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A comment on Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it..

Re:Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it. by GavinB on Saturday December 13, 2008 @02:13PM (#396879)
Dropbox is awesome, miles ahead of the competition. My one complaint is that it doesn't seem to sync files unless they are closed. So when if I'm working on a manuscript for several hours, just pressing "save" doesn't back it up. I'd have to close and re-open for it to back up.

This wouldn't be an issue, but my laptop is wheezing the wheeze of imminent death.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it. by huhtenberg on Saturday December 13, 2008 @04:56PM (#396993)
If I understand it correctly the Dropbox is an application-level file-monitoring thingy. It is not a filesystem-level real-time backup software, which is something that is substantially more complex to implement.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it. by jwilliams on Saturday December 13, 2008 @07:14PM (#397096)
Could you elaborate more on this? What triggers the sync in the application-level example?
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Re:Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it. by huhtenberg on Saturday December 13, 2008 @11:45PM (#397223)
An OS notification does. The app subscribes to the directory content changes and the OS dispatches a notification (in whatever form) when the change happens.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365261.aspx for example.

Another option, of course, is a periodic explicit directory scan, but that's quite lame.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it. by sachinag on Saturday December 13, 2008 @02:39PM (#396901)
Wow - I never noticed this, but you're absolutely right. It never even occurred to me that this would be possible, but now I wants it.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Dropbox, why it rox and how I (and others) use it. by whatusername on Saturday December 13, 2008 @08:03PM (#397115)
I'm running Tivoli CDP for files to do something like that. (actually i probably sould integrate it with dropbox come to think of it). Automtic save to another spot on the HD (every time that you save a file) Automatic sync to web/USB drive when they're plugged in/connected.

Saved me a couple of times actually - definately swear by having automated and easy backups.

[ Parent | on HN ]