iPad + dropbox = yes, but how to get started?
June 27, 2010 3:46 PM Subscribe
Would you please point me in the right direction to start using dropbox to share files in IPad for an initial group of six people?
This weekend, someone in an industry-related group gave us a demo of her iPad/dropbox set up, and we were totally sold. And, as you might imagine, everyone in our work group now wants this capability yesterday.
We will purchase and set up an iPad for each person, then hand it over to her for her personal use. Our main purpose is to replace the voluminous paper notebooks we currently prepare for conferences, and that they have to lug around, with a paperless alternative. Primarily, the shared documents will be committee agendas, supporting materials and, most importantly, schedules, so that each person knows where she is supposed to be when.
I’ve looked at the dropbox.com site, including their forums, and I have searched MeFi, but I have not found an answer to my principal getting-started question: do I open an organizational account or do I open an account for each individual? (The free 2GB account will suit our purposes just fine, at least initially.)
I am also clueless as to how I tie all six iPads to a single organizational account for data billing purposes, since the organization will foot the bill for their four years as an officer. After that, they may keep their iPad, but they will need to pay for the costs of operation themselves.
A bit more context: we also want to include organizational reference documents, in a read only format, and documents that individuals can edit, to eliminate our current, laborious practice of emailing attachments back and forth. (Yes, this is our first foray into document sharing, which may explain my innocence about these things, should it be glaring.)
A related question: am I correct that each person should also install dropbox on her pc for major document collaboration projects, when typing on an iPad would be inconvenient?
One more: what other apps, whether via dropbox or the iTunes store, might be useful to a small group to facilitate communication and collaboration via iPad?
Any answers and/or suggestions for maximizing our investment in this hardware will be very much appreciated.
Many thanks!
This weekend, someone in an industry-related group gave us a demo of her iPad/dropbox set up, and we were totally sold. And, as you might imagine, everyone in our work group now wants this capability yesterday.
We will purchase and set up an iPad for each person, then hand it over to her for her personal use. Our main purpose is to replace the voluminous paper notebooks we currently prepare for conferences, and that they have to lug around, with a paperless alternative. Primarily, the shared documents will be committee agendas, supporting materials and, most importantly, schedules, so that each person knows where she is supposed to be when.
I’ve looked at the dropbox.com site, including their forums, and I have searched MeFi, but I have not found an answer to my principal getting-started question: do I open an organizational account or do I open an account for each individual? (The free 2GB account will suit our purposes just fine, at least initially.)
I am also clueless as to how I tie all six iPads to a single organizational account for data billing purposes, since the organization will foot the bill for their four years as an officer. After that, they may keep their iPad, but they will need to pay for the costs of operation themselves.
A bit more context: we also want to include organizational reference documents, in a read only format, and documents that individuals can edit, to eliminate our current, laborious practice of emailing attachments back and forth. (Yes, this is our first foray into document sharing, which may explain my innocence about these things, should it be glaring.)
A related question: am I correct that each person should also install dropbox on her pc for major document collaboration projects, when typing on an iPad would be inconvenient?
One more: what other apps, whether via dropbox or the iTunes store, might be useful to a small group to facilitate communication and collaboration via iPad?
Any answers and/or suggestions for maximizing our investment in this hardware will be very much appreciated.
Many thanks!
Looks like dropbox is doing something that they are calling "team accounts" that is in beta if you want to contact them about it. It does look like having everyone share access to one account is an okay use of the service.
However, I think if it were me, I'd have one organizational account and a place where you share files from that account that are specifically shared with the other members who each have their own free account. Everyone runs dropbox on their ipad and on their PC at home. That way you could "unshare" with people once their terms were up.
So, I'd look into the team thing that dropbox is talking about but otherwise I'd have this be six accounts where the main org account can share documents with the other ones. I'm not sure what billing things you are referring to other than the initial iTunes store account, unless you are looking at 3G iPads instead of the wifi ones.
posted by jessamyn at 4:01 PM on June 27, 2010
However, I think if it were me, I'd have one organizational account and a place where you share files from that account that are specifically shared with the other members who each have their own free account. Everyone runs dropbox on their ipad and on their PC at home. That way you could "unshare" with people once their terms were up.
So, I'd look into the team thing that dropbox is talking about but otherwise I'd have this be six accounts where the main org account can share documents with the other ones. I'm not sure what billing things you are referring to other than the initial iTunes store account, unless you are looking at 3G iPads instead of the wifi ones.
posted by jessamyn at 4:01 PM on June 27, 2010
If 2G is enough, then there's no reason to do the team share thing. Just do separate individual accounts and invite them each. That'll make dropbox more useful to them if they end up wanting to use it for their own stuff too.
posted by rbs at 4:08 PM on June 27, 2010
posted by rbs at 4:08 PM on June 27, 2010
Response by poster: Wow, thanks!
jessamyn, I fired off a query to the dropbox folks about team accounts, because, yes, I definitely prefer one org account, with the ability to unshare in due course.
It is a never-ending parade, year by year. Did I say parade? I meant... um... er... well... parade. ;-)
More, please and thank you.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:33 PM on June 27, 2010
jessamyn, I fired off a query to the dropbox folks about team accounts, because, yes, I definitely prefer one org account, with the ability to unshare in due course.
It is a never-ending parade, year by year. Did I say parade? I meant... um... er... well... parade. ;-)
More, please and thank you.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:33 PM on June 27, 2010
I don't know about the types of Dropbox accounts, but I do know that PDF reader GoodReader can access dropbox directly, removing an extra step, I suppose, so that might be helpful if all your documents are PDFs.
posted by sharkfu at 5:18 PM on June 27, 2010
posted by sharkfu at 5:18 PM on June 27, 2010
Dropbox will work great for having a static repository of documents that everyone can access on the iPad, and for group editing of documents on a PC/Mac. However, editing documents on an iPad, and then having those edited docs sync with DropBox, is not that straightforward. There are only two ways to get a Pages-edited document off the iPad, as far as I know-- emailing it or syncing it through iTunes. I think you can email to Dropbox, but like I said-- not straightforward. If they're just simple text/image files that you need the whole group to edit on the fly, you could try something like Evernote, which does sync nicely from iPad to web and computer and back again.
As an aside, GoodReader can open all sorts of docs, not just PDFs (though no editing capability)
posted by dino might at 5:56 PM on June 27, 2010
As an aside, GoodReader can open all sorts of docs, not just PDFs (though no editing capability)
posted by dino might at 5:56 PM on June 27, 2010
One thing I would keep in mind is the security issue. Correct me if I am wrong, but through a shared dropbox file you are creating a giant security hole for all sorts of mallware. If a shared file opened on an infected computer, the virus may spread to all other collaborator's computers once they open it there.
Probably the benefits of higher productivity achieved through collaboration outweigh the risks, but at least you may want to consider putting in place some sort of policy or procedures to mitigate potential problems.
Just a thought...
posted by cst at 6:07 PM on June 27, 2010
Probably the benefits of higher productivity achieved through collaboration outweigh the risks, but at least you may want to consider putting in place some sort of policy or procedures to mitigate potential problems.
Just a thought...
posted by cst at 6:07 PM on June 27, 2010
It looks to me like you want a few different services. Realtime document colaboration is better served by something like google documents. Dropbox is awesome for pdfs like you org reference docs or pictures or music or whatever file everyone needs.
Something to consider is that when you share a file it becomes part of the other persons quota. So if I share a 500 mb file with your dropbox we both now have 1.5gb left of our 2gb quota. At least with the free version.
posted by Uncle at 10:39 PM on June 27, 2010
Something to consider is that when you share a file it becomes part of the other persons quota. So if I share a 500 mb file with your dropbox we both now have 1.5gb left of our 2gb quota. At least with the free version.
posted by Uncle at 10:39 PM on June 27, 2010
Response by poster: More good insights.
Thanks again!
posted by Short Attention Sp at 11:22 AM on June 28, 2010
Thanks again!
posted by Short Attention Sp at 11:22 AM on June 28, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by monkeymadness at 3:51 PM on June 27, 2010