
Dropbox hits 1.0 - mattyb
http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=581
======
jaxn
I think this points out how arbitrary software versioning is. If you ask me,
Dropbox is way past a "1.0" release. In honesty, this sounds more like a "Snow
Leopard" than a "Cheetah". (meaning that it is under the hood performance
tweaks, not features that most people will understand or appreciate).

~~~
andrewjshults
Isn't this the first non-beta build to have selective sync? Beyond selective
sync, the last big upgrade I remember was in the .7 version (iirc) that added
LAN sync. I think for most users, the key features have been in the earliest
builds. It's great to see a focus on speed and stability over adding new shiny
toys.

~~~
jolan
Selective sync is huge and was the last big hurdle between me paying for
Dropbox.

My machines have different storage sizes and yes I do want to sync my 65GB of
MP3s between some of them -- but not all.

~~~
Hexstream
I never understood this sort of overblown digital hoarding attitude. Can you
shed some light?

~~~
jolan
Shed some light on the fact that I like music and listen to it while working?

What is an appropriate amount of music in your mind?

~~~
jaxn
Music lives in the cloud too.

I have several well-defined Pandora stations. I listen to some other sources
as well (WWOZ, bassdrive.com, etc).

I used to argue for hosting my own email, now I don't even "host" my own
music.

~~~
sid0
You're presuming an awful lot of things here.

* that one has a _stable_ high-speed Internet connection.

* that one lives in a country where Pandora and other such services work.

* that the music one listens to can actually be found on Pandora and friends.

* for radio stations, that one likes or is ambivalent to not being in full control of the music one listens to.

* that one likes the web interface these services provide. I don't use a web interface for my e-mail, and I prefer foobar2000 for my music.

I have 40 GB of music (none of which is lossless, so there's a lot of it), a
lot of which is relatively obscure (e.g. fewer than 500,000 plays for the
artist on last.fm), and I don't see myself getting rid of any of it any time
soon.

------
mike-cardwell
I find it interesting that they specifically mention "TrueCrypt support". What
does this support entail?

~~~
ajdecon
Older versions of Dropbox had to re-sync the entire file if a TrueCrypt volume
changed. The newer version can sync only the changes... at least, my 500 MB
volume now syncs very quickly.

------
jolan
Is there no auto-update? I'd prefer not to have to manually update 6 computers
with me being lazy and all.

~~~
there
they should make the new installer magically appear in everyone's dropbox.

~~~
rimantas
I guess that would scare some and annoy some more.

~~~
ivankirigin
The process is extremely heavily tested to make sure it just works.

------
chadaustin
Rainbow Shell edition!
<http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Rainbow_Shell.html>

~~~
limmeau
A late-90s playstation role-playing game I've never heard of. I like it when
codenames trigger a Wikipedia binge.

~~~
pilif
actually, Chrono Trigger was released for the Super Nintendo. Later they did a
more or less 1:1 conversion for the Playstation that added some additional
movie sequences (and long loading times).

The game is beautifully done. I'd say that I'm a huge fanboy, even to the
effect that most of the servers I'm maintaining are named after some parts and
characters of the game :-)

------
rmorrison
It's great to see Selective Sync in there! The only other big feature I'd like
to see is an easy way to host several Dropboxes on one computer!

~~~
SimonPStevens
I'd love to see multiple dropboxes, but this would allow people to just host
multiple accounts to gain as much space as needed so I can see why they don't
do it.

(Unless they made it a paid only feature I suppose)

------
RK
Is the Linux version up yet? I couldn't find it on dropbox.com (even though
the button says 1.0.10) or by updating my repo.

~~~
Femur
The new version was not properly linked from the blog post. I had to grab it
from the forum.

~~~
RK
I should have looked there...

Linux x86_64: [http://dl-web.dropbox.com/u/17/dropbox-
lnx.x86_64-1.0.10.tar...](http://dl-web.dropbox.com/u/17/dropbox-
lnx.x86_64-1.0.10.tar.gz)

Linux x86: <http://dl-web.dropbox.com/u/17/dropbox-lnx.x86-1.0.10.tar.gz>

------
MikeCapone
I'm always happy to hear about software getting faster and smaller rather than
more bloated and buggy (I had to install Adobe Reader 9.x on my girlfriend's
dell Vitsa laptop and I swear it took longer to install than a clean windows
installation). Kudos to the Dropbox team!

~~~
marklabedz
There are several smaller, lighter, faster PDF viewers. I switched to Foxit
Reader for this exact reason.

~~~
Raphael
And for some, Foxit is too crufty, so they opt for Sumatra, or now use Google
Chrome.

~~~
marklabedz
Indeed. Competition in the PDF viewer space (not to mention browser) is a
wonderful thing.

------
aristidb
They say "Download 1.0.10 for Linux" on the Homepage, and all you get are way
outdated packages.

If you don't have 1.0.10 for Linux ready for public consumption, don't
advertise it. If it is ready for public consumption, don't hide the download
in a forum posting.

~~~
leif
Linux version auto-updates, force it like this:

    
    
        $ dropbox stop
        $ rm -rf ~/.dropbox-dist
        $ dropbox start -i

------
nivertech
I have a dual boot machine Ubuntu/Windows. Dropbox installed on both OSes. The
problem "My Dropbox" folder is duplicated for each OS and takes twice as much
disk space.

How can this be solved?

~~~
brown9-2
Meaning you have Dropbox setup on both operating systems and you don't like
that the contents of the folder appear twice on your hard drive (on the linux
partition and on the Windows one)?

This is pretty much how Dropbox is intended to use so it might be hard to
avoid. You can look into selective sync to choose which files get shared to
which computers.

~~~
nivertech
yes, I can mount my Windows partition on Ubuntu, but I'm not sure Dropbox
folder on Ubuntu can be moved to overlay exactly Windows Dropbox ...

Something to think about it for next version of Dropbox.

~~~
pronoiac
You should try making ~/Dropbox a symbolic link to the Windows Dropbox
directory -

ln -s [path to windows directory] ~/Dropbox

------
hinting
Are larger accounts coming anytime soon? I'd kill for 250gb.

~~~
AdamGibbins
You can think of 250GB to store in a Dropbox? If its backups, surely S3 etc
would be better suited?

Not that I object to them providing bigger - I certain see no harm for them to
do so.

~~~
simonw
"64KB ought to be enough for everyone"

~~~
alwillis
The actual number for that quote is 640KB, not 64KB—but I get what you were
trying to say.

~~~
AdamGibbins
There is no quote, its a rumor - according to Gates anyhow. He claims he never
said that.

------
MrJagil
I have always been wondering why Dropbox needs to have so many threads going
on in OS X. Does anyone have an explanation, and does it actually stress the
system in any way?

(they just bumped the thread count from 16 to 18 for me in 1.0)

~~~
jonburs
Does it matter if those threads are waiting on various IO objects? Some are
likely waiting for file system notifications (e.g., you modified something in
your dropbox folder on your mac); others network notifications (modifications
on other linked machines). Idle threads maybe consume at worse 1MB of address
space (for their stack).

------
jkaufman
Still no way to set read/write permissions on a user-by-user basis? Makes it
difficult to manage my less tech-saavy sales reps when they are always editing
and moving files around.

------
lelele
Mmh, Dropbox may be at 1.0, but their site makes me download nautilus-
dropbox-0.6.7.tar.bz2. Confusing.

------
netcan
I hope 2.0 is dropbox for your house.

------
u48998
One thing I'd hope Dropbox does well is not get stuck with syncing when a
program is running. I had my evernote database file in dropbox folder but it
wouldn't syc if evernote is on. It wouldn't sync if I keep my pwsafe on. I now
wonder how is it going to handle if I selectively sync Firefox bookmarks. I
have to shut down these programs in order for dropbox to sync, which makes no
sense.

~~~
eli
It might be the fault of those programs. Depending on how they have the file
locked, it may be impossible to Dropbox to read it (not to mention potentially
dangerous -- how'd you like your Evernote DB to be sync'd mid-way through a
save?)

~~~
u48998
You're right, but evernote auto saves and so does the password safe. I'm not
technical but there should be an easy way. Let's just look at this scenario of
backing up bookmarks in Firefox. Assuming that Dropbox would react the same
way as it currently does, if I were to selectively sync only my bookmarks and
if my Firefox is always ON, than how is it going to help me if my dropbox is
always stuck in the limbo while I'm browsing the net?

~~~
jodrellblank
_I'm not technical but there should be an easy way._

In what sense are you using the word 'should'?

Technically, if FireFox or Evernote holds it's files "open" or "in use" then
it doesn't make sense for other programs to try to use them or to act as if
they are going to be in any predictable state.

If you mean should in the sense that the computer industry should have solved
this problem, then it is solved for some classes of program - always on
database servers still need backups, so you instruct them to put the database
in a consistent state, take a copy, and then instruct them to carry on.
Previously, you would shut them down, take a backup, then restart them.

But to use that solution, both the database and the backup system have to be
extended to support this, and to have it on a normal user system, every
program would have to have a way to accept that kind of instruction from
outside, and things like Evernote and FireFox haven't been designed with that
in mind.

There could have been an easy way, except there wasn't one built in
historically and now it's not easy to add one, so there isn't an easy way and
wont be in the near future, even though it would be nice if there was. Your
best hope is a FireFox plugin and an Evernote update if enough people ask
them.

~~~
u48998
That makes sense. I guess Windows was not meant to be on the cloud and I'm
asking it to do too much.

