Dropbox

Dropbox is a neat online service for saving your files. It is basically an online hard drive where you can store any kind of files to be accessed from anywhere. Using Dropbox has been made very easy: you register to the site and download and install a client application, which then displays as a regular folder in your file system. The magic happens when you move or copy files into that folder: they are automatically copied into the Dropbox servers and you can access them from any other computer, either by using the online user interface or by the dedicated client! 

The client is available for Windows, Linux, Mac and even some mobile platforms, so there's really no reason not to use Dropbox even if you use multiple computers with different operating systems. I figure Dropbox is a great way of storing data when using a netbook: even if the system breaks, your data will be safe, plus it will be available for your desktop computer as well. It is also unlikely that you will be handling very large files with a netbook that doesn't have too much power so the default amount of 2 GB that you get should be plenty. Register using this link and you'll even get an extra 250 MB of storage space. :)

I registered to Dropbox in the spring when someone wanted to share some photos with me (yes, Dropbox can easily be used for sharing files too, and no, those who then just want to view your files don't need to register). After that I forgot about it until I tried the Jolicloud Linux distribution which has got some sort of a Dropbox integration. I figured Dropbox would be an excellent place to store, for example, my KeePassX password database file so I could access it from both Windows and Linux, and from both my desktop computer and my netbook. I have now also saved the installation packages of some key software to Dropbox so that the next time I'm installing a fresh system I won't have to browse through a dozen web sites to get all the programs I need.