This week, I took a look at a small guide from Google. It is entitled 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web. The subtitle is, “things you’ve always wanted to know about the web but were afraid to ask.” Interestingly, there were several ideas in here that I was familiar with, but wasn’t quite sure what they meant. So, this guide did exactly what it wanted to do, and I recommend glancing through it. It mentions some prominent trends and a brief history of the Internet, from cloud computing to Javascript, and explains them in an easy-to-understand way. Even if you do understand all of this stuff (and I have to admit I don’t), it will still be a nice resource to pass onto someone who has questions.

While I was going through the book, cloud computing really stuck out to me because I just used Dropbox last week as well (Thanks Amy!). If you haven’t used Dropbox, it’s awesome! Dropbox is a cloud application that is quickly downloaded onto your computer through the Dropbox website. After being downloaded, Dropbox creates a folder on your computer that you can use like any other folder. But, not all folders are created equal. This Dropbox folder syncs to an online folder in the cloud that can be accessed from anywhere or shared with anyone.

It didn’t sound too impressive until I tried it. Amy is making some videos introducing SPLAT members, so she needs content from each of us. Instead of spending a bunch of time attaching the large video and image files to an email, I dropped them into my Dropbox folder, and it synced online. I then went to the website, clicked Share and shared them with Amy by entering her email. Even though many of my files can be sent through email, anytime I need to send a large file I’m going to be using Dropbox from now on. It will also be useful if I have a project that I need to access from several different computers, because the files can be accessed from anywhere. It’s pretty cool!