Posts Tagged
dropbox
As many of the Mac AppStorm writers will tell you, backup is important! It is the single thing that is protecting you from massive data loss, hours of frustration and lots of hair pulling.
With the advent of Leopard, Apple released a built-in backup utility that makes backup a breeze, called Time Machine. However, Time Machine was developed for local use only. It will backup to a Firewire or USB hard drive plugged directly into your computer as well as a Time Capsule device on your local Wifi network. While that is a very good thing, natural disasters do occur, as does theft and simple hard drive failure that can put your backup at risk. What if you could use Time Machine to backup to the cloud?
Dropbox is a service that we all know and love. This amazing product has made a huge splash in the app industry and has gone far beyond a simple backup service and become a way for us to all share files and keep data synced between devices.
Recently, the Dropbox team updated their terms of service and in doing do caught the attention of several tech blogs and users. Rumors began circulating wide and far that the company had stepped over the line as far as file usage rights. We were sick of rumors and went straight to the source and asked some people at Dropbox what was going on. We gave them an opportunity to give us three reasons we should still trust them with our data. Below we’ll share with you what they said.
In my mind, data is holds an equal level of importance to my physical possessions. In a recent post, we covered a perfect backup strategy for your Mac. In that, we discussed two off-site options: Dropbox and CrashPlan.
Today I’m going to take a closer look at some other options for off-site and online backup, to give you a full spectrum of solutions to choose from.
Here at AppStorm, we’re huge fans of Dropbox. It’s fast, incredibly useful, and extremely easy to use. How can you go wrong with it?
That said, there are always ways to improve an app – and DropIn aims to do just that. Add some extra functionality to Dropbox in order to make your life even easier. You can get notified of changes made to your files, and quickly upload files by dropping them in the menu bar icon.
Is DropIn an incredible boost to an already awesome app, or just another unnecessary extension? Read on to find out.
Much has been speculated over the idea of Apple creating a competing service to Dropbox – either under the MobileMe/iDisk banner, or through a completely new service. Some people think it would be great for competition, and others think that Dropbox already has the market sewn up.
I’d hazard a guess that the majority of AppStorm readers are Dropbox users in some form or another (if not, you should be!) It’s hands down one of the most useful applications I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.
Will Apple launch a competing service? My hunch is no – at least not directly. There’s little reason for them to create a like-for-like competitor that allows storage of all your files in the cloud.
There is, however, a good opportunity for them to create a better sync platform, so that developers don’t feel the need to use Dropbox as a central storage location for syncing between multiple Macs/iOS devices. This would be much better handled by the OS, and it’s an area where I’d love to see some innovation from Apple.
What do you think? Have your say in the comments, and let me know whether you think Apple has a plan to get into this market!
If you’re into social networking, you will know the importance of sharing content with others. Sharing content helps you gain a loyal following and engage people in conversations. Even during the course of a pretty uneventful day, there might be quiet a few things in our mind to share with our friends and followers. Often these thoughts are fleeting, and some things might go unshared.
What we need is an app that can help us consolidate the items we want to share with our social network. Social Clipboard is a Mac desktop application that allows you to copy any text, picture or screenshot and share it via social networks (or upload it to Dropbox for later access).
Let’s see how it stacks up!
Dropbox is one of those tools that spends most of its time sitting in the background, and yet has become an essential app for users on just about every platform. Dropbox as cloud storage, as a syncing solution, and even as a way to host a website is an incredibly useful tool.
That utility isn’t lost on app developers. Software that works with Dropbox is springing up everywhere — sometimes as a built-in function, and other times as a user hack. Either way, it makes life among many gadgets easier to have certain files accessible anywhere, anytime.
Here are some apps that you can start using to take advantage of cloud storage even more.
In the mobile, digital world in which we live, it is more important than ever to have your data, calendar appointments, contacts, notes, and to do lists up-to-date, no matter where you are or what device you are using.
In a perfect world (for me, anyway), all of the software I use would stay synced with MobileMe (and MobileMe would be free!). Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and different software developers provide different services and methods for keeping the desktop and mobile versions of their apps in sync.
So what are the options, and which one is best?
One of my all-time favorite keyboard shortcuts (right behind the 1Password Auto-Fill command) is OS X’s capture screen commands. Anywhere and anytime, you can press Command + Shift + 3 to capture the entire screen. Alternately, you can press Command + Shift + 4 and the mouse turns into a crosshair. You can then drag a box around what you need to capture.
Afterwards, you’ll have an ugly-titled .png file, sitting on your desktop. Mac OS X titles them with a date and time. This means, before I dare send it to anyone, I have to change the title. Today we’re going to be taking a look at GrabBox, a simple utility that makes the process of naming and sharing screenshots very simple, integrating with everyone’s favourite web app, Dropbox!
I remember five years ago when I got my first Mac. Soon after, I had a .Mac account (the old version of MobileMe) in hopes I’d be able to enjoy some of the features of cloud storage and syncing.
Fast forward into today’s culture. Cloud storage is even easier to acquire (even for us Mac users) and syncing online has become an omnipresent feature with services like Dropbox. Today, I wanted to take a look at why people have moved away from MobileMe and give a few possible alternative solutions to avoid paying $99 a year.
