Click here for a tailor-made "starter bundle" of RSS feeds on technology, business, entrepreneurship (and one on the Chicago business scene).

This short post was inspired by a recent chat with a friend which made me realize that my original RSS feed article should have made starting with RSS feeds even easier.

• Related Post: RSS Feeds = Reading and Surfing on Steroids
  

If you haven't already, you should stop what you're doing and take 5 minutes to install Dropbox on your computer.  Use this referral link so you can earn an additional 250MB to the free 2 GB account, like 7 (UPDATE 8/19/2010: 10) of my friends who already have.

Now some background for the unconvinced: The Dropbox service makes USB Flash drives, floppy disks, and emailing documents to yourself pretty much obsolete, except for instances where you can't access the internet.

Ever work on a project where emailing different versions of a document among several collaborators is painful?  Google Docs provides a great solution for collaborating on simplistic spreadsheets and basic word processing files, but Dropbox is a better option for sharing the majority of folders and file types that need a full feature set like Microsoft Excel, Word, or PowerPoint.  The main restriction to this approach is one you are already used to dealing with: collaborators will need to work one at a time or have to merge their changes into a new version manually.

Since launching a beta over 2 years ago, Dropbox has automated backing files up for over 4 million users using a "Dropbox" folder on their computers.  Whenever a Dropbox user's computer is connected to the internet, the Dropbox folder backs up automatically to the cloud.

How could Dropbox make your life easier?  Even more important than the collaborative folder sharing described earlier could be the effortless way Dropbox backs up whatever important documents you store there: perhaps schoolwork from this term, a project for work, or pictures from this year that you haven't yet backed up on DVD or an external hard drive manually--even though you keep meaning to!

Additional uses I have found for Dropbox have included picture sharing, and the mobile experience on an iPhone and iPad (and Android, I believe) allows you to read PDFs or other documents on the go.  If you mark a file as a "Favorite" while you have an internet connection, you can even access it on your device when you are left without Wi-Fi or data.  Lastly, I once unexpectedly needed to email a file on my computer to a friend but was nowhere near my computer.  Luckily, I was able to access the file on my mobile phone via Dropbox and email an access link to that file to my friend within minutes.  Space age stuff!

While there are other similar services out there like SugarSync and Box.net, I have yet to find one that allows me to do so much, so easily, for so little: free.

Still reading?!?  I have slowly been researching less expensive options for larger-scale cloud storage options for when I run out of the 2GB+ that comes free with Dropbox.  Input welcome!

• Related Post: Why I love the Cloud and you will too
• UPDATE 8/19/2010, Related External Article: Reward the Passionates via @Vacanti
  

The most common question I've gotten since launching Internauts has been: "how did you make your site?  Doesn't that take a lot of time, energy, and money?"  It took an hour or two to set up, the website hosting and design is free, and the adamstober.com domain will be $9 per year starting next year.  It was free this year since I was able to take advantage of a "first-year free" domain promotion.

If you are interested in setting up a simple website similar to this one, read on.

Consider Weebly, the service I am using here which provides the easiest drag-and-drop interface you can imagine--no programming experience necessary.  Other popular options to consider include Posterous, which might be better for sites that only have a blog since you just email them your content, or Blogger.  Since I wanted to have a homepage in addition to a blog, I like seeing the layout before it gets published, and I enjoy the flexibility of being one-click away from adding additional blogs to my homepage, I chose Weebly.

If you would like to customize your web address with a domain that does not include the "weebly" or "posterous" that is included by default, you could test domain availability on domai.nr which is particularly helpful for finding creative domains you would not have otherwise thought of.  This is a better approach than simply Googling your potential domain or entering it into your address bar for the reasons listed here.

Once you have found a domain you think could be worthwhile you will need to secure it at a registrar with a credit card.  While GoDaddy has marketed its way to being among the most well-known registrars out there, I have had phenomenal customer service from 1&1 and recommend using them instead since their recurring prices tend to be a bit lower as well and the offer different introductory promotions every month.

Assuming you use Weebly, you can follow the simple instructions listed on Weebly's site to point your web address visitors to your future site, regardless of who you used to register your domain.  Other build-your-own website services such as Posterous generally provide similar instructions in their FAQ.