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The new Dropbox

blog.dropbox.com

541–550 of 590 posts

Re: The new Dropbox

#541
post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"symlink is just a file…" A file for which you exclusively use lstat() & readlink() instead of all the other usual functions in the standard library you use for regular files. What about named pipes? Or sockets? Or whiteout? Are they too just files since they have a filename?

"Please wait: backing up /dev/urandom - 0% of NaN" (To be fair, anyone who tries to backup /dev deserves whatever they get...)

  $ echo /dev/urandom | cpio -o | xxd -a
  1 block
  00000000: 3037 3037 3037 3737 3737 3737 3030 3030  0707077777770000
  00000010: 3031 3032 3036 3636 3030 3030 3030 3030  0102066600000000
  00000020: 3030 3030 3030 3030 3031 3737 3737 3737  0000000001777777
  00000030: 3133 3436 3430 3530 3035 3730 3030 3031  1346405005700001
  00000040: 3530 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 2f64 6576  500000000000/dev
  00000050: 2f75 7261 6e64 6f6d 0030 3730 3730 3730  /urandom.0707070
  00000060: 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030  0000000000000000
  00000070: 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030  0000000000000000
  00000080: 3030 3130 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030 3030  0010000000000000
  00000090: 3030 3030 3030 3030 3133 3030 3030 3030  0000000013000000
  000000a0: 3030 3030 3054 5241 494c 4552 2121 2100  00000TRAILER!!!.
  000000b0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
  *
  000001f0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
  $ echo $?
  0

Re: The new Dropbox

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get this info from? That link says nothing about a Microsoft and Apple collaboration.

Microsoft blog: “The new iCloud for Windows app introduces a new iCloud Drive experience for Windows 10 users powered by the same Windows technology that also powers OneDrive’s Files On-Demand feature, enabling users to be more productive offline on mobile devices and quickly share files on iOS.” https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apple...

The parent poster should've made it more clear! Because the Apple Support link posted does not mention this collaboration anywhere, unlike the Microsoft blog.

Edit: I'm trying the "updated" app now. No changes appear to have been made. It is still slow and buggy as hell, it still installs a ported and outdated version of half of the frameworks of OS X, as expected.

Re: The new Dropbox

#543
I'm surprised how few people here have talked about OneDrive. It used to be rubbish, but Microsoft has finally really figured it out. My company basically has everybody just do all of their work out of their OneDrive accounts, syncing hundreds of GB per user without fuss.

The integration with their web office apps is pretty flawless, and I've worked with groups of 20 or 30 people on large projects in sharepoint and whatnot without any major fuss.

The web versions of the office tools are fairly basic, but you can seamlessly open them in the desktop equivalents and it autosaves back to the one-drive copy. Even better you can email links around to people and they can view the one-drive copy without any problem or having to send attachments all over the place.

I haven't used the personal version yet, but it's a very compelling business offering.

Re: The new Dropbox

#544
post #543

I'm surprised how few people here have talked about OneDrive. It used to be rubbish, but Microsoft has finally really figured it out. My company basically has everybody just do all of their work out of their OneDrive accounts, syncing hundreds of GB per user without fuss. The integration with their web office apps is pretty flawless, and I've worked with groups of 20 or 30 people on large projects in sharepoint and w…

They still have weird rules around file names that can break syncing and sharing entirely. Be nice if they could just handle that in the client.

Re: The new Dropbox

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the parent mentions in parentheses that the dir doesn't have to be in dropbox because it appears to monitor all files.

Sounds broken on user end. Never seen anything like this when using Dropbox on several versions of Windows and Ubuntu, on both low-end and high-end machines.

> on several versions of Windows and Ubuntu

This discussion is about performance of the macOS client. Saying that clients for other OS work well doesn't really contribute to it.

Re: The new Dropbox

#546

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

Yes, their symlink handling is absurd, and they have the usual sanctimonious defense when questioned about this. To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong. A symlink is just a file, like any other. It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cl…

I totally agree with this. Perforce gets it right for what it is worth.

Re: The new Dropbox

#547
post #498
post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong." ssh user@rsync.net ls -asl some/dir ... looking good ... "There's exactly one sync program that gets it all right: Unison, written by Benjamin Pierce" ssh user@rsync.net unison Usage: unison [options] or unison root1 root2 [options] or unison profilename [options] (Ask about the HN readers' discount)

I tried to use unison for serious production work a few years ago, and it fell short. It would fail or become incredibly slow with large (but not huge) amounts of data. A pity because the concept is great. I wonder if it has improved since.

"I wonder if it has improved since."

Unison is very interesting and it is, indeed, very special in that it solves the very specific use-case of my parent post.

However, my own opinion, and that of just about everyone who cares about backup tools is that 'borg' is the "one true way":

https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/

Re: The new Dropbox

#548
post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, their symlink handling is absurd, and they have the usual sanctimonious defense when questioned about this. To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong. A symlink is just a file, like any other. It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cl…

I totally agree with this. Perforce gets it right for what it is worth.

I'll take "sentences I never thought I'd read" for $800, Alex!

Re: The new Dropbox

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of client-side rendered pages would provide a superior user experience with server-side render. SSR is what the web was designed for after all. CSR is merely fashionable, not better.

it's not a webpage. It's an application that happens to run on browser platform. If you downloaded a regular software and the exe file was 5MB that would be considered small nowadays, yet if a web application fetches that in JS it's considered large. (sidenote: not defending the gifs they're just idiotic)

It depends what you can do with it. Downloading a full 5MB app just to be able to scroll down and show text and a few images can be seen at big. Why not use a webpage ?

Re: The new Dropbox

#550
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I self-hosted a Nextcloud installation and used 2x 4TB drives. The first is full dedicated to the Nextcloud use while the second is rsync-ed to the first every night. Then I deleted my 8 years old Dropbox account. Currently my only cloud provider is iCloud just for the photos, contacts, iwhatever backup.

I recommend Nextcloud as well. For anyone interested but without self-hosting a server, I've had great experience hooking it up with my Disroot (disroot.org) email account which offers 4gb (free) storage.

Some while back Seafile looked more promising than Nextcloud to me. Never got around to actually using either though. Not sure how things shape up now.
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