With Dropbox you simply create a free account (click here to sign up and I get free extra space!) and that’s it! You can upload files directly from the website, put them in your public folder, and copy the direct link to the files to share with your friends. Then, when you’re at the library, you can return to the website on their public computer to access you’re file.

Dropbox - folder options

Dropbox - public link

It gets better. You don’t have to always use the website to manage and access your files. On each of your computers (Windows, Mac, Linux or mobile device) you can install a dropbox app. This adds a folder/directory to your file system. Now, when you save a file to your Dropbox folder on that computer, it’s instantly synced to all of your other computers. I can save a file in Photoshop on my Windows laptop and–almost instantly–it is available on my Linux machine where I may need it in a blog post I’m drafting. Likewise, I can add a photo I’ve taken with my iPhone to my iPhone Dropbox app and it’s instantly available on all my other Dropbox computers, and also the website.

Dropbox - sync files across all computers

Dropbox on my iPhone

Dropbox is FREE! Anybody can get 2 gigabytes of Dropbox storage absolutely free. I store all my client files, items I want to share, and files I need backed up. I’m well within the free threshold. If you need more you can upgrade your account to 50 or 100 GB for a small monthly payment. Thanks to a few of my friends using this link »»ilv.me/dropbox«« to get their own Dropbox account, I now have 3 GB. (Thank you!)

Dropbox - my current usage

What are you waiting for? Click the logo below to get your free Dropbox account. You still might need that USB thumb drive for mobile apps and operating systems, or to run a mobile web server, but you won’t need it to move your files around.

Do you already use Dropbox? Let me know in the comments what you think of it. Have you exceeded your free quota? If you used my link to get your own Dropbox account, let me know in the comments what you think of it and ask any questions you might have about using Dropbox.

To process photos on the iPhone I consistently turn to Photogene, an app that is quick, intuitive and very powerful. Here’s an example of what can be done in a few minutes with a few sliders.

Photogene - before and after

With Photogene you can easily crop, rotate, straighten, and sharpen photos, as well as adjust levels, exposure, contrast, saturation, color temperature, and red, green and blue values. Speech bubbles and fancy borders can also be added. When your photo is just how you like it you can save, adjust resolution, copy to clipboard or share with your friends via Twitter, Facebook or email.

All this wonderfulness is just $1.99. Not bad, eh? [Photogene in iTunes]

Photogene histogram

Photogene straighten slider

Photogene exposure/contrast sliders

Photogene decorations

Photogene sharpen slider

Photogene's Done dialog

To see more iPhone photos I’ve processed using Photogene check out my iPhone Gallery.

When I want a fake tilt-shift look I use the TiltShift Generator app.

What is your favorite photo processing app for the iPhone? If you’ve used Photogene, what do you like about it? What do you wish were different? Let me know in the comments.

Click on the Photography link to check it out.

The new Photography page at BrentDanley.com

The new page, like the old site, uses the phpFlickr library to access the Flickr API. The Flickr API is well designed and the phpFlickr library makes using it a breeze.

The client-side animations are done using CSS and jQuery. The old site used Prototype and script.aculo.us, and I was glad to be able to do the conversion. jQuery is a dream.

This site is powered by WordPress, so all that was required was to upload the phpFlickr files and create a simple template. Caching is done by phpFlickr using a MySQL database.

The photos are pulled in using Flickr’s machine tags, so I can manage them in Flickr without having to access WordPress administration.

Lightbox 2, the plugin that darkens the screen and pulls the larger image forward, was already installed and ready to use.

The page is developed so that if a page parameter is passed in the URL with a page value that corresponds to an actual gallery, that gallery will open when the page loads. For example, brentdanley.com/photography/?page=maine will take you directly to the Maine gallery. The default gallery is Lighthouses.

The old photography.brentdanley.com

I’d love to know what you think of the new photography page. Leave me a message in the comments.

Brent's Drupal Gardens site

Drupal Gardens is still in private beta and, therefore, requires an invitation. I applied for one and received it in my inbox within an hour. Setting up my site was fairly simple. I have a bit of experience with Drupal, but not much. While it was simple to get the site up by walking through a few forms, administering settings and adding content is not intuitive. I am happy to discover there will still be a need for talented and knowledgeable web developers.

Sign up for the beta and throw a site together to see what you think. Let me know how it went in the comments.