The usefulness of cloud storage

You've probably heard the buzz about or at least the term "the cloud" by now, but have you given it a whirl?  I finally bit the bullet and did a bit of research the other day to see what was out there.  Being a cheapskate, I only looked for free offerings, and wound up going with Dropbox.

I decided to try them first because they offer a native Linux client, and have been extremely pleased.  They give you 2GB of free storage which is upgradable to 50GB or 100GB for a monthly fee, but they will bump you up to 8GB in 250MB increments for referring friends.  Along with the Linux client which integrates with Nautilus, they also offer Windows, Mac, Blackberry and Android clients.  I'm currently running the Linux, Windows and Android clients.  Setup was incredibly simple and the syncing is spot-on and fast.  It's already come in extremely handy providing access to files for work while I'm at home and vice-versa, as well as being able to get to them from my EVO.

One other cool feature that Dropbox has is the ability to share folders.  I'm able to give co-workers access to files while I'm out of the office from both my home PC, laptop, or phone without having to fiddle with a VPN and slow transfers to a file server on the corporate LAN.  For that matter, they don't even have to be in the office either, which is full of win in my book.

If you decide to give them a try, you and I can both get an extra 250MB by using this referral link.