I was happily installing the Mac OS 10.7 Lion update on my Mac Pro at home (Avid recently blessed Media Composer to run on 10.7) only to become somewhat less happy when I realized AirDrop, one of the features I was most looking forward to, won’t work with my Mac Pro. It apparently uses the WiFi built into the computer and can’t work through a network, even when the machine is connected to an Apple router. A little search verified that my Mac Pro won’t work since it doesn’t have a WiFi card installed.

Enter DropCopy. This little tool lets you “Easily and quickly send files and folders to multiple destinations across your LAN by simply dragging files onto recipients in a pop-up window.” Sounds a lot like AirDrop to me! It appears simple enough and even works quite simply. There’s a mobile version as well for iPhone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKCMmildYSk&feature=player_embedded

Drag a file to the DropCopy “drop zone” (an animated circle that looks like an eclipsed sun) on your desktop and other machines on the network running DropCopy are suddenly accessible. The file then transfers to the selected machine and the file lands on the desktop.

Another really cool and useful feature, if you’re running a bunch of machines within a facility, is the ability to send a text message from machine to machine:

The text message then lands at the selected machine:

This is a really cool little utility and I can’t wait to test it out some more.

A “personal” license of DropCopy (for 1 to 3 devices) can be download for free from the Mac App Store or at the DropCopy website. They ask you to purchase a Pro version for $5 if you’re using up to ten devices. Site licenses which supports unlimited devices can be purchased at the DropCopy site only for $25. Check out the DropCopy FAQ for more information.