Category: Internet

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Dropbox Tips and Tricks

Dropbox is one of my favorite tools to help small businesses in the D.C. area share files on the cheap.

Dropbox Wiki Info

Besides simply sharing files with your friends, office co-workers, or just your other computers, there are lots of other uses.

See the Tips and Tricks page and Dropbox Add-on page on the Dropbox Wiki explaining things such as:

Other Dropbox Tips and Tricks

  • See any updates that occur to your Dropbox files with the free Growl (Mac) program. Dropbox for Windows does this through the Dropbox System Tray Icon. This is especially useful if you are sharing folders and need to be notified when there are new files.Dropbox Growl Notification
  • Automatically make web photo galleries by moving pictures to the Dropbox Photos directory either from a computer or using the free iPhone Dropbox App.

iPhone Dropbox

  • Use a Dropbox Add-on that allows you to quickly move a file to a public folder and place the URL the clipboard. This makes sending people a file super easy.
  • Change shared folder names. For example, I share a folder with Joe that I name “Joe”. Joe can accept to join that folder and then rename the folder “Rick” so that it makes more sense for him. The great thing here is that the folder is still named “Joe” for me. Alternatively, I can share a folder with Joe that I have named “Rick” and then rename it to “Joe” once he has joined that folder. On Windows machines, renaming a shared folder has sometimes caused me to leave a shared folder. To get around that quirk, rename a shared folder from the Dropbox website.
  • Move shared folders. You can move shared folders, for example, to a directory named “Shared” or “Work”. This does not affect any of the shared users.

Sign Up Referrals

Dropbox ReferralDropbox is free for 2GB of space. See their pricing for more space. One of the reasons that Dropbox has quickly grown in popularity is their referral program. Once you sign up, you can invite others and get 250MB of extra space for everyone you sign up. On that note, please use my Dropbox referral when signing up for Dropbox to give both of us an extra 250MB of space.

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Dropbox to Sync, Share, and Save Your Data

What is Dropbox?

Dropbox is a service that runs from Windows, Mac, and Linux computers that gives you a virtual drive which stores files on the Dropbox servers. This drive can be synced automatically with all your computers. You can share the files, folders, or photo galleries with anyone, even people who don’t use Dropbox.

Think of it as a magic folder. It is a great service for people who want to:

  • share data across multiple computers
  • share data with friends and coworkers
  • have a backup of important files stored off-site in case of theft or fire

Video Tour from Dropbox

Cost

Dropbox is free for 2GB of space, $10/month for 50GB, or $20/month for 100GB.

Sign Up

Sign up for Dropbox by clicking on this Dropbox Referral Link in order to give both of us an extra 250MB for free.

New Developments

Dropbox popularity has grown dramatically over the past year and its capabilities are growing regularly. New versions will have direct peer-to-peer syncing making it faster for computers on the same network.

Users can reach Dropbox files through the iPhone formatted website:
http://www.getdropbox.com/iphone/login

iPhone Dropbox AppUPDATE: An official iPhone app for Dropbox was released today. The iPhone Dropbox app allows you to not only access dropbox as you could through the website, but also to:

  • download files for offline viewing
  • take and sync photos and videos with Dropbox
  • set up a photo gallery with your iPhone photos
  • share links to Dropbox with your iPhone contacts
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T1 Business Support from Verizon

Lightning Strikes

A  small office near Dulles airport in Virginia had a Business T1 line from Verizon because they didn’t qualify for DSL or cable Internet. Everything was working great for about 3 months. Then there was a big lightning storm.

When people showed up to work the next day, the Internet was down. Verizon told them that the line was good and that it was likely due to their router being hit by lightning. This seemed to make sense. But unfortunately Verizon was no longer responsible for the router after they installed it. Even though Verizon had sold them the router and set up all its configuration files, it was the office’s responsibility to diagnose any router problems and fix it. So the office asked me to take a look.

Finger Pointing

I ran a series of T1 loopback tests on the router and everything responded correctly. I even spoke to Adtran (makers of the router) and they agreed that everything looked good. So I called Verizon. Then the fun back and forth began.

Verizon VanVerizon said that they were sure it wasn’t their fault because they ran their own loopback tests. I asked them to come out. Eventually they did, but they didn’t come out when they said they would so I didn’t get to see them do any tests. When they reported that everything was fine, I didn’t believe them. I knew that they hadn’t even gone into the room with the customer jack and router since no one in the office saw Verizon enter the building.

So I had to set up what Verizon calls a “vendor meet”. Verizon said this was the only way to arrange a specific time. But Verizon warned me that if it didn’t end up being their problem, the business would be charged. Verizon didn’t show up for our first vendor meet because one of their techs was sick. On their second meet, the tech noticed some weird line activity but the Internet came back up.

The next day the line was down again. This process happened three more times, with the Internet going in and out and Verizon coming out occasionally but still maintaining that it was probably the router. Four weeks after the storm, one of Verizon’s techs finally switched out their line between the phone room and the customer jack. That fixed the problem and it has been up ever since.

The router wasn’t broken. Evidently the storm somehow damaged the last bit of line that Verizon owned, but that line was past the phone room that Verizon typically tested against.

The office had been ready to give up when this was finally solved. They were going to move to a cellular Internet solution.

Lesson: Verizon Sucks

This story illustrates Verizon’s failure to properly handle their business customers who pay $500 per month for T1 Internet service. By not being responsible for the router that they sold, Verizon was able to just point fingers instead of properly investigating the problem. Small businesses without a tech staff have no way of dealing with that. They can’t easily log into the routers and type Cisco commands to prove Verizon wrong. These aren’t as simple as Linksys routers for the home.

Verizon should provide a business solution that is responsible for Internet all the way to the local area network. This would have saved the customer a lot of time and money.

The only positive thing that I can say about Verizon is that at least they aren’t Comcast.

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AT&T and Sprint Mobile Signals Coming to DC Metro

According to The Washington Business Journal, AT&T  (meaning iPhones) and Sprint are now starting cell phone service in some DC Metro stations and will expand that coverage over the coming months.

Expanded Metro cell phone service starts Oct. 19

More cell phones will be working at some of the region’s busiest Metro stations starting Oct. 16, under an expanded wireless program first announced in May.

Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, AT&T and T-Mobile began installing hardware at 20 select Metro stations over the weekend and will spend the next two months completing the initial installation.

Until now, Verizon Wireless has been the only carrier that worked in Metro stations under an agreement with Verizon Wireless’ predecessor, Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems, in 1993.

Sprint phones that roam to the Verizon network will also currently work.

The first stations to get the new multicarrier wireless network are: Ballston, Bethesda, Columbia Heights, Crystal City, Dupont Circle, Farragut North, Farragut West, Federal Center SW, Foggy Bottom-GWU, Friendship Heights, Gallery Place-Chinatown, Judiciary Square, L’Enfant Plaza, McPherson Square, Metro Center, Pentagon, Pentagon City, Rosslyn, Smithsonian and Union Station.

The carriers will install service in Metro’s remaining 27 stations by the end of 2010, although wireless phones won’t work in Metro tunnels until 2012.

The four carriers will operate and maintain the network, and are also building a second, separate wireless network for Metro’s use, including future plans for The Metro Channel, which will provide information, news and advertising on monitors in Metro stations and on trains.

Metro says the wireless contract will generate $25 million during its initial 15-year term and an additional $27 million during five, two-year renewals.

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Yahoo to use Microsoft Search

Good news for Microsoft. They reached a deal with Yahoo for Yahoo to use Microsoft’s new and rebranded search engine called Bing to power Yahoo searches. This, along with Bing’s big advertising push, should help Microsoft greatly against Google. It will also help that Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Add to that Mirosoft’s uptick in image coming from the Windows 7 operating system release in October and you have a good story of Microsoft on the upswing (ignoring previous story of course).

The bad news for customers is that we lost another competitor in the field of search. Implementing a good search engine requires not only computer and mathematical skills, but also a vast array of servers which hold search results and send bots out to crawl the internet for new content. Therefore a big company is needed to truly compete in search. (There are smaller search engines that are quite good such as Cuil, but these ventures still require a lot of cash and have yet to gain market share or brand awareness).

This deal leaves us with only two big search engines left. According to research firm ComScore the existing search market is:

65% – Google
19.6% – Yahoo (now to use Bing)
8.4% – Microsoft Bing

Yahoo will still manage their own ads, but apparently using all Microsoft technology.