Dropbox is a powerful cloud service but it is more than just a website for online storage. Dropbox has many apps that work together with it to enhance your Dropbox experience. Besides automatically backing up your website to Dropbox, some of these apps or third party services will allow you to create a simple website with Dropbox, help you automatically organize your Dropbox files, and even let you email file attachments directly to your Dropbox account.

(Image Source: Toby Negele)

Here are 20+ tools to help you make Dropbox even more useful to your everyday routine.

Recommended Reading: How To Share Dropbox Files On Your Facebook Group

Backup Box

Backup Box is a service that lets you transfer files between two different cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Box. It also lets you transfer files from your File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) and MySQL servers. A free account will allow you to do basic transfers between services; a paid account will enable you more features such as scheduling, and simultaneous file transfers.

Dropbox Automator

Dropbox Automator lets you create your own ‘rules’ that help you automatically process files on your Dropbox. For example you can convert text files to PDF format or even upload pictures to Facebook automatically. A free account allows you 10 automations (rules) and can process up to 100 files or 100 MB. A premium account lets you work with more files.

BoxCryptor

BoxCryptor allows you to encrypt files before it is uploaded. This makes the files on your Dropbox encrypted allowing it only to be accessed through the program on your computer or the app (available for both iOS and Android).

Dropbox Folder Sync Addon

[Windows] Traditionally, Dropbox only syncs files in your Dropbox folder. This addon (download link) allows you to sync folders outside of your Dropbox folder by just right-clicking the file and selecting ‘Sync with Dropbox’. Syncing a folder that is on your desktop means that files added or deleted from that folder will be synced in Dropbox as well.

MacDropAny

[Mac] This is the Mac version of Dropbox Folder Sync Addon and works the same – folders outside of Dropbox can be synced. You can use it by right clicking on a folder and select ‘Sync with Dropbox (via MacDropAny)’ or dragging the folder to the MacDropAny icon.

JotForm – Dropbox Forms

JotForm is a form builder for your website that allows you to have the data from the filled form sent straight to your Dropbox. You can build the form and post the link for people to fill it in. Having JotForm linked to your Dropbox account, the information (that comes from that form you built) will be sent straight to your Dropbox.

Dropboxifier

You’re normally not allowed to change the location of important location files, but Dropboxifier allows you to ‘trick’ application files to read and write to Dropbox. You can then install Dropboxifier on another computer to access and edit the application data simultaneously which means you will have all your settings or data from your primary computer on the secondary one.

DropboxPortableAHK

Most public computers do not allow you to install applications, but if you heavily rely on Dropbox for your work, then you should get DropboxPortableAHK. Like portable apps, this small application lets you run Dropbox from your flash drive which means you can sync and have all your files with you on the go.

DROPitTOme

This website allows anyone to upload files directly to your Dropbox account. Once you’ve registered, you’ll be provided with a password protected link unique to your Dropbox account. Whoever wants to send you a file (< 75 MB) can open the link in a browser, and key in the password to upload the file into your Dropbox account.

DropLink

[Mac] DropLink is an app that sits on your Mac desktop. Whenever you drag a file to the app icon it will instantly be copied to the main directory of your Dropbox folder. If you prefer that it copies to another location, you can run the app and then drag it to the app window where you can select the folder you want it to be copied to.

DropTunes

Dropbox does not allow you to stream music files through their website; Droptunes on the other hand lets you do this. Once the app is linked to your account, you can view all the music files on your Dropbox with this simple online music player that has basic playback controls. They also have a paid iPhone app ($0.99) that does the same.

DropVox

DropVox is an iOS audio recording app ($1.99) for the iPhone that instantly uploads the audio files directly to your Dropbox account. It records to a M4A audio format. The recording files are automatically named with the current date and time of the recording to make it easier for you to find in your Dropbox folder.

Gimme Bar

Gimme Bar lets you save images, text and even most videos to your Dropbox directly from a web browser. Just sign up at the site and get their bookmarklet. A bar will stick to the bottom of your screen. You can then drag anything (text, tweets, images, even screenshots) off your browser to the bar and it will be saved to your Dropbox.

DropPages

DropPages lets you host a website with your Dropbox account. First, share a Dropbox folder named yourusername.droppages.com. Once that is done you will get a confirmation letter saying that your site has been se tup and you can begin using and editing content on the shared Dropbox folder to customize your website.

Automatically Print Documents with Dropbox

With this Visual Basic Script you can print from any computer that has a printer connected to it and has Dropbox running. The script will create a folder called "PrintQueue" inside your main Dropbox folder. Files that are added into this folder will be printed. You can even add files from your mobile to instantly print while you’re on the go. Follow these detailed instructions to get it running.

IFTTT

IFTTT is short for ‘If This Then That’. It connects with a wide variety of ‘Channels’ such as Facebook, Twitter and WordPress – a total of 52 channels, including Dropbox. With this channel you can create ‘Triggers’ and ‘Actions’. As an example, you can set that every time you are tagged in a photo on Facebook, it’ll ‘Trigger’ a download of that picture into your Dropbox.

KISSr

KISSr is another free web hosting service that uses Dropbox to locate all the files needed for the website. Your domain name will look something like yourusername.kissr.com. It then accesses one folder on your Dropbox; the files in that folder are used to manage your entire website.

Otixo

Otixo brings all your cloud services together and allows you to manage all of it in one place. Once you’ve connected your services like Dropbox, SkyDrive, Box, or Google Drive, you can view all the files that are stored in them and move files from one service to the other by dragging and dropping.

Scriptogr.am

Scriptogr.am is another simple web hosting service that uses Dropbox to manage your webpage. Your domain name will be scriptogr.am/username. It does not use conventional HTML but uses ‘Markdown’ which is simpler. It guides you on how to use this to get your simple weblog up and running.

Send to Dropbox

This is a free service that allows you to save your email attachments directly to your Dropbox. You do this by sending (or forwarding) the email with attachments to a unique email address provided by the website. The attachments are then automatically saved to your Dropbox in a matter of minutes.

sideCLOUDload

You can use this service when you’re on the move and want to download something straight to your Dropbox. You can paste the download link (to the file) on this website and it’ll be downloaded to your Dropbox. A handy way to get your work files ready on your computer from your mobile device.

Site44

Yet another web-hosting service, Site44 will give you the domain name username.site44.com. This service also uses a folder in Dropbox where you modify the HTML files which will update and control the look of your site. You can create a maximum of 5 websites with one Dropbox account and limited to 100 MB of bandwidth across all sites.

SortMyBox

SortMyBox does exactly that, it sorts out your Dropbox for you with ‘Rules’ created by you. It creates a folder that moves files that are added into it to other folders automatically. For example ‘Rules’ with the extension jpg or png (image files) will be moved to the ‘Pictures’ folder in your Dropbox. Once it is set up, it’ll do all the work for you.

Writebox

Writebox is a simple online text editor that links to your Dropbox folder. Once you log in, you can search for, create, edit and choose text files to edit on your Dropbox. It works great as a lightweight note-taker to use on the move.

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In ancient times, battles were fought with strategies, precision and a lot of tactical manoeuvers. The side with the largest armies, the smartest generals and the most skilful soldiers can literally conquer the world. Soldiers are trained to attack, defend and protect, but there will be casualties and losses. It was a brutal world.

However, it’s not that different from a graphic design business. When a graphic designer presents his work to the client, he puts forth the piece he thinks is the best. If the client rejects this piece, the designer puts forth his second-best, then a third-best and so on.

(Image Source: CHIN2OFF)

As the designs get removed from the battlefield, they get dumped to a quiet corner of the hard disk, never to be touched again. I call them ‘deceased designs’. The designer may win the battle in the end, but no battle ends without casualties. However, like a tactical general, the designer can always unleash the full potential of their ‘fallen’ designs.

In this article we are going to discuss how we can resurrect these fallen heros and make good use of them.

Recommended Reading: How To Become A High-Demand Designer

What are Deceased Designs?

Although a designer loves all his works equally, however, during a design process, he has to cope with a number of demands and requirements from the client which may result in rejected designs. The following are 3 major types of deceased designs:

1. The ‘Others’

While it is not a good practice to provide the client with a number of options in one design process, as it confuses the client and adds to your work load, however, in today’s highly competitive market, floating several different design options is a necessary move. Owing to this trend, a lot of designers adopt the practice of making one or two very fine designs as well as few ‘others’.

(Image Source: Sony-Mae)

The ‘others’ are those designs that are relatively less worked-on and sometimes are only designed to fill in the required quantity. These ‘others’ make a major portion of the deceased designs and are usually stored in organized folders once the project is complete.

2. The ‘Old Timers’

The ‘old timers’ include all the designs that float through a hectic design process and eventually reaching the apex of being published, printed or displayed. However, once the campaign is over, they are taken down and placed in their final resting place in the designer’s portfolio or the client’s marketing records.

3. The ‘Unfinished’

The final category of deceased designs comprises of the ‘unfinished’. As the name says, the ‘unfinished’ designs are those which, for some reason, are abandoned in the middle of their making and are stacked away in the computer’s memory where they remain in their ‘unfinished’ state, usually forever.

Resurrect the Deceased Designs

I hope by now you have gotten a pretty good idea of what deceased designs are, and some of you could easily relate to it as well. In this section, let’s see how you can reuse these designs and make them work for you once more – and this time, more effectively.

Add to Your Portfolio

Your portfolio is a great place to showcase your talents and work history, and it may be the best place to keep your abandoned designs. In fact, in my views, putting a design in your portfolio adds to its life and gives the kind of exposure and attention which both the design and its maker deserves. Moreover, your portfolio often acts as our quickest source of inspiration.

While seeking to get inspiration for your existing designs, you wouldn’t have to search folder to folder; rather your portfolio would be a one-window solution for a bulk of inspiration.

Nonetheless, I am not suggesting you to put each and every design you have ever made in the portfolio. Choose your best designs, or the ones you worked really hard on (or are particularly proud of) and make your portfolio as rich and diverse as possible.

Read Also: 7 Rules To Creating A Professional Portfolio Site

Showcase for a Better Exposure

A few decades ago, it was not possible to opt for this option easily. However, nowadays, there are a number of online design communities where you can showcase all your designs, including your deceased ones.

Websites like DeviantArt, Flickr and Dribbble give you a great opportunity to upload, showcase and gain tremendous exposure for your design work. Showcasing your designs online will also vouch for your good online presence which is very crucial in the current Internet-oriented world.

Sell as a Resource

The Internet is a realm of opportunities and if good exposure is not enough for you, your deceased designs can earn you money as well. There is an array of design resource websites and affiliate programs where you can put up a complete design, or some of its elements for sale.

You can sell and re-sell your designs as many times as you want, and all these websites require is a simple registration and a percentage of the amount of a successfully sold design. Well, for a design which would otherwise be left accummulating dust in a corner of your hard drive, this alternative is not so bad!

Recycle into Newer Designs

Designers often work really hard on all their designs, but there can only be one winning design. Being a creative professional myself, I know how much it pains to see your design ‘die’ all alone as if dishonorably discharged and forgotten. Therefore, in order to avoid letting your hard work and creativity go to waste, try to recycle your deceased designs by using certain elements (like background, layout, icons or the color scheme etc.) into your new projects.

(Image Source: Momo-Deary)

This will not only save your time and resources on the new design, but will also give a sense of satisfaction that no matter how many times your clients turn down your designs, you still can make something good out of them.

Develop Case Studies and Blog about It

Apart from the showcasing, using and re-using, your deceased designs can also be used as learning material. Nowadays, almost every freelance as well as employed designer runs a blog, and the ones who don’t run a blog, write on other blogs.

So, with an increasing trend in blogging and educating thorough blogging, you can develop your deceased designs into different case studies and inform your readers about its different aspects i.e. the client type, the design process, the hurdles you faced and the reasons behind its success, and sometimes more importantly, its failure.

This will create an absolutely valuable learning opportunity for your readers and they will always come back for more.

To Wrap Up

No matter how experienced a designer is or well established a design company is, the client’s taste is the kind of devil that shows no mercy while turning an alive and happening design into a deceased one (most of the time for very absurd or unknown reasons). I know that initially every refusal, turned down or halted project will make you sad or disappointed with your skills.

However, I hope that you would have gotten a few ideas on how to resurrect your deceased designs, and keep on designing to the best of your talents.

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Adjusting image Brightness and Contrast, or turning image into Grayscale or Sephia is a common feature you may find in image editing application, like Photoshop. But, it is now possible to add the same effects to web images using CSS.

This capability comes from the Filter Effects which actually is still in the Working Draft stage. However, the Webkit browser seems to be a step a head in implementing this feature.

So, let’s give it a try and we will use this image from Mehdi Kh to demonstrating the effects.

The Effects

Applying the effects is very easy. Take a look at the snippet below, for turning images into grayscale;

  img {  	 -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%);  }  

…and this is for sepia ala Instagram.

  img {  	 -webkit-filter: sepia(100%);  }  

Both the sepia and the grayscale values are stated in percentage where 100% is the maximum and applying 0% will keep the image unchange, but when the value is not explicitly specified the 100% will be taken as the default.

Brightening the image is also possible, and we can do it by using the brightness function, as follows;

  img {  	-webkit-filter: brightness(50%);   }  

The brightness effect works like the contrast and sepia effect above where the value of 0% will keep the image as it is and applying 100% will totally brighten the image, which would possibly show only a blank white page instead of an image.

The brightness effect also allows for negative values, in which it will darken the image.

  img {  	-webkit-filter: brightness(-50%);   }  

..and we can adjust the image contrast this way.

  img {  	-webkit-filter: contrast(200%);   }  

There is a little difference on how the value works as well, as you can see in the above, we set the contrast() by 200%, this is because the value of 100% is the starting point where the image will remain unchanged. When the value is below 100%, let’s say 50%, the image will become less contrasted.

Furthermore, we can also combine the effect in one declaration block, such as in the example below. We turn the image into grayscale and increase the contrast by 50% at the same time.

  img {  	-webkit-filter: grayscale(100%) contrast(150%);   }  

By combining the filter with CSS3 transition we can make a graceful hover effect.

  img:hover {  	-webkit-filter: grayscale(0%);  }  img:hover {  	-webkit-filter: sepia(0%);   }  img:hover {  	-webkit-filter: brightness(0%);   }  img:hover {  	-webkit-filter: contrast(100%);   }  

Lastly, there is one more effect we can try; the Gaussian Blur, which will blur the targeted element.

  img:hover {  	-webkit-filter: blur(5px);   }  

Like in Photoshop, the blur value is stated in pixel radius and if the value is not explicitly stated, the <0 will be taken as the default and the image is left as it is.

Final Thought

There are actually a lot more effects in the spec. such as hue-rotate, invert and saturate, but I think they are less applied in real Web cases. Thus, the discussion was limited to just four effects.

And, despite the discussion being applied to images in this tutorial, the property can actually also be applied to any element in the DOM.

Finally, you can view the live demo from these links below. Please take note that the Filter is currently only supported in Chrome 19 and above.

• Demo
• Download Source

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