First item. I finally find a good Portable Dropbox program. Discussions on the program on the Dropbox forum is located here: http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=33387. The program can be downloaded at http://nionsoftware.com/dbpahk/.
This program does not require administrator access, so you can install it on your school lab computers. It also allows you to sync to a removable media like a USB flash drive or a SD card.
As I have started carrying a SD/USB card in my wallet with my work files, the Portable Dropbox program allows me to sync the files between my card and my other computers elsewhere. (Yes, that’s right – a SD card with the USB interface build-in: SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus 2GB Card.) Having access to standard Dropbox features like rolling back to older versions is great also. That way, I can do work on any of the school computer labs instead of always having to carry my laptop, know that my files are backed up and automatically sync to my other computers. Now, I just need to run the program when I start working at the lab computers.
As a side note, I want to reiterate how awesome my SD/USB card is. It fits in my wallet, can go in my camera, and can also go in to any computers that takes USB. Sadly, SanDisk doesn’t seem to make higher capacity versions of it.
Second item: http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=1116. Dropbox now allows dragging files from your operating system (like windows explorer or even your desktop) into your browser to upload files. Previously, you would need to open a dialog box to specific the file to upload. From my test, the Dropbox website now lets you upload files as well as download files. To download, just dragging files from your web browser to windows explorer (or your desktop).