Tag Archives: dropbox

Dropbox’s Next Chapter: Corporate Customers, IPO, Condi Rice, and Eddie Vedder

Posted on by

Many corporations altogether forbid the use of Dropbox (including Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg Businessweek). Security software maker Symantec (SYMC) posts online instructions on how clients can block Dropbox, while Citrix (CTXS), which provides a competing product, found Dropbox to be one of the most blacklisted applications by companies in a 2012 report. Even businesses that use Dropbox often do so with caution. “It’s extremely convenient to share marketing materials,” says Markus Ament, chief product officer of Taulia, a five-year old cloud-computing startup. “We try to avoid using Dropbox for sensitive data. Right now, we’re not taking any chances.”

via Dropbox’s Next Chapter: Corporate Customers, IPO, Condi Rice, and Eddie Vedder – Businessweek.

Dropbox Offers a Way to Free Data from Mobile Apps with New Sync API Feature for Developers

Posted on by

He found in a recent survey that Apple and Dropbox are the two cloud services most used by U.S. consumers, with 27 percent and 17 percent of just over 2,000 respondents, respectively. Allowing people to control their content across devices from different companies provides one way for Dropbox to stand out, he says.

via Dropbox Offers a Way to Free Data from Mobile Apps with New Sync API Feature for Developers | MIT Technology Review.

BitTorrent Launches Private and Secure Dropbox Alternative

Posted on by

Just ask Twitter and Facebook, two major technology companies that rely on BitTorrent technology to distribute files across their networks.

via BitTorrent Launches Private and Secure Dropbox Alternative | TorrentFreak.

I didn’t know that about facebook and twitter.  Bittorrent is a very useful protocol for certain use cases and I’m surprised other cloud storage providers haven’t adopted it yet.

10+ Best Apps For Your Dropbox

Posted on by

It’s possible to sync Google Docs to Dropbox, automatically send Gmail attachments to Dropbox, play music in a browser from your Dropbox music files, encrypt your Dropbox, easily host a website or blog in Dropbox, collect URLs and web clippings to Dropbox and to automate file syncs between all of your social networks and Dropbox. You can even view all of your Dropbox files alongside your Google Docs, Box files and FTP files in the one web interface. If you want to know the best apps to do all of these things, then read on.

via 10+ Best Apps For Your Dropbox.

Here‘s another top 12 list.

I thought DropBoxFiler has potential in that it makes using the cloud transparent to the user.  I’m not sure how well it works in practice however and this seems rather trivial to implement on a nix box.  So far no Dropbox apps stand out as having much value added over the standard Dropbox UI.

So how does it work? Well, Dropboxifier simply fools applications into reading and writing directly from Dropbox! Saved games and profile data can be placed in Dropbox, a symbolic link put in its place (which is kind of like a shortcut at the file system level), and applications/games won’t even notice – they will read and write directly to your Dropbox folder.

Dropbox – What is LAN sync?

Posted on by

Well, when you add a file to your computer’s Dropbox, the file is then synced with Dropbox servers. Dropbox will then initiate the syncing process as soon as it determines a change has been made to the file. All linked computers and shared folders will then download any new version of the file. With LAN syncing, Dropbox will look for the new file on your Local Area Network first, bypassing the need to download the file from Dropbox servers, thus speeding up the syncing process considerably.

via Dropbox – What is LAN sync? – Simplify your life.

I’m not quite sure if this is a good idea.

From: http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/viewAlert.x?alertId=23896

When synchronizing user data and communicating with the host service, a Dropbox client normally uses TCP port 443.  In addition, the application may also use UDP and TCP port 17500 for communication via the Dropbox LanSync Protocol.

And…

Administrators are advised to implement an intrusion prevention system (IPS) or intrusion detection system (IDS) to help detect and prevent attacks that could detect the presence of Dropbox in a network.

Cloud storage: a pricing and feature guide for consumers

Posted on by

Cloud storage services are cropping up left and right, all enticing their customers with a few gigabytes of storage that sync seemingly anywhere, with any device. We’ve collected some details on the most popular services, including Google Drive, to compare them.

via Cloud storage: a pricing and feature guide for consumers | Ars Technica.

I don’t normally post images here but this chart makes for a quick reference.  The linked to article has much more details and worth a read.

What intrigued me about this is the max file size.  This is probably set to keep people from building their own file containers (i.e. tar, zip, etc.) — which is what I hoped to do.  Dropbox allows for a max file size of 300MB, ICloud 25MB.    By building your own file containers gives you more local control over security of said files by allowing you to use your own encryption.  300MB seems suitable for even rather large databases.  Apps will have to be more frugal with a 25MB limit.  I need to start using my Dropbox account.  Will report more on this later.

Share your stuff with a link!

Posted on by

We’re super excited to announce a whole new way to share: now you can send a link to the files or folders in your Dropbox!

Sharing with friends and family is easy! Once you’ve saved that video of your niece’s birthday party to Dropbox, just make a link to send to grandma and she can simply watch online — no download required! This saves you the hassle of having to re-upload or attach it to an email.

via The Dropbox Blog » Blog Archive » Share your stuff with a link!.

Who’s the real “Dropbox of the enterprise”?

Posted on by

Who’s the real “Dropbox of the enterprise”?.

Dropbox relies on Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) for data storage, which spreads files across multiple data centers throughout the United States. While Dropbox encrypts these files, the encryption process occurs only *after* they have been uploaded. For some companies, this approach may not be good enough, which is why enterprise and business competitors such as Accellion have made a point of offering “seamless client-side encryption of files before they are sent.” SpiderOak, which Ars examined earlier this month, is another example of a Dropbox competitor with client-side encryption.

Dropbox: LAN sync protocol

Posted on by

If all the dropbox clients have LAN sync enabled, then each of them should be able to understand and respond to the Discovery packet (assuming it’s able to distinguish between different user accounts. I believe it uses namespaces to identify them uniquely). This response packet called DB LAN sync(DB-LSP) is a TCP packet where the dropbox clients exchange data.

via Dropbox: LAN sync protocol – GeekLogs.