As a Junior Computer Science major at UMBC, I feel like I should have learned about this a long time ago... But I'm here now, and this discovery of mine is so amazing (to me at least) that I have decided to share it with those of you who don't know what UMBC Box is.

First off, let me explain dropbox. Dropbox is an application that allows you to sync files on your computer with storage space on the internet. You can then create links to your sync'd files, allowing friends, family, or random internet people to download your files. Dropbox gives you 2 GB of storage to use for free.

Now UMBC Box. First of all, UMBC Box gives students 25 GB of space. Much more than the 2GB dropbox gives. As well as creating a link that can be shared across the internet, it also has other really cool features:

* create a google doc, google spreadsheet, word document, powerpoint, or excel spreadsheet

* control who sees the file, so even if someone has the link, you can still deny them access for an extra layer of privacy

* add a comment to give people a file description or let them know what still needs to be done to make the file better

* lock a file so that no one else may edit it while you work on it (you can also prevent downloads with a lock and set an expiration time for the lock so you don't accidently forget to unlock it)

* see how many people have downloaded the file

* set an expiration date to remove the file after a certain amount of time

* probably a whole other crap ton of features I have yet to discover

If you haven't found this somewhat hidden feature of UMBC before, go to box.umbc.edu, log in with your myumbc username and password, and start playing around with it.

I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have.