Increasingly, I find myself needing to work on documents using multiple computers.  A USB flash drive is one solution to this problem, but what happens if you lose the flash drive or it stops working (I’ve had several flash drives die on me)?  Looking for a better solution lead me to Dropbox.  Dropbox is a cross-platform application (Windows, OS X, Linux, and iPhone) that creates a dropbox folder on your computer.  Files placed in the dropbox are automatically synced to the dropbox folder on any other computer on which you’ve installed Dropbox and can be accessed just like any local file.  A copy is also placed on Dropbox’s encrypted servers and can be accessed from any web browser.  Dropbox also keeps a 30 day history of changes to your files so earlier versions can be recovered.  Deleted files can also be recovered.  Dropbox also gives you the ability to share files securely.

Strengths:

• Free account has 2 GB of storage space
• Copy of files is saved to local computers to allow access if the Internet is unavailable
• Cross-platform
• Easy to use

Weaknesses:

• 2 GB is fine for Office documents but not enough for large numbers of photos or videos
• The lowest level of paid service is too large a jump/too expensive (50GB for $9.99/month)

Dropbox is useful to all users, but especially to those who need to work on documents using multiple computers in different locations.  To take full advantage of the application requires the installation of software on each computer (which may not be allowed by IT security policies).  However, you can access your files using a web browser.