One of the easiest services I use for backing up is Dropbox. They give me a folder to store documents in and it automatically pushes a copy of those documents into the cloud (be sure to use a great password) and syncs them with my other computer; so I’ve automatically got 3 copies of the file now. I can view these files from anywhere on the internet with a web browser or with my iPhone, iPad or an Android device. If I store photos from my iPhone to Dropbox it’s now in the cloud and on my two syncing computers (and on my iPhone).

DropBox will give you 2GB (more than 3 CDs of storage) for free. Dropbox syncs that storage with your computers plus you can view with your Android and iOS devices. Are you always sharing certain documents with a co-worker or friend? You can have a shared synchronized folder between your computers. You can even share specific photo albums via the web with friends. If you’ve got your computer synced you don’t even need to be on the internet, those files are there on the computer, if you change, add or delete any files the next time you connect it will sync everything automatically for you.

And if you get more friends to sign up (and install it) they’ll give you more free space (so please use my link for extra space). It runs on Macintosh and on Windows, the programs and apps are free!

They make it incredibly easy to share photos with others, even just via their web site. You got a folder, you share the link and you’ve got a photo album shared. Super super easy.

3G of bonus space: After you sign up, it looks like you can still get the beta of the camera importer (install DropBox and get it running before you install the beta, make sure you get all your free storage first), they will then let you import directly from your camera and give you an extra 3GB (that’s 5GB total, about 8 CDs of back up!) here are the beta software download links. This camera imports directly from you camera and from chips, it’ll also import automagically from your iPhone or other iOS device when you plug it into the computer. Even if you don’t want this feature, import in 3GB of photos and video and then delete them, you’ll still have the space (as far as I can tell all this free space is for life). You might get this space automatically with the android version, I don’t think there is a beta for that.

Tip: To get more use out of all that storage, once you get a few GB of photos into the cloud, back them up to a DVD (standard DVD’s hold more than 4 GB) and make multiple copies. Keep a copy at your Mom’s house or at your kids house or in your safe deposit box. You don’t want all the copies at the same place in case there is a fire and they all burn down. Then you can delete these photos from the cloud and you’ve got more space for more photos.

Advanced features: You have options to not sync certain folders with dropbox, so if you ever have 50 GB of storage from them you don’t need to keep every folder synced with your netbook or MacBook Air. You could just since your documents folder and recent photos and not worry about everything else.

Don’t like: The one thing I don’t like about the Dropbox photo import is they rename your photos with the date and time. I actually like the date and time part but I wish they just added that to the original file name, it’s hard to tell where the duplicates are with completely different filenames. But I can decide if that is important later, it’s the 3GB of extra storage that I want for free, I can use it for anything I want later…

Another tip: Whenever I buy a new product, I try to go on-line and get the digital version of the manual for it, then I put all these documents in a folder in the cloud somewhere. Then no matter where I go, I have the manual for that computer, digital camera, car stereo GPS unit anything that I might be traveling with. On the other hand, I also have the manual for my stereo and stove with me too, I don’t really need those all the time, but it’s nice to have those manuals easily accessible when I need them.

This is pretty much all the topics that I talk about. Larger means it’s mentioned more often. Closer to the top means I’ve mentioned it lately. This is based on my first five years of blogging. I usually keep a dynamic version of this page at what I talk about, but I thought I should keep a static version since it’s my fifth year blogging and I’ll probably have to start a fresh one with my new WordPress blog (coming soon).

I thought this word cloud from what I’ve been tweeting was kinda cool. I created it at TweetCloud.com. These whow the most common words I’ve tweeted, bigger means I’ve tweeted more.
I’m on vacation right now, and I do miss Twitter a little bit. I want that constant stream of information. I also have been thinking of things to tweet and I can’t.

I can compose a full blog post when I don’t have ‘net access (and I can even backdate it) but I can’t with twitter. I probably won’t use twitter at all while I’m out of the country. I’m not going to use what little internet access I have on that, we’ll see, maybe I’d find it useful in a different way.

I thought this was kinda neat, SnapShirts.com will read your site and create a blog cloud and print you up a shirt. It’s nothing fancy but pretty easy to do.

They’ll e-mail you the image to use if you want too. If you’ve never done anything to generate your word cloud, it’s easy to do and interesting to see what comes up.