Tuesday, April 12, 2011

iPad favorite apps - Drop Box

We bought the iPad on the day it was released in 2010 and my wife was the primary user of it.  For many months, I was underwhelmed with it for a few reasons.  However, over time, I saw many uses for it in business.  When the iPad 2 was released, I bought one and gave it to my wife.  I started to customize the original iPad for my day to day use and never looked back.  My only regret is that we have two 16 gig machines.  I believe for heavy use a 32 gig device is the minimum requirement.

One of the first apps that I recommend every owner to have on their iPad is Dropox.  I have Dropbox installed on my Android phone, my iPad, and two of my window machines.  This little app enables me to 'share' files and folders between devices.

Highly recommended! Sync your files online and across computers, iPad, Xoom, iPhone, Android devices, and more with @Dropbox. 2GB account is free! http://db.tt/gpvuVQn


A few recent uses:

1. I took a few video clips from old videos that we had from when our girls were in their teens.  The files were too large to share via mms or email.  Therefore, I shared them on Dropbox from my Droid and edited the videos on my windows machine.  I loaded the files to Vimeo and shared the videos with family.  (Oh, did we laugh at a few of them.  Where did the time go?)

2. I use lightscribe to burn all the covers on the DVDs I produce.  An older windows machine has the drive and drop box installed.  I moved a few images that I wanted burned to make DVD labels into dropbox and the older machine had the images available for burning to covers.  Quick and efficient.  Once the DVDs were burned, I removed them from drop box.

3. Burning ISO files from multiple machines.  Often, I need to burn many copies of a show and it is nice to have multiple machines working at the same time.  I move the ISO file into a dropbox folder and quickly the file is available for all my machines to burn DVDs.

Yes, I can add a network drive and it will do the same thing (maybe quicker too).  However, good network drives are not cheap and this is an easy way to access files even if the machines are not on the same network.

4. Images for my portfolio - I will discuss a portfolio app for the iPad in the future that is very slick and easy to use.  I move resized images into Drop box that I want to add to my portfolio app for the iPad.  This eliminates the need to hook the iPad to a computer via iTunes.  (Not that this isn't a method for moving images but I like using Drop box better.)

5. Documents, ebooks, etc.  A few other uses is having documents and ebooks on multiple machines.  Only one click away.  I keep my wedding contracts and other documents in a folder in dropbox.  When I am heading to a shoot, having the document on my iPad eliminates the need for extra paper.  I have the latest copy at all times with me.

Ebooks - there are many tremendous ebooks available (and I will discuss a few ebook readers in the future). After purchasing the ebook, I move them to my ebook folder within drop box and I now have the ebook with me at all times.  It is in my iPad, laptop, or desktop machine.

6. Favorite poses.  Move favorite portrait or wedding poses into dropbox and have them available for clients to see when you are posing them.  The beautiful screen makes it easy to see and using drop box makes the process of getting the images on your iPad very easy and quick.

I have many other uses for the Drop Box app but these are some of my top favorites.

Highly recommended! Sync your files online and across computers, iPad, Xoom, iPhone, Android devices, and more with @Dropbox. 2GB account is free! http://db.tt/gpvuVQn