Is iCloud what I'm looking for?

I'm a busy student who works on both an iMac and Macbook Pro. I'm looking for the quickest and easiest way to make sure that when I work on something at home (iMac) and those changes are available when I need them in school (Macbook). I looked at Dropbox but from my understanding I would have to remember to drag and drop those files in order for the changes to be available everywhere. Does iCloud work the same way? I'm always rushing and forgetting things so I need this to work without me having to remember to "sync" it myself in any way. Just save the work and walk out the door.

I also need to have my iCal synced across my iMac, Macbook and iPhone. I read somewhere that iCloud does this?

iCloud will sync your calendar

iCloud will only sync files from apps that are iCloud aware, so that usually the Apple iWork suite. It will not work for MS Office for example

Sugar sync might be a better cloud file storage solution, since you can specify what folders it syncs, rather than having to copy stuff into the dropbox folder

https://www.sugarsync.com/

AS for calendars, you could get both macs to subscribe to a google calendar through Ical on both
Get Started with CalDAV - Google Calendar Help

That will give you the functions you need, calendar and file/folder syncing for free

If you are looking for simplicity and only use Apple Software right now then iCloud will do the job very nicely. Set it and forget it.
If you have various types of files from various sources then Dropbox works well. Of course it is not as integrated in the Operating System as iClould e.g. Calendar, Address Book and Bookmarks.

DavidH

Just for the record: iCloud currently syncs e-mail, contacts, calendars, notes, to-dos, and reminders from either the usual Apple apps or Outlook, bookmarks from Safari, iTunes Store purchases, Photo Stream and (optionally) iWork projects. I may have missed something but I think that's everything (oh, and Find my iPhone/iPad/Mac information).