Dropbox drops beta tag, adds Linux client
A useful tool in my mobile toolbox dropped the beta tag today: Dropbox went live to the public. This excellent file synchronization tool offers 2 GB of storage for free but you can add more for an out-of-pocket cost. Starting next week, a 50 GB account can be yours for $9.95 per month. We’ve used Dropbox extensively through the beta and like the simple client for both Mac and Windows. You can always access your files through the web as well. The program creates a "Dropbox" folder on your device and you simply drop files in it; these are synced up to the Dropbox server and back down to any other supported devices you have registered. There’s a file revision history and support for shared folders, which we’ve found useful for collaboration.
So wich one is more usefull? Dropbox, or Live Mesh?
JK, a small question – are you planning to review the Raon Everun Note yourself? I’m very interested in that little tiny thing, and would like to hear your thoughts about it.
Better/worse than SugarSync? Too many of these guys to keep track of.
I’ve used them both and SugarSync is a full multi-device sync solution. Dropbox is very good but not as good a solution in my book.
This one is so easy and a winner. Drop any file into DropBox and it is accessible, from any other computer you have DropBox installed on. If you make changes to any file, it updates it pretty much straight away and the revised file is then available from anywhere else. I often use it to easily transfer .exe files that I might want to try on other computers. No more ’sneakernet’ for me.
I’ve tried the others and this is the only one I have continually used
Using SugarSync on their 30Gb account, I like it a lot and because I can specify the folders to sync I’m using it for docs and my favourites folder which works really well. Now with Dropbox, Live Mesh and other solutions available I’d be interested to see a comparison between them all.
Oh please, Oh please say it will work with OneNote files!!!!!!
And a second point/question… has anyone done any testing on possible security issues with allowing a program to sit on your had drive (and inside your firewall) that has access to files on your hard drive and “talks” to the outside world? I understand there are some risks with the “cloud” but most uses of the cloud don’t include an active client on your system!
“most uses of the cloud don’t include an active client on your system!” depends on your view of what cloud computing is. If your viewpoint is that you’re just going to use the web to access web services, then I’d agree with you. If you’re going to use the web to sync data back and forth between your device and a server, maybe not. All of the data synching services I can think of (Live Mesh, SugarSync, Dropbox, etc….) include some type of active client or service on your system. How else would the server know that some data has changed on your local system?
It’s a good question that you raise, but I wanted to comment on your though about active clients & the cloud. As far as the risks go, there’s always an inherent data risk when using a device that connects to the web. We can mitigate that with security measures and such, but there’s always a risk. It becomes a personal risk tolerance preference combined with the security measures that you and the web service provider take.
Kevin…agree totally. Most of my experience so far with the cloud has been storage/retreivial and things like blogs, etc. I have played with Live Mesh…but that’s Microsoft and we can trust them, right?
And for *GREAT* news… Dropbox does work in synching shared OneNote files… created one in the Dropbox on my desktop…made some notes, left it open then opened it from the Dropbox on my tablet…made some ink notes which within a few seconds appeared on the desktop screen!!!! yay!
“so if you have a netbook running a Fedora or Ubuntu distro…”
OR if you use Linux as your main *desktop* OS…
I’m thinking about trying the new linux client out on my desktop this weekend.