I am writing my thesis. This has created in me a kind of compulsory need of backupping every byte of it more or less every minute. One never knows when his laptop could catch fire, be eaten by a crocodile, be hit by a meteorite or all the other scenarios that one imagines while he is writing his thesis. When the time spent backupping overcomes the time spent writing, this is the time for Dropbox. So

apt-get install nautilus-dropbox

(The gripping story of the package is described here.)
Once installed:

$ dropbox
Dropbox command-line interface
Note: use dropbox help to view usage for a specific command.
status - get current status of the dropboxd
help - provide help
puburl - get public url of a file in your dropbox
stop - stop dropboxd
running - return whether dropbox is running
update - download latest version of dropbox
start - start dropboxd
filestatus - get current sync status of one or more files
ls - list directory contents with current sync status
autostart - automatically start dropbox at login
exclude - ignores/excludes a directory from syncing
lansync - enables or disables LAN sync

The first time you will run “$dropbox start” you will be prompted for your dropbox login and passwd and you will be able to choose a directory to be synchronized with your online repository. Now simply create a symbolic link ($ln -s) into this directory to the directory of your thesis et voilà, automatic on-line backup of each word you write.

If you decide to create an account on dropbox, please use this link: http://db.tt/Amx0X80c, it doesn’t cost anything and it will give me some extra space 🙂