It’s called Dropbox, it’s powered by Amazon S3 for all the geeky types like me, and it is the ultimate tool to have exact copies of your work (for school or otherwise) at home, on your laptop, on your iPhone (with a brilliant browser), and on the computer in school. And it’s free.

I absolutely love it. I’m sitting at my desk right now, next to my bookcase, with all my folders , textbooks and past papers next to me, and with my MacBook in front of me. With everything at my disposal, if I create a nice new revision aid on my Mac, I save it normally, just to my Dropbox folder, which shows up in my personal folder.

Next, in the background, the Dropbox application running silently uploads it to my Dropbox, which is automatically synced on other computers. So, when I go downstairs, on my old Mac Mini, by the time I can open up the folder, the new version of the document will have been synced.

The next day, in school, I go to the Dropbox website, and as soon as I log in, all my folders and files are there, ready to work on, exactly as they were on both the previous computers, a couple of clicks will let me open any, then I can upload a new one from the website too, without any problems with clashing filenames.

There is a Windows application available too, which should suit most people out there, as well as a Mac app, and Linux version available. The only platform I haven’t mentioned is the iPhone OS, the app works on iPhone and iPod Touch, and when it’s connected syncs the folder structure and filenames, then, any files which you ‘favourite’ get saved locally, so you can access them offline.

By default, all new users with free accounts get 2GB, which isn’t much in computing terms, but is ample for school work. You get a nice folder, which you can access from wherever you like over the web, from any iPhone OS device, and use it exactly the same as a normal folder, on as many computers as you like.

One final feature, that really sealed the deal for me, is the sharing options. I’ve been testing this with a couple of other students in Biology, and it has been quite simply brilliant so far. I created a folder in my own biology folder, called ‘Biology Shared’, and then invited the other users to the folder using their e-mail address. Once they accept the invitation, the folder shows up in their Dropbox too, and they have the same access to it as you! We’re currently sharing notes and revision material, which is proving really useful!

Overall, I am as much in love with Dropbox as I ever can be (and there’s talk of an API, which will only sweeten the deal) and it looks like it could really boost my own organisation, and in turn my school work in general, my resolutions will love it! If you sign up using my link, you can have 250MB of bonus space too!

I have no need to know where my USB pen is at all any more!

Since I’m following David Seah’s Groundhog Day Resolution model, I feel compelled to ‘copy’ ideas from his work, so, when he announced his Groundhog Day Tracking form last week, I began copying.

I quickly found that it wasn’t actually very helpful for me, and I felt like I might be wasting my time, so I decided to set it our a little more in the style of a reference sheet or cheat sheet. The top section matches Dave’s, but from there onwards, I’ve taken my own spin on things, listing key facts about how I’m currently doing, and what I know already about what I need to do.

Simply, the plan is that one copy of this will eventually be laminated, and kept around my desk, one can go with my timetable at the front of my school work file, and I’ll keep it at arms length all the time!

In theory, this should give me the ability to track exactly what I’m doing already, and how the new activities I undertake as part of my own resolutions can fit into this

When I have my review in March, (03/03, of course!), I’ll see how this is going too, but so far, I’m liking what this lets me do!

My Master Sheet

Two weeks ago, I sat through a lesson which revolved around a Powerpoint of the simplified Standard model. There wasn’t too much information, but to fit it in 1024×768 pixels it is near unreadable.

The presentation revolved around one slide, which details gradually appeared on, however to get the level of details needed at AS level, there was a considerable amount of text, which meant it was all small and pixelated.

I left the lesson, having managed to make a rough copy of the diagram based on what was said as each element appeared, and copied this onto Prezi.com.

Prezi is brilliant, and as of very recently they have an educational version available, which just needs a school e-mail address to register for. It creates a big animated presentation, which moves around and zooms in and out of one page, which can contain loads of text, images, youtube videos and lots more!

I have tried to copy my diagram into the Prezi editor, and it’s embedded at the top of this post. For best results, and especially if it does get through on a projector, once you’ve loaded it up with the ‘Play’ button, make sure you click the Full Screen button on the ‘more’ menu. You can either scroll in and out to zoom and make your own way around or click the forward and back arrows to move through the details in a logical order.

This is by no means a finished piece, and open to comments and suggestions as to what I should do with it next, and if there are any typos I’ve missed or anything similar!

This means my resolutions are actually going quite well. This is both a creative multimedia creation, and it’s educational! Brilliant!

Since 2007, he has run a series of ‘Groundhog Day Resolutions‘, starting on 02/02, which are just like New Years Resolutions. As I’ve started writing my post after a busy day, at the other side of the atlantic, Dave is (according to Twitter) writing his post like this.

This year, I decided that having a barrage of January exams, and having just spent Christmas away, I wasn’t ready to try and make any changes in my life, or set any ambitious goals, so I postponed setting any until February. I’ve decided to set myself some resolutions based on Dave’s, but personalised slightly.

Being in the UK, groundhog day is virtually unheard of, (the closest we get is St Swithun’s Day, but that’s in July), however I’m still rather fond of the 02/02 format, reviewing on 03/03, 04/04 and so on up to 12/12.

One line on Dave’s blog stuck out for me;

Telling people what you’re doing is always a great way of gaining perspective.

And for that reason, after looking long and hard, I’ve found someone from school with remotely similar goals to me, who is going to be working on the same overall goals, just with marginally different specific aims.

Looking Back

The last 12 months have been an eye-opener for me. After my school work fell to pieces this time last year through illness, everything piled up and I couldn’t keep up. Having not been well, there was nothing I could have done, but it did make me want to understand things the first time, so that I don’t need to rely on having more time to go over them. Teachers regularly come out with “37 lessons until your module exam”, and I feel like this encourages a little procrastination. I’ve got no way of saying that I’ll be in all of those, so I need to get everything spot on now!

Over the summer, after getting my medical things fixed, I’ve gone back and started designing websites on a freelance basis again. I’ve been working with a couple of graphic designers I knew to start with, and amyone who I can hire from Elance on some pretty big and awesome projects. Ideally, I want to carry this on, but I need to keep things in proportion and not let it overtake the more important things!

The final point is that while I used to do a little gentle physical activity, it all fell apart after I was ill, and I want to get back to it! I was never a real fitness enthusiast, but I would go swimming, walking, jogging and cycling. From a health perspective, it would do me good to get back, to this level, and beyond!

The Resolutions

So, I’ve been trying to decide what to actually do about it! I’ve come up with a resolution based on each of those three strands.

1. Do Educational Things – I read a book last year, about Einstein’s life, and I found that with the small amount of details that that went into about various discoveries being made which affected his research, I understood more about things that were relevant to my school work. I want to do a lot more of this, anything that links, even remotely, to my work!
2. Do Creative Things – I can get a bit robotic in my web design, when I look on websites like DeviantArt and ThemeForest, there are some stunning HTML designs around and some pretty amazing stuff that can be done with Photoshop. I’m going to carry on with commercial design projects, and hopefully, when I do, I’ll get the chance to try something new! I’m interested in making things available under a Creative Commons/Open Source license so that everyone else can make use of it, and I’m looking to collaborate on specific things.
3. Do Physical Things – The first point is that I’m going to get back to the level I used to be at. Cycle commute, jog and swim for the fitness aspect of it, have a look at my diet, and once I’ve got those covered, I’ll see what else I can do!

The key point here, is that number 1 & 2 are pretty collaborative. I can find an excuse to mess around in Photoshop, that is related to school work and this is exactly what I intend doing!

Next month, during our first review, I’ll be coming up with some measurable targets, and looking at creating something ‘Concrete Goal Tracker’ style, (I’ll decide nearer the time though, no rush!), however in the mean time, I am aiming to;

• Do one large task per week, relating to any one of the goals.
• Produce something publishable relating to either 1 or 2 each week.
• Do three physical things a week

My Next Review

I’ll have my first review on March 3rd (03/03) with my new resolution buddy (who isn’t much of a Blogger), and I’ll hopefully have a good idea of how things are going. Then, I will be setting some measurable goals, however next month, I’ll hopefully sit down and have a qualitative  review, and think about what I got done for each of the areas!

So, overall, my resolutions can be expressed as; Learn, Make Stuff, Get Fit.