dropbox

Text files don't have bold, italics, header sizes, margin tabs, or anything that might get lost in travel from one word editing tool to another. Text files just have text, and I love them for it.

A review of some of the top tech stories for the past week, with tongue planted firmly somewhere near cheek.

There are tricks that can break past your security. There are tricks that let you defeat hackers. There are, like in all security matters, voices on both sides declaring whatever steps you take as not enough or as tinfoil-hatted nuttery.

SkyDrive seemed destined to be another Microsoft also-ran product. Although introduced long before the current wave of cloud-based synchronization and storage services, SkyDrive had a number of frustrating limits, and comprised two separately named services (central and peer-to-peer file transfer) under one hood. Then Microsoft did something marvelous. The same week that Google released its long-expected Google Drive, Microsoft unveiled a thorough revamping of SkyDrive into an explicable and competitive service. (Microsoft lists the version that I reviewed as version 16.4.)

WD today announced new consumer-class collaboration tools designed to work with its personal cloud products as well as an integrated backup tool to Dropbox.

In this corner, weighing in at 50 million users, and five years’ growth under its belt, the filer from Manila-er, the forest that counts all its trees, the synchronized, syncopated master of all it shares, Droooooopbox! And, in this corner, the Mountain Viewmaster, the original 800-pound gorilla, the only thing that scares Steve Ballmer while he sleeps, a giant among search engines, Goooooooglllleee! When these online storage sluggers come out fighting, will there be a knockout, or just a bloody match?

You can give impressive presentations from your iPad‚ and perhaps even leave your laptop behind‚ if you prepare well and know what to expect. It's even easier to take to the podium with newer technologies like AirPlay mirroring and the latest version of Keynote for iOS. Here are tips for moving presentations onto your iPad and delivering them live.

For too many people, the phrase "free software" conjures up images of pirated brand-name applications or poorly supported third-class programs. If that's what you think of freeware, you're missing an opportunity to save your business a lot of cash.

Microsoft's newly updated SkyDrive is pretty cool, offering cloud-based storage that's comparable to Dropbox. In fact, some would argue that SkyDrive is even better than Dropbox.

Dropbox is the most widely used and simplest file-synchronization system worldwide not attached to a major technology company. Every machine on which you install Dropbox and use the same account has all the contents synchronized among them by default. Make a change on one machine in the Dropbox folder—remove a file, add one, reorganize items into folders, or save changes—and that change is instantly propagated to every other synced machine. That’s the point of such services, and Dropbox consistently accomplishes this in a nearly invisible manner.

Is Google Drive the functionality that will harbor a new age of personal cloud computing?