Dropbox for CLE

By:

Evan A. Brown Colorado Bar Association

Denver, Colorado

Presented at: ACLEA 49th Annual Meeting

August 3-6, 2013 Baltimore, Maryland

Evan A. Brown Colorado Bar Association 

Denver, CO   EVAN BROWN is the Manager of Media & Web Development for Continuing Legal Education in Colorado Inc. a non‐profit organization of the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations. In this role he manages live technical execution, media production and web delivery for live streaming and on‐demand content  through  the CBA‐CLE website. Before his  life  in CLE he was, among other things, a drummer, a waiter in fine dining, a Psychology graduate from University of Nebraska, a manager for Kinko's, a technical sub‐contractor with secret security clearance, and a huge A/V geek. He now resides in Denver with his wife and two sons. 

Dropbox for CLE

...A Geeky CLE Tech Guy’s Perspective by Evan Brown, Colorado Bar Association CLE

What is Dropbox to a geeky tech guy? Dropbox is a free service that can allow me to create a shared drive I can access from anywhere. Dropbox is platform agnostic, working seamlessly on any operating sytem or device. As a technology professional working across platforms and mediums, it is the common denominator I had been waiting for. Not only does Dropbox centralize my shared files in one highly accessible location, it also backs them up in the Cloud and any device I share the account with. Dropbox is super easy to use. During installation Dropbox creates a folder called “Dropbox” in your “Document” folder.

It’s that easy to make any file available from any computer or device and back it up in the Cloud.

Once installed, you can send any file to your Dropbox folder by right-clicking on the file and using the ‘Send to > Dropbox’ option.

What is the Cloud?

Cloud Computing - from Wikipedia Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) which are available in a remote location and accessible over a network (typically the Internet). Users are able to buy these computing resources (including storage and computing power) as a utility, on demand. The name comes from the common use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams. Cloud computing entrusts remote services with a user’s data, software and computation.

The Cloud is basically a network of servers used for computing resources and data storage. The widespread availability of broadband internet connectivity means that anyone can leverage the massive power of this network from any location with an internet connection.

SaaS (software as a service) is another term frequently associated with Cloud computing. For example, when you do a search in Google, you are literally accessing the aggregated power of Google’s entire global network. Google Docs gives you basically all of the same tools as Microsoft Office, but nothing has to be installed on your machine. All of the actual computing stuff that Microsoft typically uses your computer to perform is instead being performed by Google with their massive array of servers.

As long as civilization doesn’t collapse or something, Cloud computing is here to stay. I see a near future where the personal computer is nothing more than a web browser and all software and file storage occurs in the cloud.

What does this mean to a geeky tech guy? I carry around a USB thumb drive on my keychain. I started doing this several years ago because in the course of my day-to-day activities, I am constantly moving files around. I used to use that USB drive daily. I haven’t plugged in that USB drive for a long time. Now I just use Dropbox. I have four different computers that all share my Dropbox account. I find it is incredibly useful to have a common set of docu-ments available on all of my machines for ongoing work projects.

For personal use, I use Dropbox for music and I love having a shared library I can access from any computer, tablet or smart phone. Apple has made it tough to add media to an iOS device through any means other than using iTunes. Dropbox is like the hidden backdoor for media files on iOS. I love it.

I also love being able to start a text document with my iPad when I am in a meeting, save it to Dropbox and then open and edit it later from my office or home PC. Any edits I make on my office or home PC are saved back into the version in Dropbox.

There is a great app for iOS called CloudOn that offers a SaaS modeled after the Micosoft Office suite. It can open and edit any MS document and save to the Cloud using your Dropbox account.

What does this mean to a geeky tech guy? I hate large email attachements. I really hate it when people embed multiple screenshots in an email. It seems my inbox is always near the maximum storage limit, not matter how diligently I try to keep it clean. One 4MB attachment will sometimes put me over the edge - never mind if a few people fecklessly hit ‘reply all’ with 4 MB worth of embedded images in the body of an email. Then the inbox bloat triples or quadruples. With Drop-box, I can share files with people that I previously had to send as email attachments. Perhaps more importantly I can now gently encourage my colleagues to do the same. There is no easier way to create a shared drive in the cloud. Beyond choking the inbox with large attachments, many times people have limits on the size of the file that can be sent or received as an attachment. Dropbox has no limits on the filesize you upload or download - providing you have space remaining in your account.

As a multimedia professional, there have been countless times in my professional life where I have needed to either send or receive a large file. Sometimes the sender/recipient does not have the technical capacity to navigate the ftp process, which has historically been used for transferring larger files over the internet. I have had to do a lot of hand-holding related to file transfers. Now I use Dropbox in those scenarios.

Dropbox is the most idiot-proof way I have encountered thus far for transferring large files.

I set up a Dropbox folder for my mom where I put videos and photos of my kids. I would call her an “beginner to intermediate” computer user and she had no trouble whatsoever installing Dropbox or accessing the shared folder. If she can figure it out - then so can you.

What does this mean to a geeky tech guy? Over the years, I am embarrassed to confess to the number of times I have experienced catastrophic data loss where I did not have a proper backup. Theft, mechanical damage, careless deletion, software corruption - I have experienced them all. I have one word for you: anguish

yeah - it feels like that

Dropbox is offering you a free place to backup your stuff that is important to you. Certainly you have poured blood, sweat, tears, calories and years into your work product? Don’t you want somewhere you know it will be safe. Doesn’t it make sense to have backups of backups? Would you skydive without a reserve chute?

Getting Started with Dropbox

What I like most about Dropbox is it’s simplicity. Dropbox has made it easy to get started.

When you first visit www.dropbox.com, you will see the site is pretty basic. There are 2 steps for new users.

1. Download Dropbox (this installs the dropbox application on your computer, tablet or phone)2. Sign Up (this creates your account/username/password. I frequently take technical support calls and have walked several people through this process over the phone and it is always painless. iOS and Android users can download the Dropbox app for free from iTunes or the app store. Once installed the Dropbox application will ask you for your username and password. It’s that simple.

What are the options?

Dropbox has three plans available - Free, Pro and Business. Basically your choice of plans should be determined by how much storage you require. The free plan starts out with 2 GB storage, which is a lot of data unless you are storing media files, in which case it will fill up quickly.

I have never needed to go beyond my free plan because I have participated in Dropbox’s clever referral system whereby you get 500 MB of extra space added to your account for every referral (more on that later).

The Pro plan starts out with a lot more storage if you plan to keep a lot of data in your Dropbox folder.

The Business plan offers advanced admin features and granular workflow management functionality for those ready to integrate Dropbox with their organizations. There have been a handful of occassions where I was happy that I had backed up data outside of the CBA network. It’s not a matter of having faith in your IT department, it’s just recognizing the reality that accidents happen and data can be irretrievable.

The cost of Dropbox is easy to justify with one simple question: How much is your work product worth to you?

Getting started with a free Dropbox account

Dropbox starts you off with 2 GB of space, but you can immediately increase that by 250 GB by finishing 5 of the 7 steps below. You need to complete at least two of them to do anything with Dropbox, so you might as well do a few of the elective steps and get the free space.

Step 1: Take the Dropbox Tour

I’m basically giving you the tour right now, but you can go to Dropbox and take their tour. It’s really easy and by doing so, you’ve accomplished one of the 5 steps towards earning extra space for your Dropbox account.

Step 2: Install Dropbox on your Computer

When you click the “Download Dropbox” link on the Dropbox home page, you will see the following screen:

During installation Dropbox creates a folder called “Dropbox” in your “Documents” folder.

Once installed, you can send any file to your Dropbox folder by right-clicking on the file and using the ‘Send to > Dropbox’ option.

Repeat this process on another computer to complete Step 4 (Install Dropbox on other computers you use).I have Dropbox installed on three computers in my office and it is a really useful way to move files around.

Step 3: Put files in your Dropbox folder

When you click the “Download Dropbox” link on the Dropbox home page, you will see the following screen:

To upload files to your folder using the Dropbox website, click on the icon to select a file to upload.You will see the following window open:

Step 5: Share a folder with friends or colleagues When you first click the “Sharing” link in your Dropbox account, you will see the following message:

Share a folder This is where the magic of Dropbox becomes clear. You can create new folders and share them with specific people. You can also share existing folders to create a shared resource for as many people as you like.

You can have a folder for family photos, a folder for shared work documents, a folder for your contacts lists in case you ever lose them from your computer or phone, etc..

Basically you now have a virtual filing cabinet in the cloud that you can share with whoever you want.

Step 6: Invite some friends to join Dropbox

This is as easy as sending someone an email.

Here is the email that I received:

Step 7: Install Dropbox on your mobile device.

There is a Dropbox app for iPhone, iPad, and Android and they all work the same way. Go to the App store and search for Dropbox. It’s a free app. Once installed, this is what the first screen will look like. If you already have a Dropbox account, just click the “I’m already a Dropbox user” button and enter you user name and password.

Here is what the contents of your Dropbox look like using the mobile app.

Restore Previous Versions - Dropbox’s powerful built-in insurance policy A really powerful feature of Dropbox allows users to easily roll back to an earlier version of a file, greatly reducing the risk that an important document will be accidently deleted or inadvertently overwritten by yourself or a member of your team. Compared to restoring data from traditional tape backups this is ridiculously easy. Concerns about data safety and the risks of granting access to shared folders to groups of people are mitigated by the knowledge that backups of everything are available.

How do I recover old versions of files?

Dropbox is like a time machine. It keeps snapshots of every change in your Dropbox folder over the last 30 days. So even if you saved a bad change, or if the file has been damaged or deleted, you can restore the file to an older version with only a few clicks. If you need more than 30 days, you can upgrade to a Pro account and activate the “Packrat” feature. This allows you to keep all previous versions of every file ever stored in your Dropbox account forever.

On the Dropbox website: To find the file’s version history online, click on the file from the file browser and select Previous versions from the blue action bar at the top. If you’ve deleted the file by accident, you’ll want to recover the deleted file first.

Restoring a previous version

Once you click on Previous Versions, you’ll be sent to an online list of the various snapshots Dropbox has taken during the history of the file. When you see the file you want to restore, select the radio button the to the left of the file and press the Restore button.

Cool feature for Windows users

You can find a list of previous revisions by right-clicking the file from your desktop. Hover your mouse over the Dropbox submenu and select View Previous Versions....

Tips and Tricks for Using Dropbox in Your CLE Organization

Dropbox is more than just online file storage. It’s also a collaboration tool that works well in contemporary organizations, which include not only employees working on conventional PCs in the office but also growing numbers of remote, mobile staffers. Dropbox features shared folders, which enables a team of collaborators shared access to important files, even if those collaborators are scattered around the world. Documents can be synced to the cloud as soon as they are modified which allows for more immediate and dynamic processes. The applications for this are limitless in terms of centralizing team workflows. CLE Planning:A CLE organization could use Dropbox shared folders as a document sharing hub for internal file sharing or for creating a repository for planning commitees. During the program planning process, the barrage of .doc and .ppt files going back and forth between CLE staff and presenters could be centralized with Dropbox. Post-event our planning commitee members frequently want to review the attendee evaluations. Documents like evaluation can be stored in the cloud so selected indiduals or groups can access them for future planning purposes. Dropbox shared folders are an ideal solution for sharing multiple documents with a group of people.

File Transfer:I routinely need to move large files around in cyberspace and until Dropbox, this has usually been a hassle. For the time being, our CLE organization has made a decision to not offer downloads by default for our Video On-Demand courses (the user must view them online). That said, I still find myself sending video files all over the place. Occasionally I get a sincere request from a user who wants to download the actual .mp4 files. (They want to catch up on his CLEs over the weekend at the cabin where there is no internet connection. etc.) In a case like that, I will always use Dropbox to provide the download. I have not found an easier way to provide large files to a user with unknown technical skills.

I am encouraging the switch to using Dropbox when presenters need to submit large files to us that are too big for email attachments. In the past we used FTP for this process which can be really difficult to explain to somebody who is not technically confident.

Device Agnostic Media Player:Dropbox is a seamless common denominator across multiple platforms, which can be a real asset in the work-place. In todays BYOD (bring your own device) technical landscape, common denominators are hard to find. I have found Dropbox to be a great tool for helping our members access their CLE programs.

When CBA-CLE first starting making .mp3 files available to our users, I spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with users who didn’t really understand .mp3 technology yet. People need help understanding the process of downloading the .mp3 files and transferring the files onto their portable .mp3 player.

I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time offering technical support to iOS users who bought an iPod, iPad or iPhone but have no idea how to use it. Apple has gone to great lengths to obfuscate the process of adding media files to an iOS device using any means other than iTunes. Whenever I determine I am on the phone with an iOS user who needs extra support, rather than trying to talk them through iTunes over the phone, I switch gears and have them use Dropbox instead. Dropbox offers built-in media player capabilities so users are able to play back audio or video files using Dropbox. I just tell them to create a folder called “CLE” in their Dropbox folder and save all of their media files in that location*.

*tip - Make sure your users understand how to use the “favorite” feature in the Dropbox app (press the star icon when the file is selected). This will allow a copy of the “favorited” file to be downloaded and saved to the user’s phone or tablet. This way the file is stored and available regardless of availability of 3G/4G/Wi-Fi etc.

Back Up Your Organization Website and Enterprise DataYou can easily back up your website and data on Dropbox, which is useful if you’ve spent a lot of time and effort building your site or your’re concerned about your servers. With a service like Backup Box, you can schedule tasks to backup WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, databases, server directories or whatever you consider valuable work product.

Host Your WebsiteHopefully your organization already has a website. What if you want to make a simple website for a special event or promotion, but don’t want to pay for a domain or don’t know HTML? Dropbox can help. By using services like DropPages or Pancake.io, you can create a small and simple website with minimal effort. With Pancake.io, all you need to do is save plain text files in Dropbox, and you can edit them at any time the same way. DropPages is a little bit more complex, letting you add themes and custom URLs. Both services allow you to use Markdown or HTML.

What Other Cloud Storage Alternatives are There?

I am not especially loyal to Dropbox - it is just something I’ve used and am familiar with. The presentation was born from an ACLEA thread where I commented about Dropbox. In the interests of fairness, here are a few other companies offering services similiar to Dropbox:

Google Drive

SkyDrive

Box.com

SpiderOak

Ubuntu One

SugarSync

ownCloud

Wuala

4Shared

TeamDrive

In Conclusion

Dropbox is a great tool to add to your arsenal. If you don’t currently have any sort of cloud backup for your personal or business files, you should get a Dropbox account. If you find yourself sharing and transferring files with customers or colleagues on a regular basis, you should get a Dropbox account. If you are a CLE provider wanting to have as many options as possible for offering technical support to your customers, you should get a Dropbox account.

This is the future of computing - no local software, no local file storage, no eggs in the personal device basket, all workstations are created equal and everything is available in the cloud.