Dropbox has just come out of testing and is now a public release. It’s a method of keeping files synchronised across as many different devices as you install it on, PC, Mac or Linux, and even if you’re not at one of your own, there’s a web interface too (with a visual design not dissimilar to Facebook). The attractions of Dropbox for teams or people who work across several sites are obvious, and you can share public links to files in your Dropbox, meaning for instance you could share files with clients. It’s a bit like a Subversion repository, but it doesn’t merge changes or check for conflicts: it just saves a new version of the document with the option to restore a previous one. That said, it’s certainly a good place to keep invoices or project plans where several people might need access but there needs to be a definitive version.

The real usefulness of Dropbox will emerge over time; for now, it’s certainly easy to use and understand, which is half the battle.