[Discuss] drop box software

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey)]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Adler
> 
> I'm getting a bit confused. I thought drop box was a service where one
> could upload a file, give it a password of some sort, and then you sent
> the password to someone else who could use it to grab the file.
> typically needed for large files, (multi-gigabyte) which cannot be
> e-mailed directly. After some time, the file gets deleted automatically.
> Does this drop box like systems mentioned use repository in the back
> end? I would assume it would just dump the file in some directory.

Hey - Weren't you the guy whose OP said you wanted to build your own
dropbox?  But it sounds like you don't really know what dropbox does...  So
... What is it you're trying to do?

Here's a description of dropbox:

You have a directory on your computer.  It's automatically live synced to
some space in the cloud, which means all your file usage happens on local
disk, and everything's available both while you're online and offline.  So
everything's fast and reliable, and you can use it while you're travelling.
Whenever there is a network connection available, it silently performs a
2-way sync in the background.

This has a few nice side effects...  If you have more than one computer
connected to the same account, it means those computers are always in sync
with each other.  You edit some file at work, you go home, and you continue
working.  You can throw away your USB drive.  It's faster and more reliable
than using a network file share across a WAN.  There is no need to perform
any manual operations such as "svn commit" and so on.  If your computer is
destroyed, you just join your account again, and it's all restored.  So
people tend to use it for backup purposes too...

You can share a folder with another user.  So people use it for
collaboration.  You and your sales force are working on some documents.  You
edit something, and they get it instantly...  And vice-versa.  You're both
always up to date.

Since it's all in the cloud, it's trivial for the servers to generate a URL
to access stuff.  But by default there isn't any such URL, you have to
generate it intentionally.  So if you right-click a file in your computer,
you go to Dropbox / Copy Public URL.  And then it will give you a URL you
can email to someone else.  Hence eliminating large attachments in email.

It does versioning.  It's compatible with windows & mac & linux & android &
iphone.  You probably will install the client for convenience, but you don't
need to.  You can do all your stuff via web interface if you want.
(Convenient when you're visiting somebody else's computer.)  

I think that's enough of a sales pitch for dropbox.   ;-)

There are various other competitors out there --- Box.net, sugarsync,
spideroak, and a few others.  They all have some differentiators, but very
similar to each other functionally.