Regarding Dropbox, I’m aware of a variety of third-party storage solutions. But Jon, you hit the nail on the head with paranoia about having my data living somewhere else — I’m pretty high up on the paranoia ladder and I prefer to retain complete control of my data. I recognize that not everyone would have the same criteria.

Did you consider using something like Dropbox? Syncs a local directory constantly with their server. Like the hub and spoke model, with their server as the hub, except you can do it from anywhere you have a network connection. 2GB free, has clients Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can just create symlinks into your ~/Dropbox folder if you want.

Dropbox is a commercial service that gives you 2 gigs of data storage on their server for free (more at a monthly charge). On each computer you use, you create a Dropbox folder. Anything that is saved into this folder gets replicated to your other computers, and it’s also available by logging into their website so you can access it from any computer you might use. Syncing is automatic and changes from multiple locations are handled gracefully.

A nice feature is that you can set up sub-directories in the Dropbox that can be shared with other people, either by web access or by setting up Dropbox on their computer. They get no access outside the shared directory and access can be stopped at any time.

It’s also providing automatic off-site backup of these files and changes are recoverable for 30 days with the free service.

It’s nice to be able to work on something on the desktop and go downstairs and have it available on the laptop. No need to worry about where it was saved and the files are available on each machine should internet go down.

It’s available for Windows, Mac, Linux and iPhone. https://www.dropbox.com/