As someone who uses multiple computers, I’m often faced with the task of accessing my files in several different places. Some accomplish this by storing their files on a network-acessible drive, emailing files to themselves, or storing all their files on a USB stick. None of these are ideal solutions.

For a while, I tried using the iDisk feature that’s part of the MobileMe package. This is okay for simply storing a copy of the files, but it’s not really practical to store files on the iDisk and edit them in place. If you access the iDisk directly, the connection is too slow and frequent saves become painful. If you choose the option to sync your iDisk, you’ll often end up with conflicts that you have to resolve.

The best solution I’ve found has is Dropbox. I use this on my Macs, but there are versions for Windows and Linux as well, and you can share files over multiple platforms. The software installs a “Dropbox” folder on your computer, which I basically use as a documents folder. Anything put inside there automatically gets synchronized to the central Dropbox server without you having to do anything – the icon even changes to reflect when I file has been successfully synchronized. You can work on files in your Dropbox directly. Each time you save, the software automatically updates the central server in the background, without slowing down your machine. If a sync gets interrupted, it will resume the next time you’re online. You can access your files from any computer with the software installed and also via the web. I’m told an iPhone app is in the works.

Every revision you make is also saved, so you can restore older versions of files if you need to.

What’s great is that it really works: you just install it and can forget it’s there. It’s light on resources, so it won’t slow your computer to a crawl while it’s updating.

Check it out. You get a 2 GB account for free.