Dropbox: Easy real-time folder sync, rollback

Dropbox is a promising new tool for online storage, file sync, and sharing. The cross-platform system plug-in gives you a shared drop box where you can dump files and access them from multiple computers just like you would on the home machine. It also keeps track of any changes to the files, which can be rolled back to previous versions that have been archived on the service's cloud storage.

I gave it a brief spin this afternoon on one computer and it works as advertised. I had no problem dumping a bunch of files, then accessing them through the Web interface. The photo album feature has been especially well implemented, as the system will automatically group together a folder of photos and categorize them into albums using the metadata. There are other nice touches too, such as visual notifiers to let you know when a file is syncing up with the server, as well as Growl system messages on the Mac version to let you know when a change is made to your drop box.

If a file needs recovery you can send it back to its rightful folder right from the Web.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you're away from your home machine you can still access all your files through the Web interface. There's also a file uploader that lets you add files up to 25MB if you want to save a file from a guest computer without having to install any software.

The service is in private beta with plans to open up later this year. We've got a little less than 100 invites to give away to Webware readers. Just sign up and enter "Webware" as the invite code. (Update: Invites are now gone. We're working on getting some more). Beta accounts offer up 5GB of storage with no limitations on how many computers you can have linked up. When the service opens up later this year, the free accounts will be limited at 1GB, so get 'em while they're hot. Another screen of the interface after the break.

Related: Tubes (now dead), Apple's .Mac 'Back to my Mac' service, SyncToy, Foldershare, BeInSync, SugarSync.

[found on Digg]

View the files on your Web storage folder and roll back to the previous versions if something goes wrong.

(Credit: CNET Networks)