Unwanted evangelism.

[antennapedia]

What, you want an entry? It's November now! I wrote an entry a day in October and that's enough of that!

Okay, I did have a topic for today. I have been reading off and on on the flist that people have stories on this computer and not that computer and can or can't work on them as a result. This means that these unfortunates are not using Dropbox.

Comments

[elayna88]

I have been reading off and on on the flist that people have stories on this computer and not that computer and can or can't work on them as a result.

They don't have a flash drive? The Dropbox thing sounds really nice, but seriously, they don't have a flash drive?

[antennapedia]

Flash drives are excellent, but you have to think to use them. If you forget, or if you leave the thing in the pocket of your other jacket, you're stuck.

[elayna88]

Flash drives are excellent, but you have to think to use them.

That's never seemed like a really different to think about it.

Your flisties are sounding as scary as my co-workers.

[the_emu]

Ehhhh.

We used it at camp this year - in theory, a great way to keep all the theatre departments on the same page - but it noticeably slowed down the computers - Macs - I'd installed it on. And it was definitely Dropbox, because they picked up when I shut it down.

So while I really like the theory, I haven't been eager to install it at home. Even if there are fewer files bouncing around here.

8^-

[daiseechain]

I'm surprised to hear that it slows your Macs down.

We have several Macs in the house and it's made no noticeable difference to them at all. We've been using it for, um, I want to say a couple of years but I'm not sure it's been that long. Well over a year at any rate. Currently synching between two Macs, one iphone, one android phone, and one mac running on a PC. All good. Except when the home server crashes, but that's an entirely different issue :-D

[the_emu]

It is possible that it was slow because it was shared between a lot of departments, with a lot of fat files.

I may try it again at some point. I just haven't been eager after that experience.

8^-

[antennapedia]

That's abnormal behavior even with a zillion files, except at the very first dropbox launch/sync. I would first ask if the machines were running the latest and keeping themselves updated. This company seems to be pretty good at continual small improvements to their software. But I dunno.

[daiseechain]

Dropbox is awesome. Allows me to work over three machines on two point five platforms (the .five is because one of them is a mac running on a PC).

Also allows me to sync stuff with K, so that he can't then use the excuse that he didn't get the file :-D

[antennapedia]

I love how it works on iOS as well, so I can work on my current projects on my iPad or just read them on my iPhone when I'm stuck somewhere.

[kudilu]

you didn't use your 'invite people' code? then you and they both get more space free! (unless you're already at the max you can have that way - i'm certainly not, but i only started using it recently.)

[antennapedia]

Huh, good point. I stuck a link in the post.

[kudilu]

cool. i know it's only like a quarter gig per referral, but ya know, when you do text that's a LOT

[clavally]

Is Dropbox better than Google Docs?

[antennapedia]

They are completely different products solving completely different problems. Google Docs is a document editor written in Javascript. Your Gdocs content is hosted with Google. Dropbox is a sync engine that backs up the contents of a specific folder on your file system and synchronizes changes to files in that folder across multiple machines. It does not edit your files in any way and is agnostic about their content.

That was a very nerdy but precise answer! I hope it gets the difference across.

[clavally]

Ah, yes, I see what you mean, now. I usually write fic and upload drafts to Google Docs so I can access them from either of my computers, but I run into issues with needing to access pictures or other things. Might check it out, thanks.