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Illustration: Jonathon Rosen

How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link.

 

I’ve been using Dropbox for a while, but I just discovered the Android functionality this weekend and was blown away. Here’s a few other uses for this nifty app!

Dropbox has just been upgraded to version 1.0, so we thought we’d take a look at some great ways to use it that might not have occurred to you.

A free Dropbox account allows users to store up to 2GB worth of files and access them from any other Linux, Mac or Windows machine running the Dropbox application. Or, those files can be accessed from any browser.

In fact, the new 1.0 version of Dropbox is so tremendously useful, I decided to invest the $9.99 per month to increase its capacity to 50GB. Dropbox can perform some slick tricks. Here are my five favorite examples:

Chat Logs

Many chat programs let you change the location of the chat log. Clients such as Pidgin can be modified to save those chats wherever you’d like, so point to a folder within the Dropbox for complete portability.

Multiple chat client Digsby is especially useful when you save its chat logs in Dropbox, and there was a portable version available until just a few weeks ago.

It’s still possible to make this happen, but it takes a bit of hacking. If you’re so inclined, it might be worth it — it lets you save all your Facebook, AIM and Google Talk chat logs in the same place.

Gaming Saves

Most games let you designate where you’re going to save your progress, so why not put that saved game data in Dropbox? Then, no matter what computer you’re using (as long as you have the game installed there), you can pick up where you left off.

Documents Folder

Have a group of documents you’re always working on and adding to? Place them all in a Dropbox documents folder and you can modify them at home, work, and on the road. This works especially well when you’re writing with a team, allowing you to see when someone else has begun working on a document.

Teamwork

We like to shoot videos, and it often works out where one of us is shooting and another is editing. One of us drops the unedited video clips in a shared Dropbox folder, while the other picks them up and edits them as soon as they’re synced. Then, someone else can share the finished videos on YouTube. This works especially well if you spring for the 50GB upgrade.

Any App With a Watch Folder

Any application that lets you create a watch folder is fertile ground for Dropbox. Here’s an idea: if you’re a Photoshop user, create a watch folder in Dropbox, leave your powerful PC running Photoshop at home. Then, when you drop a photo into that folder when you’re on the road, it’s automatically processed to the dimensions you designate back at the mother ship. You can also use this idea for BitTorrent, dropping torrents into a watch folder and having them download on your home machine while you’re at work.

We’ve grown to adore Dropbox in the past year, and now that it’s reached version 1.0, its subtle improvements make it even more appealing. To see for yourself, download it here, and find out more tips and tricks here.

Metric’s “Black Sheep” performed by Brie Larson in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Love how so much is conveyed in so few words.

Just saw this for the first time today (I know, I’m probably way behind the curve on this). John Waite’s “Missing You” as the soundtrack for these promos? Brilliant.

Inception is one of those rare movies that has gotten rave reviews from nearly everyone who has seen it, critics and the public alike (it’s currently 87% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes). If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t worry – there’s a spoiler warning if you scroll down. Just don’t read past that point if you don’t want to know anything until you see it for yourself!

Fun list of stuff you might not have known about Inception. Did you know that James Franco was initially up for the role that went to Joseph Gordon-Levitt? I’m so JF had “scheduling conflicts”!