I recently discovered Dropbox, and I searched for and read all the FT threads in which it is mentioned. I know there are other such utilities, but I think Dropbox is just what I've been looking for to allow me to grab my travel laptop and go, without the old routine of backing up everything that I thought I might need while travelling onto an external hard drive... or the older solution - subscribe to GoToMyPC ... etc.

In just my first few days of using Dropbox, I've decided on a few things that will optimize its usefulness for me. These come to mind:

1) Relabelling the desktop icon from "Dropbox" to "Run Dropbox." This reminds me that it does not merely open the Dropbox folder, it starts the syncing process, which is not necessarily what I want running all the time.

2) Turning off (that is, unchecking the option) starting Dropbox at startup. That is, I want to run it manually when I want to run it. The reason for this is that both my desktop computer and my travel laptop computer are sometimes on in the house in the same time (with someone other than me using the travel laptop), and I think it could be a nightmare to have both computers trying to keep in sync constantly.

Do any other Dropbox users have any tips for how to best use it?