ONLINE BINS KEEP FILES ORGANIZED THE DIGITAL WAY

I shudder when I step into my basement and walk past my half-dozen aging file cabinets stuffed to the brim with decades of yellowing clippings from newspapers dating back to my college years. I suspect many precious articles I so painstakingly clipped, marked and sorted all those years ago will crumble into dust if I dared try to read them today.

Luckily, my filing system has evolved. Today I use digital resources, and though I never settled on a single source for my collections -- I actually use several -- these storage tools nevertheless ensure no articles will ever turn to dust in my hands.

Cloud storage bins -- massive hard drive repositories that are increasingly populating the Web frontier -- make it easy to sort, store and retrieve Web pages, articles or snippets of stories I come across online. And the cloud ensures that I can retrieve them from anywhere: my home computer, at work or on the road.

Here are a few favorites:

Dropbox: One of the hottest online storage sites, Dropbox lets me drag files of any type -- documents, images, music -- into a folder that can be accessed by me and anyone else I designate from wherever we are. A tiny Dropbox icon resides on my Windows toolbar, easily accessible whenever I need to drag a file to or from it.

There are no logons or passwords to bother with (after the initial installation), and it's quick and easy to use. I rely on it for working on my columns from both home and work, for quickly and easily sharing photos with friends, and for keeping key documents accessible when I am traveling.

You may store up to 2 gigabytes of data for free. If more space is required, you can upgrade to 50 gigabytes for $99 a year.

Evernote: A more sophisticated storage system, Evernote lets you grab anything off the Web and store it in a highly organized filing system. Clip a quote, an article, a full page or a picture, assign keywords, tag it for a specific sub-folder, and access it from anywhere. It even lets you search for text that appears in images.

You can use Evernote online or through desktop software. The only small drawback to this program is the curious manner in which total storage is calculated: Under the free plan, you can store 40 megabytes of files; I found that when you edit and save any of the stored documents, the file size is counted again toward your monthly allotment. For $45 annually, the limit is upped to 1 gigabyte a month.

Evernote is a highly polished storage system that has become indispensable for me.

Google Documents: You don't really need a word processing program any more when you have a fully functioning editor in the cloud. Google's word processor Documents lets you set fonts, sizes and styles, and insert images, links and tables. It has basic tools for word count, dictionary and text translation.

You get 1 gigabyte of storage for free; up that to 20 gigabytes for just $5 annually or to 80 gigabytes for $20.

Read It Later: This beautifully designed iPad app (desktop version also available) lets you file away Web pages for later reading. Tap a toggle switch to read the page as is or tap again to generate a bare-bones view of text only, with no distracting images or animations. You can configure type size and set it for nighttime reading with soft white text on black background.

More than 300 websites have direct links to this app and it is a pleasure to use.

Diigo: Bookmark articles of interest, highlight passages and add footnotes with this versatile, free browser add-on. Revisit the free site later and all highlights and notes will be waiting for you.

Clipix: This is an easy way to store online documents you want to peruse later. Just drag the button from the Clipix website to your browser bookmark bar, and you're ready to tap and save any page you visit. Clipix displays sorted thumbnail images of saved documents for fast detection and retrieval. Other services offer similar functionality, but I like this one not only because there is no need to download software to run it, but also because its developers boast it "will always be free." No upload limits, no storage costs.

I also like the fact the developer, Oded Berkowitz, hails from our own Bergen County, in Fort Lee.

Credit: Contact Peter Grad at [email protected].