Dropbox hits 1.0

http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=581

by mattyb • 16 years ago

262 71 16 years ago

blog.dropbox.com

jaxn2• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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.

jolan3• 16 years ago

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.

icandoitbetter• 16 years ago

Arbitrary from the software developer's point of view, perhaps. But don't forget that *.0s have a clear marketing value.

Hexstream2• 16 years ago

"But don't forget that *.0s have a clear marketing value."

If everyone starts doing "version marketing", this marketing value will likely eventually erode.

newman314• 16 years ago

Well, hopefully they fixed the infinitely growing cache under 0.7. I have had to shut down Dropbox once a month to clear out the cache (which supposedly would autoclean but never did).

Having to lose 60GB to cache for a 5GB dropbox folder is pretty insane.

nhebb• 16 years ago

I think this points out how arbitrary software versioning is.

I knew of one company that released their products as v3.0 solely for marketing reasons. I wouldn't stoop to that level, but I have realized that by adding new features as minor version releases, I've lost money that I could have made by rolling them into a #.0 release and charging upgrade fees.

RK2• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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

RK2• 16 years ago

I should have looked there...

Linux x86_64: http://dl-web.dropbox.com/u/17/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-1.0.10.tar...

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

AdamGibbins3• 16 years ago

Appears to be no released debs yet :(

silas• 16 years ago

1. Quit Dropbox

2. rm -fr ~/.dropbox-dist

3. Start Dropbox

jolan3• 16 years ago

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

there• 16 years ago

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

rimantas• 16 years ago

I guess that would scare some and annoy some more.

davidu• 16 years ago

This is one app that I prefer doesn't auto-update.

For most people it already works great, why rock the boat?

For others, let them control the updates... These are our files, after all!

muppetman• 16 years ago

The windows version seems to auto-update now. My 1.0.6 has auto updated to 1.0.10

I guess auto-updated was introduced in the betas?

As for my linux ones, don't know. I can't figure out how to get the version string from them.

auxbuss• 16 years ago

On Linux, hovering the mouse over the icon displays the version. It's also greyed-out on the Prefs/General page.

I grab debs directly from their repo, but it's still on 0.7.110. Not that it matters for me.

nreece• 16 years ago

Yes. it auto-updates. http://www.dropbox.com/help/13

rmorrison• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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)

hinting• 16 years ago

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

AdamGibbins3• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

"64KB ought to be enough for everyone"

jonnii• 16 years ago

Photos, Music, Video. It all adds up.

Oh and my .vimrc is about 3gb now too.

ivankirigin3• 16 years ago

I sync everything in my system with Dropbox using symlinks. It is really easy to get into the hundreds of GBs when you do that. In the future, Dropbox should make it easier to sync your large data stores.

Ohh, and S3 is way to focuses on utility storage for businesses to be used well for consumers.

portman• 16 years ago

I have 160GB of photos, 100GB of music, 120GB of video, and 2TB of recorded TV.

stoney• 16 years ago

JungleDisk might do what you are looking for (not that I know what it is that you are looking for!)

http://www.jungledisk.com/

ivankirigin3• 16 years ago

There is a lot of upcoming work on pricing and plans.

chadaustin• 16 years ago

Rainbow Shell edition! http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Rainbow_Shell.html

limmeau• 16 years ago

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

pilif• 16 years ago

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 :-)

ktf• 16 years ago

If you're curious and want to try it out on a modern system, there's an excellent DS version: http://www.amazon.com/Chrono-Trigger-Nintendo-DS/dp/B001E27D...

One of the greatest RPGs of all time, in my opinion.

MikeCapone2• 16 years ago

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!

marklabedz2• 16 years ago

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

Raphael• 16 years ago

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

MikeCapone2• 16 years ago

I needed Reader because a bank uses a form that can only be submitted online via some weird Reader PDF feature. Believe me, I don't use it for anything else.

netcan• 16 years ago

I hope 2.0 is dropbox for your house.

MrJagil• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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).

mike-cardwell• 16 years ago

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

bmelton• 16 years ago

That's a very good question, since I've been running a TrueCrypted dropbox for quite a while now, with no problems.

eli2• 16 years ago

Maybe they're doing something to minimize the amount of data that needs to be transferred when a file inside a TC image is changed.

ajdecon• 16 years ago

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.

nivertech2• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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.

nivertech2• 16 years ago

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.

aristidb• 16 years ago

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.

leif2• 16 years ago

Linux version auto-updates, force it like this:

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

jkaufman• 16 years ago

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.

u489983• 16 years ago

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.

eli2• 16 years ago

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?)

u489983• 16 years ago

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?

lelele• 16 years ago

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

Dropbox hits 1.0

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