Dropbox to the Rescue (Again)

A Convenient Method for adding Attachments to Wiki Pages

I just can't say enough about Dropbox.

I'm a heavy user of Wetpaint for my classroom and group wikis. One of my courses in software development requires that we pass a large number of code snippets around and while attachments to each wiki page works, it has some minor drawbacks:

• Wetpaint accounts (both and pay and free) limit the total number and size of attachments (understandably so...)
• Attachments appear at the very bottom of the wiki page, below the content and page discussion threads

Again, not a deal killer, just would be nice if we could mention a file in the body of the page, include a hyperlink in line with the text and continue with the prose.

Dropbox "Public Files" to the rescue. Simply:

• Copy the file you wish to share into the "Public" folder that was created in your Dropbox folder at install
• Right click (or control click) on the file to pop up the options menu
• Click on the Dropbox submenu
• Click on the "copy public link" menu item
• Highlight your link text in your blog or wiki and paste the public link
• Presto... all done

The public link to the "Top Secret.txt" demo file created in my Dropbox install appears below:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/141947/Top%20Secret.txt

After creating a link you can grab the Top Secret.txt file by clicking on the linked filename in this sentence.

The link is to the copy of the file that lives on the dropbox servers, so the link to your actual computer is still safe behind your log in and password.

I continue to be amazed...