David Pogue: Dropbox Will Simplify Your Life

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/dropbox-will-simplify-your-life/?src=twr

by donohoe • 15 years ago

86 56 15 years ago

pogue.blogs.nytimes.com

rayhano• 15 years ago

Especially if you plug in a service like 300milligrams: 300.mg

It basically gives you a stream of updates so you can track what is happening across a whole host of platforms. One of the guys creating this was at YCNYC.

stumm• 15 years ago

Why is dropbox suddenly getting a slew of coverage? Did this article get written because got a big feature in Fortune? Did they just hire someone to interact with the press?

bigwally• 15 years ago

Most likely paid PR. Journalists are lazy and they already written articles.

Skillset• 15 years ago

Somehow I doubt a public relations agent on Dropbox's payroll wrote up a piece specifically from David Pogue's point of view, in the unique writing style of David Pogue, so that David Pogue could simply submit it to the New York Times, claim it as his own, and collect two paycheques.

I'm all for healthy skepticism, but not purely speculative conspiracy theories.

ugh• 15 years ago

It’s called “Journalists read the press, too”.

abbasmehdi4• 15 years ago

Dropbox is in PR heaven (and rightfully so). At this point all they have to do is execute. Congrats to Drew, Arash, Ivan and the rest of the Dropbox team. Not only is the product awesome and useful, the dudes are very smart and nice as heck!

timdorr• 15 years ago

This is them fighting back from the security PR nightmare recently. It's good to see their plan is working somewhat.

vidar2• 15 years ago

They probably paid good money for this.

abbasmehdi4• 15 years ago

You think they paid the journalist? (that is unethical). Why do you say this?

vidar2• 15 years ago

Since this offhand comment seems to hit a nerve: My thinking was that there has been a slate of pro-Dropbox stories (I am a happily paying user of their service) which looked like it was carefully choreographed by a PR firm, no doubt sparked by their fundraising.

That being said, saying that they paid him was a bit over the top and I hereby retract that theory.

rednaught3• 15 years ago

From the article...

"I realize that not everybody works on such elaborate file-shuttling projects. But try Dropbox for its ability to keep your important files everywhere at once. Or try it as an automatic, silent, encrypted backup of your essentials. Or try it so that you can get at your computer’s files from your phone."

When will Dropbox implement client-side encryption? Dropbox is a pleasure to use. Recommending Dropbox as a backup of certain documents is fine. Recommending Dropbox as a backup for important/essential documents where privacy is a concern is not ok.

gcv• 15 years ago

TrueCrypt works. The client program needs polish (and I wish it could resize on the fly), but it once it mounts an encrypted volume, that's that. Even Dropbox's incremental sync works with TrueCrypt.

rednaught3• 15 years ago

Yes it does. The problem is explaining the purpose of Truecrypt and it's use to the audience of those who read mainstream press articles such as written by Pogue. If the incorporation of encryption is not as slick as the rest of the product experience then it won't be used.

I don't mind my recipes for oatmeal cookies falling into the wrong hands. But the new junior food scientist at Coca-Cola who decided to store a copy of the secret recipe on their Dropbox folder so they can do some testing at home might be forewarned of this problem. Or for a real world example, the poster a few comments below who stores student grades on a Dropbox folder. I cringe.

AjithAntony2• 15 years ago

Dropbox is just a regular directory on disk. There is no magic. There just happens to be a process watching that directory for changes. (or not. you can always kill the dropbox process, and your files are still accessible)

Of course most users don't encrypt their local file systems in the first place, so whether dropbox has something for local security is irrelevant.

For people interested in securing files on disk the same solutions you would use without dropbox are the same ones you can use with dropbox. In a nutshell, either encrypt your whole volume or mount a file-based volume.

Personally I use a Truecrypt volume, and I placed my drop box folder inside it. I do this so I can still access all the files from the web and mobile and have the versioning. Alternatively you could place the volume's data file itself in the dropbox folder to be synced. You would of course lose the per file granularity, but you do get a "snapshot" feature since you can restore your whole volume with the versioning.

Keep in mind that if you place a trucecrypt volume inside drop box, then it will only get synced when it is unmounted.

rednaught3• 15 years ago

Truecrypt is not an option for the majority of users. You've gone from a slick user experience to one of..."Why not just keep things on my USB stick again?"

These are solved problems as evidenced by other providers like Spideroak and Wuala where encryption happens by default on the client's device.

At the very least, Dropbox can offer this as an option. With the recent funding, if they are planning to offer business plans...surely encryption will be default there at least?

dereg• 15 years ago

So, how do make that simple for the ordinary consumer?

vorfield• 15 years ago

Check out: http://www.aerofs.com/

miles_matthias2• 15 years ago

David Pogue is a great tech journalist and I don't see him taking money from Dropbox to write something positive.

I like this piece - Dropbox deserves all of the great PR it's getting. My favorite Dropbox quote is Michael Wolfe's answer to this Quora question - http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-tha...

Also, just one note to David Pogue - be careful about giving the impression that Dropbox solves "version hell." It's not a version control system - the user still has to have their own version control system, like his editor did by adding her initials to the file name.

bradleyland2• 15 years ago

Your average user (even business user) will have no idea what a "version control system" is. Only developers will and they'll recognize that Dropbox only has rudimentary versioning capabilities [1]. There's zero risk of them confusing the two.

The "version hell" issue that David Pogue describes is something that most geeks solved long ago, but is far more common. There are millions of computer users who either don't have access to a file server, or their job requires them to collaborate on file sharing tasks with users that don't have access to the same file server they do. The work flow goes something like this:

* Allison creates a Word document with an agreement in it

* Bob and Mike need to review the document, so Allison emails it to the both of them

* Bob submits his revisions first, so Allison incorporates the changes, then emails the updated copy to both Bob and Mike

* Mike had previously saved the document from his email and had started his edits

* Mike submits the "old version" of the document with revisions, but many conflict with the changes that Bob submitted

* Allison is left with the task of sorting out the differences

For use cases like this, Dropbox is like "OMG it's magic!" to regular users. There's still the issue of editing conflicts (Dropbox doesn't support simultaneous editing), but this is much easier to work around than the game of "telephone" involved with emailing documents.

The moral of the story is that as geeks it's really easy to take our toolset for granted. "Solved problems" for us are a daily headache for your average person.

1 - http://www.dropbox.com/help/11

AjithAntony2• 15 years ago

No, David was kinda right. Dropbox has built-in version tracking. Only 30days of history is saved by default. Of course there are no commit messages, but it happens any time the file is changed, and the web ui presents it in a pretty clear way for non-techy users, by timestamp and author.

I think the specific version-hell he perceives is the where any member of the team does not have the latest version. So in his case it is the auto sync that scratches that itch, and not the explicit version tracking.

As for the "editor's initials" part. I think you might have misunderstood what he meant. The editor did not make another copy with a new name, she just renamed the file, as a signal to the team that her work was complete. Alternatively she could have just communicated by some other means, and left the filename in tact, but this is what they chose.

they sell a "packrat" feature with paid subscriptions for unlimited version history

miles_matthias2• 15 years ago

Hmm interesting. Yea I knew what he meant with the initials thing, I didn't know about the timestamp/author thing in the web app. Can users download old versions?

rationalthug3• 15 years ago

I use TrueCrypt on my Dropbox volume, but it really would be nice to have an integrated solution. Many non-technical users may not realize they care about this, but they do.

rarrrrrr• 15 years ago

FYI -- SpiderOak and Wuala do meaningful encryption natively.

(I cofounded SpiderOak in 2007)

rationalthug3• 15 years ago

I'm almost ashamed to admit I'd never heard of either of these before. Will definitely check them out.

anon_d• 15 years ago

All these systems are doing it wrong. I don't want online backups, I want an infinite, encrypted, online filesystem. I should be able to mount it and treat it like any other hard disk. The local disk should just be used as a huge cache. I can't find a service that does this. Why the hell not?

ashrust• 15 years ago

Agreed. Working on multiple machines and files not friendly to g docs, makes dropbox indispensable. When I upgraded to Lion and iOS5, I didn't even think about using iCloud. iTunes integration w/ iCloud may change that but I doubt it.

jessriedel• 15 years ago

> You can also consider Dropbox a simple, automatic backup system. After all, anything that sits on multiple computers simultaneously is, by definition, backed up.

Well, it's a backup system, but the author's reasoning is wrong here, right? If you make a mistaken change to a file (like deleting it) and don't notice it before Dropbox is able to sync with your other computers, then all the copies are changed. The real backup lies on Dropbox's servers, where they store previous versions, not your computer.

lancer383• 15 years ago

Dropbox has built-in version control and undelete functionality: http://www.dropbox.com/help/11

dubya• 15 years ago

Client-side encryption or a self-hosted version could be useful. I'm pretty sure I'm violating a privacy law somewhere when I keep student grades in a Dropbox folder.

phzbOx2• 15 years ago

What amaze me is how this same problem was solved years ago by programmers.. Hell, even dropbox used svn behind the scene. I remember when Dropbox was just starting, some friends and me were talking about useless it was. "Duh, if I want to host a svn server, I'll just host mine." ;)

It's also important to look at all the competitors dropbox had and currently have.. and still, they're extremely successful. So, basically, they found a nice problem to solve and solve it. The goal there wasn't to be able to sync all possible folders.. just one little folder where anyone would put their stuff inside and that'd just work.

And, more importantly, it makes me thing about what tools we use every day that the no-techy don't know about.

In my opinion, there's really something to do with the terminal. It's such a crazy productivity boost and, if implemented correctly, might be way more intuitive. For instance, everyone knows people that are scared by all the buttons/windows/popup dialog/etc. For us, geeks, it's so easy.. we see the screen and automatically abstract everything and focus on right part; but for them, it's impossible to abstract so many new things at once.

A terminal, IA based, could make it so easy for no-geek to use a computer. Obviously, I'm not talking about BASH but something that could pretty much understand beginners commands. I.e send a email to bob.. which could guide the user through various questions.

Yeah, it's probably stupid. But hell, I'm sure they're hundreds of product as useful as Dropbox.. we just have to think about it.

bradleyland2• 15 years ago

Your idea isn't as bad as you think. You just described a text based Siri-like interface. Seems pretty popular with the masses.

starwed• 15 years ago

Mozilla labs played around with that in Ubiquity, a natural language command line interface for firefox.

https://mozillalabs.com/ubiquity

anigbrowl2• 15 years ago

Having started my computer career in the 1980s, I strongly disagree. If the command line were all that, GUIs wouldn't have have taken off like a rocket in the first place.

phzbOx2• 15 years ago

WHen you say you strongly disagree; I'd assume you mean about the command line example. My point was more about how simple tools used every day by geeks might be useful to no-techny if made simpler and more accessible.

And when I say terminal, I don't mean it in "bash" or unix prompt.. A total new way to design it with a strong focus on simplicity and AI.

mcantor• 15 years ago

I am widely regarded by friends & colleagues as an obsessive command-line junkie (often to a fault). I still love and use Dropbox regularly. I think you are incorrect that the problem was solved years ago!

Dropbox takes 5 minutes to install and start using. To start using subversion, you have to learn how to use subversion! God forbid you need a server.

Dropbox's ease of use is so spectacular that it benefits me doubly: I use it when I don't want to think about working copies and committing and svn upping (which is often), and I use it to collaborate with non-programmer friends. "Just install this and accept my shared folder invite" is kosher to any computer- and web-literate person.

jimbokun• 15 years ago

I think Siri is the "command line for the masses". Or at least the start of one.

CPlatypus• 15 years ago

This just makes me so sad. The author's work flow cries out for sharing, not syncing, perhaps augmented by some sort of notification system. This is a problem my filesystem colleagues should have solved years (decades?) ago. Arguably they did so at a technical level, but the user and administrator experiences were so horrific that people abandoned those solutions. Instead they turned to things such as Dropbox and its (too) many imitators, which put the right interface on top of the wrong solution instead of the other way around. Now there's so much storage and bandwidth wasted storing copies insecurely on services such as Dropbox, when it should be going directly between users' systems with no middle man to pay for compromising security. It's a business model that shouldn't even exist. What a waste.

zenobia• 15 years ago

Meh...As other commenters have noted, Dropbox is not for anyone who values their privacy. Your files are not secure from Dropbox staff snooping, and they'll fink you off to the flimsiest government request to paw through your stuff. I use Spideroak because they have true zero-knowledge encryption. Only the account holder has the encryption key, and they cannot get into your files. Of course this is sad for people who cannot track their passwords and always need the vendor to look out for them. And Pogue's entire workflow is goofy.

rakkhi• 15 years ago

For his usecase (multiple people editing with automatic version control) pity he didn't try Google docs which I think is better for this. No appending initials to the file to indicate review completed, full tracking of changes and indication of who did what. Office.live and few other similar services also would have been better.

samstave• 15 years ago

I would love to use google docs.

But it doesn't give complex formatting, you MUST have inet, you don't get a native directory - with asymmetrical directory structures on multiple clients, VISIO VISIO VISIO, all must have gmail... etc.etc.etc

Dropbox, for me, is the best tool I have for team collaboration.

We are an active and very early Same Page user (UX sucks ass) I've used Atlassian, Groove and other collaboration tools.

Dropbox is hands down the most efficient - because it requires ZERO THINKING on the part of ANY user.

They just edit files on their machine, shared directories between users are auto-updated.

There is NOTHING to do on any end.

If you cant figure out how to manage directory structures across your team, then you shouldn't be on a team.

tiku• 15 years ago

Wuala, so much better..

David Pogue: Dropbox Will Simplify Your Life

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