You’ll need a Windows Live account to start making full use of SkyDrive. For those too lazy to read – there’s 25gb of storage, web-based versions of popular Office apps; collaborative editing that doesn’t require everyone to login; and an iPhone app you should probably avoid for now.

Web-Based Office Apps

In SkyDrive, you now have access to cut-down versions of popular Office apps, to both create and edit documents without the need for a full offline Office suite (though you can at any point open your SkyDrive files in regular Office apps, then seamlessly save back again). Personally, I’m not a fan of Google Docs, so if your documents are predominantly MS formats and you’d like to move into the cloud without the hassle of importing and exporting etc, this is a great solution – and free.

The web-based versions work across OS, taking advantages of new HTML5 standards rather than Silverlight, so that’s something to keep in mind if someone mails a Word document to your shiny iMac when you don’t have Office for Mac.

Collaborative Editing

You’ll be pleased to know that the cloud versions of Office now support collaborative editing, or at least a hybrid form of it. First up – this feature isn’t as advanced as say Google Docs, where you can see collaborators typing in real time and changes are done at a character level. Instead, SkyDrive takes the approach of locking certain parts of the document – a paragraph will be marked as being edited for instance. Once changes are available to view, you need to manually click the update changes button.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge step forward in a world where Office documents are still the norm in many companies – and changes at the paragraph level are more than sufficient for most of us. It’s a shame it doesn’t work asynchronously though as manually refreshing things is quite tedious.

Public Share Links and Edit Privileges

Along with collaborative editing comes an easy way to share your files and folders. Three levels of links are available – public, can edit, and view only. You can either share this straight out to your Facebook and Linked In status, or get a regular URL to share in Twitter etc.

One really cool feature is that you don’t need a Windows Live account to edit the documents if someone sends you a link, so it’s a fantastic tool get anyone’s input without complicated sign ups. Compare to Google Docs which requires all collborators to have a Google Account in order to sign in and edit documents, which can be a real hassle with less tech-savvy users.

On the downside, the share links are ridiculously lengthy. I can’t help thinking that some kind of automated link shortening service would have been really easy to add. As it is, a simple view-only link to a photo comes out like this:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=86d16a5e767798c4&resid=86D16A5E767798C4!107&parid=86D16A5E767798C4!102&authkey=!AArcUia4KgCYgbI

25GB Totally Free Storage

Even if you don’t need collaborative features, SkyDrive’s free 25gb is a generous cloud storage locker. It doesn’t sync with your files, so you can offload files totally to the cloud if you want, or just use it for backup. The interface is very Explorer-like so Windows users will feel right at home, but it also works just fine on a Mac. We had a few issues during testing with Chrome though, so stick to Firefox or Safari (or Explorer if you insist).

iPhone App

Unlike Apple’s iCloud service, Microsoft has made a big effort to make the SkyDrive available on other devices. Unfortunately, the SkyDrive app for iPhone is decidedly under-developed – the user interface is confusing at best; files must be uploaded one by one as there’s no mass-upload feature; a manual refresh is often needed to keep it in sync with the web-based version; and worst of all – if you take a photo directly within the app, and it fails to upload (as it often did in my testing), the photo is lost forever – it doesn’t get saved to your Camera Roll as you would expect. I’m afraid I really can’t recommend the iPhone side of SkyDrive until a good update is released. If you must, take the photos with the Camera app first, then do the Choose Existing dialog to upload it.

If you have ventured to try the app out, and can’t for the life of you figure out how to delete a photo from the SkyDrive iPhone app – you need to click the “share” button in the top right and change the thumbnail view to a “Details view“, then you can swipe left to right to reveal Delete on the item.

Though I didn’t get a chance to play with SkyDrive integration on Windows Phone 7, I think it’s safe to assume it’s a more fulfilling experience than the iPhone app; and I think we can also say that SkyDrive is likely to be strongly integrated into the upcoming Windows 8.

SkyDrive is obviously Microsoft’s answer to iCloud and Google Docs, and while iCloud is still the stronger platform in my opinion, it’s limited to Apple devices. SkyDrive is cross-platform for the most part, and has made a valiant attempt to integrate with iPhones too – hopefully an update will tackle the problems I’ve outlined.

For Windows users and Windows Phone 7 owners – SkyDrive is a clear winner. Even if you’re not a big fan of Microsoft stuff, you can’t argue with 25gb free space. Collaborative editing that doesn’t require the user to login to anything is unique to SkyDrive and could be a great feature for many if you’re sharing with less technically capable users or large numbers who you can’t guarantee have Live / Google accounts.

Have you had a chance to play with the new SkyDrive yet? What do you think? How do you compare it to Google Docs, or iCloud?

File Expert comes with a simplistic interface. The start screen provides an overview of all its core features. A basic toolbar with options depending on the context is located at the bottom. File Expert supports tabs, so you can keep multiple folders and paths open simultaneously. A new tab can be opened by clicking the + button on the far right (red).

The My Files section allows you to browse your files and folders. As you open folders, you will see additional actions added to the basic toolbar. Touching a folder or file will open a menu with additional operations, for example Rename, Zip, Open Folder in new Tab, Add To Favorites, or Create Shortcut on Desktop.

Under My Documents you can quickly access categories of characteristic file types, such as images, music, or actual documents.

My Apps contains an alphabetical list of your installed applications. A short touch launches the app. A long touch on the other hand opens a menu, with options to uninstall, backup, or share the app.

A backup will save the app’s .apk file to your default storing location. To find all .apk files on your Android device go to > My Documents > APK Packages. You can change the default backup folder via > Utilities > Settings > App Manager Settings.

Under My Cloud you can add various file sharing servers to File Expert, including Dropbox, Box.net, KanBox, Sina VDisk, and KDrive. Note that the tab for My Cloud is called Network, although it is considerably different from the actual Network tab.

File Expert’s Network manager supports Windows/Samba sharing, as well as FTP, SFTP, FTPS, WebDAV, and Bluetooth OBEX clients. All of these allow you to access a host computer from your phone by entering the respective account details.

Enter Share My Contents, to open HTTP, FTP, Bluetooth sharing with a desktop computer. If you would like to share files directly with another File Expert equipped device, you can also start the WiFi File Receiver. Click the respective item once to start the service and click it again to stop the service.

When you enter the respective details in your desktop browser, you can access files stored on your Android device via a very familiar and convenient explorer interface.

Unfortunately, you cannot drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste files from this interface to your desktop. You have to right-click and download files separately. Folders can be downloaded as ZIP files.

Files and folders that you access often can be added to your File Expert Favorites. This way you don’t have click yourself through lengthy paths. As mentioned above, you can also create shortcuts to folders on your desktop (aka home screen). Unfortunately, when File Expert is already open, the shortcut will not take you directly to the respective folder, it will merely open the app. The shortcut does work fine, however, when File Expert isn’t running in the background.

Finally, when you open Utilities you will find a Theme Manager, a tool to Get New Apps, and the application Settings.

Under File Explorer Settings you can enable the Root Explorer, which is disabled by default. You can change the default port, user name and password for the web login under Web Settings. The default app backup directory can be switched via App Manager Settings and you can enable Auto Backup, as well as Silent Install APK and Silent Uninstall App.

Taken together, File Expert is a versatile and powerful file managing and sharing application. It is the only app on the market that supports PC to phone to PC and phone to phone WiFi file transfer. Despite all these amazing features, File Expert is free and not supported by ads.

Have you tried File Expert? Would you recommend it or do you prefer another app?

Well now, if you’re heavy user of Dropbox like I am, you might be interested in a new online service, Dropbox Automator, that can automatically perform all sorts of tasks when you add files to your designated Dropbox folders.

The developers at Wappwolf.com have created an online application that automatically performs tasks on files added to a Dropbox folder, such as converting text files to PDF (or PDF to text), emailing a file to a designated recipient, renaming or encrypting/decrypting files, or sending information to your Twitter or Facebook timeline. (See entire list below.)

These types of folder automations are typically done with applications like Apple’s AppleScript, Automator, or Hazel, but now they can be performed with Dropbox online, without any knowledge or use of computer coding. It takes several minutes to set up, but you gain all that back when it begins performing actions for you.

Setting Up Dropbox Automations

To get started with Dropbox Automator, click this link to go over to the site and login into your Dropbox account. Dropbox Automator will of course need to access your account in order to do it’s thing on folders you designate.

Next, select a folder (or create a new folder in your Dropbox account) to attach an action to.

If the number of folders in your Dropbox account is like mine, you will need to scroll down to the end of the page to click the “Next” button, which will take you to the “Choose an action” page of the  application. This is where you select one of a few dozen actions to attach to your selected folder. This is the entire list:

So for example, you may choose the email action which when set up will automatically send a file you drop in your designated folder to the email box of your preselected recipient.

Another useful automation is Downscale, which automatically resizes any picture file, say to 640×480 for web posting.

After you add an automation, scroll to top of the page and select “finished?” or select to add another action to attach to the folder. When you’re finished, Dropbox Automator will confirm the automation you have set up on your designated folder.

When Dropbox Automator runs an action, it typically creates two folders in the designated folder–a “processed” folder for the files that actions were performed upon, and a “result” folder for processed copies of the original files.

Dropbox Automator Account

You can also sign up and create an account on Wappwolf.com to view all its free and paid actions. You can select actions as favorites, view a history of the actions performed on your designated Dropbox folder(s), as well upload files directly to your account to have them processed.

So far, all the listed actions are free except the “Send postcard with your photo” action, which requires the purchase of credits to use.

With Dropbox Automator account, you can perform actions from other sources, including direct upload, your Google Docs account, and other websites.

Wappwolf App

Wappwolf also has its own iPhone and iPad app for file and document handling, from your Dropbox account or other sources.

I tried several Dropbox Automator actions and most worked as described; however, the send to the Twitter action never seemed to work for me.

Let us know how well Dropbox Automator works for you. And for other Dropbox related hacks and tutorials, check our list of articles here.

All of these services are easy to use, but they are true clouds. All of your data is kept in a remote location, which leaves you with limited control over its security and limited storage space. There are only a few cloud solutions that can provide unlimited free storage – and Bdrive is one of them.

A Personal Cloud?

There are two basic types of cloud storage service offered to consumers. True cloud services, such as Dropbox, actually store your files in remote servers, from which they can be accessed at any time from any computer.  Personal clouds, like Bdrive, rely on your own hardware to keep the cloud active.

A true cloud service has many advantages. Your files are always available (in theory) because the servers are always up and maintained by a professional staff. Files can be accessed from any PC with an Internet connection, even if it’s not one you own. Most such services allow for sharing files with friends, as well. Yet there is one major disadvantage with a true cloud, and that’s cost. Maintaining a database with professional staff striving to ensure zero downtime isn’t free, which is why Dropbox charges once you exceed the free storage limit.

Personal clouds such as Bdrive don’t use anyone else’s hardware, so you have an unlimited data transfer limit. This is the most important thing to know about Bdrive. If you don’t need to transfer and share much data, you should just stick with Dropbox (or an alternative) and be happy. Otherwise, read on.

Bdrive Basics

A personal cloud like Bdrive is really just a streamlined way of creating a personal Internet network. In fact, the software goes so far as to offer “server” and “client” versions of the software.

How it works is simple. On the computer with files you’d like to share among multiple PCs, you install the server version. You select the folders you’d like to share and start the server. Bdrive will provide you with a BID (which identifies your server) and that’s it.

Now, install the client on another PC. Enter your server’s BID and presto! You’re connected over the Internet, and you can move as many files about as you’d like. Though I assume there is some limit to the number of connections that can be made to a server but Bdrive doesn’t state what it is, and I didn’t run into it in my testing.

OS Support & Streaming Media

If that’s all Bdrive offered, it’d be just nifty, but the developers have gone further by offering server software for both Windows and Mac and client software for Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android. You can share files between platforms as easily as you can with Dropbox.

Bdrive also supports streaming content from your server to remote devices, such as smartphones. Some users might be interested in this software simply to use it as a remote media server. I found that streaming video was fluid on 4G, but a bit choppy on 3G. This feature also works well on phones connected via WiFi.

Versus Windows Live Mesh

I like the idea of a personal cloud. I have a lot of files that I like to have access to, and I need to access them on both my Windows PC and my Mac. Most cloud services are out of the question because I’d have to pay a monthly fee, and that adds up over time.

Windows Live Mesh has been my weapon of choice as a result, yet that service is not perfect. It can be confusing to set up syncing between folders, and the sync process can become laborious when working with folders that have thousands of files.

Bdrive is a much easier solution, and I’ll probably start using it instead. Setting up the server took no more than a couple of minutes, and within another minute I had installed the client on my laptop and connected it to my desktop. Within a few more, I had it on my phone.

Better yet, you don’t need to have, or log into, an account with Bdrive. Live Mesh requires a Windows Live account to use.

Conclusion

The main disadvantage to this software is that if your server goes down, you can’t access files from any device. This factor alone makes it a solution targeted more towards power users, organizations and small businesses than your average Joe. Yet this is also an extraordinarily simple piece of software, and for people (like me) who need to access my files across the Internet without paying, it fills exactly the role intended.

Best of all, Bdrive is free to download and use. There is mention in the FAQ of “freemium” features that will be coming in the future, but they’re not unveiled yet.

If you decide to install BDrive, let us know in the comments how it went and if you like it.

What Is iTunes Match, Really?

iTunes Match is cloud storage for up to 25,000 songs. Wherever possible, your music files are matched to a DRM-free, 256kbs high quality version on Apple’s server, if available. If not, your songs are uploaded as is.

You can overwrite your local, lower quality media, with higher quality 256kbs version from iTunes Match. And yes, this includes songs you have pirated, downloaded, borrowed off a mate, or ripped at a low quality from your own CDs. Bear in mind that a 256kbs file is going to be twice as large as one encoded at 128kbs though.

Once in the cloud, your entire music library is available to download or stream on up to 5 devices registered to your iTunes account.

Limitations

• Songs less than 96kbs cannot be matched.
• Only music and music videos are valid for matching – not audiobooks (there is a workaround with that if you classify audiobooks as media type: music and if they are ripped at 96kbs or better, they will be uploaded and stored in the cloud with every other track).
• Your ID3 tags will not be overwritten – if you have a track 01, iTunes will NOT automatically fix that for you. It will replace the audio with a higher quality version, but it will not give you missing tags, artwork, or lyrics. The meta-data associated with each song remains the same, even if it it’s broken. On the upside, this means your handcrafted ID3 tags won’t be replaced either.
• As mentioned, there is a 25,000 song limit, on up to 5 devices.

Getting Started

Once subscribed, you’ll see one of the following icons next to every track.

iTunes is then in the process of scanning your tracks to see which it has a match for.

Out of 7,400 songs in my library, it matched roughly 2,800 songs. The additional items took a total of about 4 days to fully upload, but you can start using everything else that has already uploaded in the meantime, and begin upgrading tracks that are eligible.

To Upgrade Songs to 256kbs Versions

This isn’t as easy as it should be, but basically you need to delete matched songs from iTunes, then download them from the cloud. The problem is figuring out which songs are eligible for an upgrade. To do this easily, create a new smart playlist with the following options:

• Media type – music
• Quality – less than 256kbs
• AND ANY OF THE FOLLOWING (option click on the + symbol to create this ANY rule)
• - iCloud Status is Purchased
• - iCloud Status is Matched

Any songs on this playlist are matched in the cloud and therefore a higher quality version is available to replace any you have locally. To trigger that upgrade, you need to delete those tracks from your library – by either right clicking and selecting delete or pressing option-delete.

When asked if you’d like to delete the tracks from iCloud too, make sure you DON’T. However, do move them to the trash / delete from your local computer. The tracks won’t disappear from the list though, instead they’ll be there still but with an iCloud download icon next to them. Highlight them again, right click, download.

Once downloaded, they’ll disappear from this smart playlist – that’s because they’ve been replaced with 256kbs versions, and therefore don’t match the list criteria anymore. Congrats, you’ve upgraded them. Continue for every other song on the list.

Note that this isn’t necessary for your iOS devices – they will automatically use the higher quality matched version when you attempt to stream or download to the device. This playlist is only to facilitate replacing the existing, lower quality songs on your computer.

Setting Up iTunes Match On iOS Devices

From the Settings -> Music menu, enable iTunes Match from the top of the list. You’ll be given a warning about the music on your device being replaced with iTunes Match. Continue.

Give it about 10 minutes to sync up with the cloud. Now when you launch the iPod / Music app, everything in your iCloud library will be there. If you still have some songs in the process of uploading, they’ll be greyed out.

You can either stream songs just by clicking to play them as usual (I experience about a 5 second lag before it starts sometimes), or you can download them to your device by clicking on the iCloud icon.

If you want to download a full playlist or genre, artist etc, just scroll down to the bottom of the list where you’ll see a button to download all.

Conclusion

I just upgraded about 2,800 songs to high quality 256kbs, legal DRM-free versions, which I can keep forever, legally. I can now stream my entire music collection to any of my iOS devices (including family if you share an iTunes store account). Of course, any music you add in the future to your library will also be automatically matched, if available, or uploaded if not. The library remains in sync across all devices. This is personal music streaming done right, and it’s even legal, which always gives me a nice fuzzy feeling inside.

What do you think of iTunes Match (assuming you’ve actually signed up)? For you, how does it compare to similar services like Google Music? Got any problems or questions about the service? Ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!

Dropbox brought cloud-based file synchronization and storage to the masses, but it’s been hindered by high-profile security problems. While Dropbox once claimed that its employees were unable to access your files, they now claim only that employees aren’t allowed to view your files. In June 2011, Dropbox left the door wide open and anyone could log into any account without knowing its password for nearly four hours.

Sure, if you only use Dropbox to share the latest lolcat pictures with your friends, security doesn’t matter. But you’re taking a risk by storing sensitive data in Dropbox. Fortunately, you have another option — an alternative service that secures your files with local encryption and decryption. The encryption keeps your files private, outwitting hackers and preventing rogue employees from snooping around.

Most services, including Dropbox, claim to offer some form of encryption. These services transfer your files over an encrypted connection and store them in an encrypted form. Some services even advertise this as “military-grade encryption.” The problem is that the service itself can decrypt your files without your help. Alternatives like SpiderOak, Wuala and TeamDrive encrypt your files on your own computer before sending them over the Internet; the service only gets a blob of unreadable, encrypted data.

SpiderOak

SpiderOak brands itself as a secure online backup service. It generates encryption keys from the password you provide; your SpiderOak password never even leaves your computer. Even SpiderOak’s employees can’t access your files.

Unlike Dropbox, SpiderOak doesn’t have its own sync folder — instead, you can customize the folders SpiderOak uses. SpiderOak offers to back up common categories of files by default, but you can also click the “Advanced” button and select specific folders. SpiderOak watches the selected folders and automatically updates your SpiderOak account with any new or changed files.
Somewhat confusingly, backups and synchronization are separate functions in SpiderOak. After backing up files on the Back Up tab, you have to click the Sync tab and create a new sync. If you create a backup without creating a sync, SpiderOak just backs up your files online and doesn’t synchronize them to your other computers.

Like Dropbox, SpiderOak offers 2 GB of free space. You can get an additional gigabyte for each friend you refer, up to a total of 50 GB.

Wuala

Wuala, a service from data storage manufacturing company LaCie, has similar security. Wuala also encrypts your files locally and never sends your password over the network.
Wuala appears as a network drive after you install it. The drive works just like your Dropbox folder — any files added to it are automatically backed up to your Wuala account and synchronized to your other computers.

Wuala also includes a desktop application for managing your files. It only synchronizes files on the Wuala drive by default, but you can synchronize another folder by clicking the New menu button on the toolbar and selecting Sync.

Wuala includes 2 GB of free space, but you can get up to 5 GB total. Just click the File menu in Wuala and select Invite People You Know; each friend you invite scores you another 250 MB.

TeamDrive

TeamDrive is focused on secure collaboration, but you can also use it to synchronize files between your own devices. TeamDrive uses “spaces,” folders that it backs up online and synchronizes between devices. You can click the Create button on the TeamDrive window’s toolbar to create a new space.

TeamDrive automatically “invites” your other devices when you create a new space, giving the devices permission to access the space. Just sign in to TeamDrive on other computers to access your files. You can also invite other people to a space, which gives them access to the space’s files. Each space is stored in an encrypted form online; only devices you invite can decrypt and access the space’s files.

TeamDrive also includes 2 GB of free storage space. Unlike SpiderOak and Wuala, it doesn’t have a referral program, so that’s all you get unless you’re willing to shell out for more.

Conclusion

As with all software, there’s an element of trust involved. You’re still typing your password into the app, so you’re trusting the service to behave as promised. If you’re worried about this, you can encrypt sensitive files yourself instead of relying on your sync program.
You can also continue using Dropbox if you prefer it; just encrypt your sensitive files before adding them to your Dropbox folder. Many programs can encrypt files, but you’ll have to decrypt them before reading them. Encrypting and decrypting your own files can be a hassle, so this solution works best for backups you don’t access very often.

I have previously explored some advantages of Dropbox’s online features. In this article, I will focus on the Dropbox for Android.

How It Works

The Dropbox app installs with a homescreen shortcut and no widget. The app interface is very basic, but provides access to more key features than you would think. The folder icons reveal the content of a folder or whether it is shared with others or the public.

Tapping the settings button (highlighted in red below) opens a menu with options to search your files, create a new folder, upload files to your Dropbox, refresh, access the help menu, or change your Dropbox settings.

Via the Dropbox settings you can enable a passcode lock for your Dropbox, report a problem, or clear your cache, among other things.

To open, download, share, or delete a file (bottom menu) or folder (top menu), press the file or folder for a few seconds until a menu with the respective options pops up as shown in the two in one screenshot below.

Saving, Sharing & Sending Files

Dropbox integrates as a sharing option with several apps. For example you can use your Android file manager to send files to your Dropbox, as demonstrated below using File Station.

After choosing Dropbox from the sharing options, you can select a folder to send it to.

Things That Do Not Work

The Android app does not allow you to download an entire folder, view or restore previous versions or deleted files, or edit sharing options, as is possible via the web interface. On the other hand, with the exception of downloading folders, none of these options are available through the desktop application either, so the Android app does not present a huge disadvantage. The main difference between the desktop and the Android app is that files are not stored locally on the device. The Android Dropbox app merely acts as a portal to the web interface.

While testing the Android app, I noticed an unusual frequency of error messages. However, when I compared features with the desktop app, I also ran into the same issue, which suggests that Dropbox was having issues in general.

Conclusion

Dropbox is a must-have app if you want to backup and sync documents between multiple devices. It’s also fantastic for sharing files and folders with friends. Be sure to combine it with the right document viewing apps on your Android. Depending on the types of files you are sharing, you will need an image viewer, a video and audio player, and a document viewer that can handle documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. Check out our 100 Best Android Apps for some suggestions.

MakeUseOf has previously covered Dropbox, including a manual by Matt:

• 5 Ways To Send Files To Your Dropbox Without Using Dropbox
• Download Files Directly To Dropbox Or Email Using sideCLOUDload
• Make Your Dropbox Portable With DropboxPortableAHK [Windows]
• Transfer Web Files Directly To Your Dropbox Folder With URL Droplet
• How To Get More Free Dropbox Storage With Your School Email Address [News]

If you are interested in cloud computing in general, you should also look at these articles:

• How Does Cloud Computing Work? [Technology Explained]
• How To Permanently Store Your Data In “The Cloud”
• 3 Ways To Escape Cloud Storage Solutions If You Don’t Trust Them

How do you currently share and sync files between your Android device and your computer?

The new SkyDrive app is especially useful to those who already use SkyDrive, and can now access all their files and folders from anywhere they go. Through the mobile app you can access your documents, music, videos and pictures, and share them with other people. You can also manage files, create and delete folders, and more.

Understandably, the Windows Phone app is somewhat more integrated with the service. Windows Phone users can automatically upload pictures taken on the device’s camera to SkyDrive, and share files from SkyDrive through text messages, e-mails and IMs. The iPhone version is available in 32 languages, and shows that despite the work on Windows Phone, Microsoft knows where most of their users are.

If you’re a regular user of Dropbox, Box, or other services, you might like to know that SkyDrive is offering 25GB of free storage. This is compared to Dropbox who offer 2GB and Box who offer 5GB. Watch the video below to learn more about SkyDrive for iPhone, or go here to watch one about the Windows Phone version.

Get SkyDrive for iPhone
Get SkyDrive for Windows Phone
Source: Inside Windows Live Blog

Images uploaded from the gallery or camera can be scanned with optical character recognition to extract text and save it to a document. Users of Android Honeycomb can enjoy an optimized version of the app for larger screens.

The Interface

The interface of the Google Docs app is clean and straight forward and not too different from the web interface. A visual overview can be found under > Settings > Quick hints.

When you click the little arrow button on the far right of a document, you can preview the respective document and view its details.

Clicking the button will open a little sidebar with document properties, including date last viewed, date last modified, owner, and a list of people who can edit the document. In this view you can also  add collaborators (people or groups), send or share the document, or rename the document. Via the settings button in the top right, you can open or delete the document.

If you want to send, rename, delete, or open a file with an alternative app, press it for a couple of seconds to trigger the menu shown in the screenshot below.

Creating Documents

The Google Doc apps supports creating new documents, spreadsheets, or documents from a photo or the gallery.

When you create a > Document from gallery or photo, the image you choose from the gallery or take with your device camera, can be uploaded as individual file, converted to a Google Docs document and embedded into a new document, or sent to web clipboard, so that you can paste it into a desired location.

When you choose the > Convert file go Google Docs document, the respective photo will be converted to text using optical character recognition (OCR). In theory, OCR is a fantastic feature, but in reality it doesn’t work very well, even with clearly printed text. However, if you experiment with the camera conditions (light, position, size of text), you might be able to get it to work for you. It also is rather unfortunate that the app can not display the source image, which is inserted on top of the recognized text, although it is very well able to display images.

Editing Documents

Editing documents within the app is possible, but it is fairly difficult. Edits can only be done line by line. Finding the right spot can be a bit of a challenge, typically resulting in short flickers of the document and a jumpy keyboard. Moreover, Google Docs does not allow you to zoom in, but forces you to work with the available text size. It must be said though that once the right line or paragraph has been highlighted, moving the cursor to a desired position works very well, unlike in some other apps.

Homescreen Widget

Google Docs comes with a simple homescreen widget. It unites four functions: opening Google Docs, viewing starred files, taking a photo and uploading it, and creating a new document.

In Honeycomb, you can add the widget by pressing an available spot on your homescreen for a few seconds or tapping the + icon in the top right, which opens the widgets gallery. The app is listed as Docs. You can drag and drop it to your desired homescreen.

Verdict

The Google Docs app is great for accessing and reading your Google documents. However, I would not recommend to create and edit documents with it. Overall, I find the app very useful and hope that Google will continue to develop and improve it.

However, using just the basics of the software may make you miss out on some useful stuff that could make your life even easier. I know, I know, it’s hard to fathom the idea that life could get even better, but just listen (or to be more accurate, read).

Bandwidth Limits and Pausing

File synchronization is great, right? Well, not when it’s trying to update almost 2GB worth of data all at once and in the process sucks on all of your bandwidth, leaving you unable to do any kind of web surfing whatsoever. Worse yet, what if you need to do some time-sensitive work? Well, Dropbox gives you a solution to the said problem.

You can set bandwidth limits and even pause the synchronization. By default, the download portion of synchronization doesn’t have a limit while the upload portion is set to be limited “automatically”. If that doesn’t seem to be working for you, you can always manually set limits yourself, especially when it comes to downloading. This way, you can still be synchronizing while doing your precious work.

On the other hand, if you want to speed up synchronization, you can also enable LAN Sync, which will update information between computers on the same network. This should be plenty faster than going through Dropbox’s servers.

The pause feature also exists to, you know, pause the service. Technically you could also just exit Dropbox, but logically speaking you just want to pause it, not exit it, right?

Get More Space with .EDU Email Address

Are you lucky enough to be a student, faculty member, or more with an .edu email address? If so, Dropbox would like to make your educational experience even easier. While Dropbox lets you refer people to the service for a gift of 256MB of free space per referral up to a maximum of 8GB of extra space (10GB total for a free account), those who verify that they have an .edu email address can refer people to the service for a gift of 512MB of free space per referral up to a maximum of 16GB of extra space (18GB total for a free account).

If you have already referred people in the past before you verify your .edu email address, the previous referrals will be upgraded to the 512MB size.

You can verify your .edu email address by going to this page, entering in your email address, and clicking on the verification link that will be sent to that address.

Consolidate to a Local “Dropbox Server”

If you’re tired of having to update all your data on each computer, why not consolidate the number of computers that poll Dropbox for updates? You could easily dedicate one computer to synchronizing with Dropbox, and then connect from your other computers to that one via Shared Folders or any other method you prefer. This way, less computers need to be constantly updated, less computers need to run the software, and less computers will have to store the data that is being synchronized with Dropbox.

This is very helpful if say you have a Pro account that syncs 100GB of data, as you’ll take up 100GB on one computer, instead of 100GB on every single one. Imagine what you could put on those other computers with 100GB of free space!

Use Dropbox’s Web Interface

I know this may be a very simple tip that automatically brings out the “duh” response, but some people still need to be reminded about it. Dropbox offers very excellent web tools to upload and download files, as well as change anything else that you normally can without a browser. Just because you may be on a computer that doesn’t have Dropbox installed doesn’t mean that you can’t access your data. However, with the website, you can be anywhere in the world, on any computer, and get the exact files that you need.

Conclusion

Dropbox is still my number one synchronization tool and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. With these tips, you can make your Dropbox experience even better and love it that much more. However, things can get really interesting if you start using it in very unique ways.

How do you use Dropbox? Any other tips you’d like to add to this article? Let us know in the comments!