9.99/month and the Pro 100 of 100 GB for 19.99/month. Every time you refer a person to Dropbox, you get an extra 250MB added to your account for free with a maximum of 8GB.

For more information, visit Dropbox at http://www.dropbox.com/

MacDrive: Using both NTFS and FAT32 formatted disks on Windows systems

My personal computer is a MacBook Pro, but my work computer is a Lenovo T400.  When I purchased my MBP, I came across a problem: how do I seamlessly swap files back and forth?

My PC is joined to a corporate domain, so I did not want to mess with the settings and join it to my home network and enable file sharing.

An immediate solution was to use Dropbox and link both computers to my account.  The only problem was that my free account was maxed out at 2GB, and if I wanted to move a big file (say 500mb), I'd have to move it into the Dropbox, wait for it to upload onto the cloud, and then wait for it to sync with the other computer... it was quite time consuming.

OSX uses the FAT32 file system, while Windows uses the NTFS file system.  OSX is able to read NTFS drives but not write to them.  Windows 7 does not recognize FAT32 drives at all.  At this point, I could transfer files from PC to Mac (put the files from PC on the NTFS external hard drive and then plug into Mac) but not the other way around.  Also, my main external 2TB hard drive is also my OSX Time Machine backup drive.  Since Windows 7 is not natively able to read FAT32 disks, I didn't have the capability to move my large files from the 2TB drive to PC.

I came across MacDrive, and it's a Windows application that allows Windows to read from and write to FAT32 drives.  The installation is quick and simple, and the program runs in the background, taking up about 2MB of RAM.  MacDrive solved my file swapping dilemna, and both my Mac and PC are able to read and write to my 2TB external hard drive.  It is the only program that I found that's easy and simple to use. 

MacDrive retails for $49.99 for a single license.  The official website is located here: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/