Dropbox 1.0 Finally Released 307
Zack writes "Dropbox has finally released version 1.0. The new version comes with hundreds of bug fixes, including invalid file names on Windows, weird Unicode normalizations, Word and Excel file locking, abnormal symlinks hierarchies, and case sensitive file systems on Mac. It also adds TrueCrypt support, a Rainbow Shell that offers support for extended attributes, selective sync, a new installation wizard, and reduces resource usage."
What is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither the summary nor the "article" (from which the summary appears to be lifted near-verbatim) makes any mention of what Dropbox is. Very useful, Slashdot!
And what does it do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gah! Would it kill you to let us know what the heck it does?
Let's examine the announcement: Dropbox has finally released version 1.0 (but what is it?). The new version comes with hundreds of bug fixes, including invalid file names on Windows, weird Unicode normalizations, Word and Excel file locking, abnormal symlinks hierarchies, and case sensitive file systems on Mac (yeah, but what does it do?). It also adds TrueCrypt support, a Rainbow Shell that offers support for extended attributes, selective sync, a new installation wizard, and reduces resource usage (Awesome! But what does it do?)."
Follow the link and get a great press release. Let's examine *that*:
Huge performance enhancements (but what does it do?) Better user experience (Great! Is it something I could use?) Selective Sync (Also good. Is it useful for something?) Extended Attribute Sync (Another useful feature... or something.)
Follow the link to the Dropbox website, and you find this useful summary:
Our highest quality yet! (Good on you! What's it do?) Huge performance enhancements (Wonderful. Is that important?) Better user experience (Ok, this is just a copy of the press release.)
Go to the Dropbox "about" page, and get all kinds of interesting info:
Dropbox was founded by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007, and received seed funding from Y Combinator (Academically interesting. What does it do?). Today, Dropbox is well-funded by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Amidzad (Also good. For what?). Since launching publicly in September of 2008, we've attracted millions of users and are growing rapidly (Growing is good. Do you have a purpose?). We've been featured in the New York Times and on TechCrunch, and have won awards from places like PC Magazine and CNET (Great! Publicity is good. What's it do again?).
Our passion is making a product that rocks and putting it in millions of people's hands (Again, good on you. Still looking for a description of the product...).
If you're interested in joining us, we're looking for more talented people to join the Dropbox team, so be sure to check out our jobs page (Not right now. Can you give me some info on the product?).
Going to the home page is equally enlightening. An enormous button invites me download the product, or watch a video of some sort.
Sorry guys, but I don't download something unless I at least know what the heck it's supposed to do.
Re:What is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Impenetrable (Score:5, Insightful)
I click on the link...
Oh, so are invalid file names a bug or a feature? Why would I want to lock Word and Excel files? I know what they are but I don't use them. I don't use abnormal symlinks hierarchies or a Mac either.
So I click the first link 'Dropbox' which goes to (wait for it...) "The Dropbox blog"
You get the idea. It goes on and on. How can these people talk so much and say so little?
The first link from this page: Dropbox Home. This looks promising, it goes to https://www.dropbox.com/ [dropbox.com]
Here is the text of the page:
Oh, ok. So from this I gather that it's some sort of file sync application which needed a major rearchitecture before it could be released at version 1.0.
Almost all of the viewable area of the page is taken up by a giant video play button. Well, believe it or not I actually use my computer for computing and not as a television. I also like it to be halfway secure, so I don't have any Adobe products such as Flash installed. I do know how to read and it is several times faster. I'm not watching some video made by people who can't complete the sentence "Dropbox is ...".
I still don't get it, except that it syncs files and the people who made it should probably cut back on the Red Bull and talk to someone outside the office who hasn't been making and eating their own dog food for eighty hours a week for the last year.
Re:I see your clue and raise you one (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll just pull out my Brutally Honest Dictionary, 2nd Edition here...
I'll do the same.
The OP never asked what dropbox is.
The summary sucks. Yes, it sucks. And so does the article. You know why they didn't say what it does? Because they are lazy. The entire "article" is just a reprint of the information from the dropbox site, but at least the original article links to dropbox, as opposed to the summary which links to the Techpub article. So it appears the intents of the submitter is not to give us any kind of information, but to generate page hits on Techpub.
I come to slashdot because it's a news aggregate site, and I don't feel like doing the looking and researching myself. If I end up having to do all the research myself, what's the point of coming here in the first place, other than to Troll the discussion... (I think I just answered my own question, especially looking at the tone of your posts).
Just for the record, I'm not the same AC commenting earlier.
Re:And what does it do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because most of us aren't morons who need to have a full multimedia presentation with cartoons and pretty animations in order to just learn what a product and/or a service does. In this particular case a single sentence would do just nicely: dropbox is an online file repository that also provides a software program that automatically keep files in sync in multiple computers. Nothing more, nothing less.
Re:What is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the age of google. Try not to hurt yourself.
http://www.google.ca/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=dropbox [google.ca]
No. Simply, no. At least I make the decision to find out more about it (with Google) or not based on what information the writer cares to give to me immediately. If he doesn't care enough about it to even try to get me interested by just telling what it is, I'm not going to waste my time on it either. It can't be anything very interesting.
Re:It's cloud marketing bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
While I'm just as allergic to using the term "Cloud" for everything as most IT-professionals, in this case it's running on Amazon's S3 service. That qualifies as "cloudbased" to me.
As for the FTP, CVS etc.: you're right ofcourse, it all exists in one form or another. However, it's the same in the same sense as the Apple iPhone 4 being just a processor, some RAM, and a miniature radio. Cobbled together, ofcourse.
The point is: the sum of the parts is very much better than all of the parts taken separately. I was reluctant to install yet ANOTHER app but after installing this one I was pretty much hooked on it. It fullfills a pretty specific purpose and does that quite well.