I’m a shameless lover of Dropbox (that link will get you and me an extra 250 MB). Dropbox is a magical folder that syncs across all of your computers and keeps backups of every file you use for a month and it’s completely free.

DROPitTOme adds some extra functionality despite its annoying capitalization. It links to your account and creates a web page that allows anyone with your password to upload files to a special folder in your Dropbox—accessible from anywhere. I use it for student work submissions. At all hours of the day, I get a little notification in the upper-right corner of my screen that work has been submitted. Megan in the ninth grade has submitted 2 assignments as I’ve been writing this. It’s backed up by Dropbox, so if anything happens, I have 30 days to bring it back from the dead.

A word to the wise, be draconian about your naming conventions. Personally, I don’t have time to cull through a pile of files named ‘Unititled 1.doc’ and figure our who they belong to. Maybe you do, but I can name a number of medieval tortures that I’d prefer. All of my student work is in one folder, I use a Hazel script to automatically sort everything into folders, but that’s graduate-level nerdery.