Macworld Forums: Dropbox 1.0.10 - Macworld Forums

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A question: what are the pros and cons of having the Dropbox folder at the root level of the Home folder? Mine is at present at the root level. If there are serious downsides to it, I would like to manually move it to, maybe, the Documents folder. But it seems to be working all right as it is, hence the question.

After a couple years of struggling with iDisk, I finally got Dropbox. When I got my Macbook Air, it simply became too inconvenient to manually update my 1Password files. iDisk is IMPOSSIBLE to sync 1P with, so I go Dropbox. It was so speedy, I ended up also putting all my course files (I teach several online classes) for access anywhere. I've recommended it to fellow instructors and gotten some extra free space as a result!

If and when iDisk ever comes up to this level of quality, I'll go back, but for now, iDisk is only being used as a place for Backup.app to store data.

I love dropbox. I use the free account though, 2BG is plenty, plus I have iDisc as well with my MobileMe. If any one signs up use the referral link and help me get more space. http://goo.gl/vxCLl I know shameless right. Hey I am up to 4 1/2 gb of free storage!!

You're right. Dropbox is as close to perfect as a app to get. I have trouble imagining life without it.

But it does have one frustrating deficiency for many of us. It apparently doesn't work quite right with OS X packages, which means it can't be used to synch projects created by that wonderful writer's tool, Scrivener. There's an extensive discussion of the problem here:

http://www.literatur....php?f=2&t=5295

Dropbox is so popular with Scrivener users, the 2.0 version was designed to work around the problem by synching with Dropbox-shared text files created in other apps. But there also seems to be some uncertainty as to why two can't be friends. Dropbox claimed that the problem lay with Mac metadata (now fixed) but Scrivener's support person says:

"This Dropbox report is in error. Scrivener uses no such hidden meta-data files, in fact it couldn't. The format is perfectly 1:1 compatible with the Windows version, which is completely oblivious to Mac meta-data."

I know Scrivener is popular at MacWorld. Perhaps someone there would like to play Geek Detective and track down just what the problem is and what could be done to fix it or work around it.

Dropbox truly is one of those amazing must install apps when you get a new mac. It's along the lines of quicksilver for me, I download as soon as I get a new computer. I love that you can have access to synced files on all of your machines. At work I just go to dropbox.com and have access to everything through their website. You can upload/download from the website without even having the dropbox folder installed on your machine. They're also very generous offering up to 8gb of space for free.

This post has been edited by cpoff: 15 February 2011 - 07:12 PM

I'm not really interested in storing my files in the cloud, however I WOULD like to be able to sync all my files on my Macs over my home network. I'd love to see Macworld do a review of apps that perform that function only.

Macnutjohn, on 24 December 2010 - 10:40 AM, said:

I'm not sure if you misunderstand how Dropbox works or if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here, but your files are all stored locally on each machine with a Dropbox account. They are copied via the cloud, and copies of those files remain in the cloud to sync to any computers not connected to the internet when new files are saved (and to provide backups to restore in case of problems), but the files you use and work with will all be on your machine itself.

Every year, for some reason, I feel I simply HAVE to renew my .me account. Not anymore. I pay $99 for .me and whenever I try to share files (my photos) with clients, something always goes wrong and makes me look like an idiot. I've been using Dropbox for almost a year now and it's everything .me promised me but, never delivered.

Dropbox is noticeable faster and 100% reliable (thus far). I've reached the point where it's a part of my Aperture>Photoshop>Dropbox workflow. If Dropbox was part of .me it'd be a killer combo (er, maybe not, Apple would screw it up). However, this year I am ponying up for Dropbox. Steve keeps hinting that .me is going to get better but, after 3 years and around $300 waiting for that to happen, I get the feeling he's in no hurry.

Dropbox is a true no-brainer for me.

How does Dropbox compare to SugarSync?
Has anyone used both to compare how well they work?

Great article, and Merry Christmas! You also forgot to mention another "feature" that is very important to me. Whenever I hear that a great program is FREE my spider sense immediately starts tingling. Unlike crowds like Google or EverNote etc. which are also free, Dropbox does NOT make a living by data-mining everything you store on their website and selling information about you to the spammers. They offer a very generous 2GB of storage simply as an enticement to get you to sign up for a higer level of service.
The only other comment I have is that I've tried to synchronize things like my Safari bookmarks and iTunes configuration stuff across my computers and have encountered some difficulty. These programs often require files stored in specific locations (not in the Dropbox folder) and some high-level creativity involving both hard and soft unix links is required. Said differently, some programs need to be rewritten to allow synchronization between computers, and companies like Apple aren't about to do that!

This post has been edited by MickM: 25 December 2010 - 05:32 AM

Fantastic service. My only complaint is that they don't offer a 25GB storage option for $50/year. Two GB was too little for me but 50GB at $100/year was more storage than I needed and I wasn't willing to pay $100/year for storage I'd never use.

Nice review. Could have include a little bit on the Dropbox for teams, a new service to share a common space for multi-users.

bebopredux, on 24 December 2010 - 12:31 PM, said:

I feel your pain a bit, tho’ I’m sticking with MM. It does suit my needs as I need a bit more than file sharing. I’ll admit, respectfully, that you are a bit nuts for paying a Franklin for MM - there’s always about a dozen sellers or so on eBay hawking MM single packs for $50-$60, with Family Packs (which is my choice) for $65-90 - all with free shipping. Buy.com and Amazon’s always got deals going on MM. Full price for MM is the wrong price to pay!