Dropbox. Evernote. Google Apps.
You may be using one or all of these already. They've been around a while.
If not, consider their individual and combined benefits for simplifying your work flow, improving mobile access and offering a near perfect set-up for prevention of data loss.
We're living in an incredible time. There are so many tools for creating, storing, sharing and otherwise engaging each other and the information world, that it seems a little odd I'd limit myself to these three for this topic.
There are others I appreciate and use everyday, and I welcome comments and recommendations about your favorites, as well.
These three, however, represent such a balanced blend of convenience, ease of use and peace of mind that I find myself sharing them more and more with customers, family and friends.
Too often such recommendations come after a hard drive failure, computer theft or other loss has already taken its toll, so the benefit of the referral is bittersweet.
It would be nice to know how easy and effective these tools are before the loss, so here's a quick recipe for easy, low cost (even free) peace of mind.
1. Get Dropbox.
If you don't already use it and are in need of an easy way to protect your files, try it today. Go to
www.dropbox.com to sign-up.
If you know me and would like a referral code, good for an additional free 250MB sign-up bonus, contact me before you join and I'll be happy to send you the referral link. Dropbox is generous with its referral perks. Referring members get an additional 500 MB for each new member referred, up to 16GB.
Few things online are as free AND as easy as Dropbox. You'll wonder how you got along without it.
The benefits are many:
- Work Flow: Easily share photos and files with others. Share whole directories with others, as if the files are right there on each of your computers.
- Mobility: Access your files from any connected computer and actually synchronize files to multiple computers. ALSO: Dropbox is integrated into many iPhone, iPad and other mobile device apps, it's easy to access files anywhere.
- Loss Prevention / Peace of Mind: Save up to 2 gigabytes of any data online, free. Get more space at a low cost. Never lose a file to a drive failure or lost/stolen computer.
2. Get Evernote.
I don't know of any referral perks for Evernote, but don't let that stop you:
www.evernote.comWith Evernote, you'll be able to keep all kinds of information organized into tagged notebooks and store it online and on your computer. You can clip web pages, keep a journal, record audio, search text in images, email yourself files and have them saved in the right notebook, automatically... It's an excellent complement to the secure file storage you get with Dropbox.
Benefits:
- Work Flow: Organize your surfing, recipes, journals, research files, web-clippings, even audio and other formats. Share notebooks with others, save to and from multiple devices. Take notes in meetings, organize, tag, share and know your work is saved online and on the hard drive.
- Mobility: Access your files and notebooks anywhere, Like Dropbox, Evernote is also integrated into many iPhone, iPad and other mobile device apps. You may email yourself any file and automatically index it into the right notebook by adding #notebook-name to the subject line. Record a note or take a picture and send it to Evernote for storage and further processing.
- Loss Prevention / Peace of Mind: Saving to Evernote is saving to the web. A free account allows a generous transfer of data per month. A paid account allows more than you're likely to need. You won't have to worry about customer notes, personal files or any other data. Between Dropbox and Evernote, the files you create and retrieve from your computer will never be at risk of accidental loss.
Evernote's web page offers this pitch:
REMEMBER EVERYTHING: Save your ideas, things you like, things you hear, and things you see.
ACCESS ANYWHERE: Evernote works with nearly every computer, phone and mobile device out there.
FIND THINGS FAST: Search by keyword, tag or even printed and handwritten text inside images
3. Use Google Apps for your domain-based email
Or at least use gmail (instead of some ISP-based email account).
You'll have robust email, generous storage and an easy way to manage not only email, but also calendar, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, file attachments, chat, blog subscriptions, even voice mail. With Google Apps, you can improve on the already solid Gmail experience by making your domain name your email address, so that you don't have to be
SomeName@yahoo.com,
hotmail.com,
cinci.rr.com,
fuse.net,
aol.com, you get the idea...
Benefits:
- Work Flow: Access email, docs, chat, file sharing, calendars, tasks and much more online, any time. Share documents with others, with and without password protection. Quickly create Google sites, forms and other interactive assets. Manage team and family calendars and archive all mail in one place - and do it all on your own domain name. Google's mail is really fast, too. Searching for a message from this morning or three years ago is pretty much the same, quick function.
- Mobility: Google mail and most all of the services are accessible anywhere there is a connection and a device, whether a PC, Mac, smart phone or tablet. Google Voice allows you to have a phone number that rings every phone you have, from mobile to home to work or temporary locations. It does lots of other cool stuff, too.
- Loss Prevention / Peace of Mind: Save all mail without worry of loss or inability to get to mail that was saved only to a loss or dying hard drive. Your mail is stored in Google's hardened security servers and accessible by you when needed. The Apps for business account provides you with 25GB per box. Google's built-in anti-spam and anti-virus protection is excellent, too.
My company can help with any of these if you need it, but you're really not likely to need much help.
All three have a free as well as a paid version and can be set-up without much, if any technical experience, especially Dropbox and Evernote.
I wouldn't go another day without a dropbox account, if you don't have one already. It's worth the few minutes it will take to get started.
As I mentioned above, there are so many other great tools, it's hard to limit recommendations to these. I have found these three to be enough, however, to simplify your work, make it easier to be mobile and deliver peace of mind by making it easy to save and access files and email from multiple places.
BONUS RECOMMENDATION: In case you're already using the top 3, here's another to consider: If you want an easy way to save web pages for easy reading later (including an automatic text version), try
www.instapaper.com.
It's my 4th tool of choice, and works well with the others.
What are your favorite tools for work flow, mobility and loss prevention?
