8 January 2010

General Stuff, Dropbox, and Spotify

Well it didn't snow last night, or at least not too much, it's been quite nice walking into work this week. Snow is much preferable to ice, less excitement in the vertical stakes. Wandered in the other day to Marillion's Seasons End, which is such a superb album. Ahh bliss.

I've just been moving a lot of my stuff (documents, photos etc) around, splitting them between google docs, and Dropbox. I like google docs, cos it's simple, but for storage of stuff I prefer dropbox. they give you 2gb free and you can pay for increased sizes - if anyone wants an invite let me know, cos I get an extra 250mb of storage if you click on a link from me :D
Google docs works well for simple stuff, but the biggest problem I've come across, is that date codes and stuff don't work well, no matter what country settings you have (I've tried, as has a minion). It also doesn't like some file types, and won't allow you to upload them - so it's not much use as a backup storage place.

Spotify is certainly a godsend, particularly with end of year best-of CD lists by everyone. Excellent way of spinning tracks to work out if I want the album or not. Listened to the xx earlier (thanks S2H) and now the Doves (thanks psychochicken), long list of stuff to get through today, I guess that means I'll end up getting work done!
For those not in the know, Spotify allows you to listen to albums over the 'net, or your smartphone, without buying them - although you have that option too. there's a few ads in the free version, but seems fine for what I use it for. Paid version is, by all accounts, excellent.

Love, B

3 comments:

michael said...

Been using Dropbox for a bit - can Google Docs sync local copies on your computer? Cos that's what I like most about Dropbox.

Morgan Davie said...

I've been waiting for a prompt to get into Dropbox for a couple months now, and your invite thing is it. Invite me at morgue@gmail.com, claim your 250meg reward.

Mr A. P. Salmond, esq. said...

Dropbox is great, such a handy facility for syncing up important documents.

You know my feelings on Spotify, of course. It's actually become my default music player now, leaving Winamp to cover the odd band not on there. It's also introduced me to more new music in the last year than I had found in the decade previous. Honestly, barely listening to any decent radio had made my tastes quite insular. But with collaborative playlists, customisable radio and suggested artists, I can barely find time to listen to it all. It's also stopped dead all my illegal music downloading. I even pay £10/ month for the premium service (no ads, better sound quality, the excellent mobile version of the service) . Here's hoping they can get it to make some money soon, eh?