Posts tagged with "dropbox"

Sync Documents From iCloud to Dropbox→

Sync Documents From iCloud to Dropbox

TJ Luoma at TUAW has written the post I was going to save for the weekend: a simple way to sync documents from iCloud to Dropbox using Hazel on the Mac (our review of Hazel 3.0). Because a number of apps – text editors in particular – have started to offer a second option to sync documents with iCloud, and because iCloud, unlike Dropbox, doesn’t offer document versioning, finding a way to keep files in sync from iCloud to Dropbox might be a workflow worth considering.

The good news is that you can sync iCloud to Dropbox. The bad news is that it’s a one-way sync from iCloud to Dropbox. But if all you want to do is backup iCloud files and be able to retrieve previous versions from Dropbox, it’s pretty simple to do.

Aside from text files, the Mobile Documents folder used by iCloud can be configured on the Mac to do all sorts of crazy automated tasks when combined with the right apps. For example, you can use it with GoodReader and find the same documents on the Mac, in spite of the lack of a GoodReader app for Mac.

Check out TJ Luoma’s guide here.

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QuickShot 1.7: Back in Action With Better Dropbox Integration

QuickShot 1.7 is not just a maintenance release, but a big update if we look at the changes made to the back end. QuickShot, which instantly saves photos to Dropbox, fixes many of the bugs that were present in the earlier version (1.6.3). The bigger story here, however, is the switch to the new Dropbox SDK. Aside from a big performance boost (apps updated to use the new Dropbox SDK use less system resources in the background), the biggest new feature is a single-sign-on system.

With current Twitter apps, you only need to sign into your Twitter accounts via the Settings app in iOS. Twitter apps will look for those accounts and request access so you don’t have to sign in each time. Dropbox now works similarly; With the Dropbox app installed on your iPhone or iPad, simply logging into their app provides access for other apps using the new SDK. This of course makes logging into and using Dropbox much easier — you’re simply redirected to the Dropbox app and asked whether you’d like to accept or cancel the app link. The feature is pretty cool and it’s the first time I’ve seen Dropbox authentication like this in an iOS app.

With QuickShot, you can easily upload photographs to a Dropbox shared folder to quickly share images and videos for events, parties, and get-togethers. We think it’s a splendid little camera app, and you can give QuickShot a try for only $0.99 on the App Store.

LogMeIn Ignition Adds Direct Integration with Dropbox, Google Docs, WebDAV Servers

In the past months LogMeIn, makers of the Ignition app for iOS, have released a series of updates to enhance Lion compatibility on the desktop and improve the file sharing capabilities of the iOS client, which, as we detailed in our various reviews, is a great way to remotely access computers (Macs and PCs) over the air. LogMeIn Ignition isn’t the cheapest app on the App Store, but its rich set of features and support from LogMeIn (a company that, among other things, also produces a free VPN tool for OS X) make it a worthwhile purchase for those looking for a complete solution to control a computer’s screen and access to its files.

The latest version of Ignition, released today, adds a single, yet important feature called Cloud Bank that brings direct integration with Dropbox, Google Docs and any WebDAV server to the iOS app. LogMeIn Ignition was already capable of moving files between computers and iOS’ local document manager with an intuitive drag & drop menu and copy/move functionalities; nowadays, however, users are more likely to keep their documents in the cloud, rather than physically stored on a computer’s drive, and LogMeIn’s move towards integration with cloud-connected services is certainly welcome as a way to get files from the cloud and onto a computer remotely.

My Cloud Bank allows LogMeIn Ignition users the ability to take full advantage of being remote by connecting them to their files no matter where they are. We’ve extended the functionality of our File Manager feature and given users the benefit of using cloud storage services in conjunction with remote access and local file storage on their devices.

Think of Ignition as a bridge between the cloud and a remote computer. With Cloud Bank, Dropbox and Google Docs are easily accessible through Ignition’s usual interface, with the same copy menu from computer-based remote connections. You’ll be able to move files between Dropbox and a computer you’re remotely connected to, or get a spreadsheet from your Google Docs account into a computer without, say, giving the person that’s using the remote machine access to your Google credentials. With WebDAV support, users will be able to configure services like DropDAV, which turns Dropbox into a WebDAV server and works out of the box with apps like Pages and Keynote.

I look forward to seeing whether LogMeIn will ever consider adding support for iCloud files, as that seems the most logical step to seamlessly fetch an iOS user’s cloud documents. In my tests, Cloud Bank has been extremely reliable in dealing with large Dropbox transfers from the cloud to a computer I was remotely connected to via 3G.

LogMeIn Ignition is available at $29.99 on the App Store.

JotAgent 2: Quickly Save Notes In Dropbox or Evernote

Last year, I reviewed JotAgent, a quick and easy way to save notes in your Dropbox account with a few taps. JotAgent 2, released earlier this week, improves on every aspect of the original app, adding support for Evernote and a refreshed user interface both on the iPhone and iPad. Just like the first JotAgent, you can configure the app to save text notes in your Dropbox account (you can pick your own folder for notes); in this version, you can also log in with your Evernote credentials, and select a notebook where new notes will be saved. If you configure both Dropbox and Evernote, you can easily de-activate one of the two services in JotAgent’s main screen, which has got service, settings, and queue icons in the lower section.

As soon as the app launches, you can begin writing. When you’re done with a text note, you can hit Save to send it to Dropbox or Evernote – the saving process will require a few seconds depending on your Internet connection. If you’re offline, JotAgent allows you to queue notes for later, and upload them when you’re back online. Two interesting features of JotAgent are TextExpander support for snippets and title formatting: the latter lets you change the default template for your notes’ titles, and you can choose between a nice selection of modifiers available on JotAgent’s website. Thanks to these modifiers, I’ve been able to customize the way notes are saved in my Evernote account to show only the month and day of creation.

JotAgent 2.0 doesn’t want to be a full-featured text editor as its focus is completely different. It’s a lightweight app to quickly send a note or idea to the cloud – as I wrote last year, it’s like Captio for text notes. You can get JotAgent 2.0 now at $0.99 on the App Store, or jump after the break to enter our giveaway. Read more

Latest Dropbox Build Gets Nicer on Lion

If there’s something Dropbox, the popular online file syncing service with a strong iOS / OS X presence, should get better at in the future, that would be a new way of informing users of available updates. Or, as Shawn Blanc recently put it, you’d think of all the apps that automatically update themselves, “Dropbox would be a chief at it”. Unfortunately, in spite of its always-connected nature, Dropbox’s internal update mechanism is far from perfect. Too many users downloaded Dropbox months ago, and never updated to faster and more stable builds because of a lack of notifications, sticking with older versions that are likely causing problems.

This problem is especially true on Lion, which required the Dropbox team to rewrite parts of the app to integrate with the new Finder. Whilst TUAW noted last week that another “silent” Dropbox update added Lion support, the latest forum build – version 1.2.28 released yesterday – goes even further and brings a new icon for the Finder sidebar, new setup images, and more bug fixes. The changes are minor, but it’s nice to see Dropbox finally having a good-looking shortcut in Lion’s Finder.

Full changelog:

  • Finder Integration: Make Favorites Dropbox icon pretty
  • New tour images for Lion.
  • Fix DNS lookup problem when using a SOCKS5 proxy.
  • Delay upload of 0 byte files so that users don’t get useless transfers.
  • Fix small occurrence of now Resume option after pausing Dropbox in Linux
  • Fix to very rare bug that would prevent directories from being uploaded.
  • Fix bug that would cause auto-update to incorrectly ask for UAC elevation.
  • Fix rare missing sidebar item.

You can download Dropbox 1.2.28 (which, again, is an experimental forum build that, although stable, still isn’t an “official” release) over at Dropbox Forums.

Archiving Thoughts with Day One

For me, the best way to remember things has always been to write them down somewhere. When I was in high school, I was that kind of student always taking notes on his notebook - furiously jotting down stuff fearing I might forget some important detail. With MacStories today, I try to keep my to-do list neatly organized in OmniFocus by quickly entering anything I have to do at any given time of the day or the week – OmniFocus makes it incredibly easy to enter tasks with a few keystrokes, and I “trust” the system to remember, collect and sort tasks for me so my brain can focus on getting those tasks done or something else entirely. I try to keep my memory in good shape, but when information becomes too much to handle I know I can rely on OmniFocus, Evernote and Dropbox to store all my tasks, notes and documents – the great thing about apps nowadays is that I’m not forced to exercise my brain for this kind of activity.

There’s one thing I never really considered storing in a digital archiving app – memories. I’m talking about things like “what did I enjoy doing today” or “I decided to take a walk with my girlfriend” – specific moments that matter in life, that are important, but which our brains often blur and forget after some time to make room for new data to process and maintain. Let’s be honest: do you remember the exact day and context when you ate that fantastic Italian pizza seven months ago? You probably have a vague recollection of what it tasted like and maybe you even remember the restaurant owner’s Italian accent, but you can’t quite get your mind around every single detail that made that moment so special. Either that, or you were busy tweeting a photo of your pizza while you were eating it.

I try to enjoy every moment, but there’s so much the human brain can remember and it’s perfectly normal something will get lost in the process of assimilating thoughts and processing them to turn them into memories and experiences. Read more

TextExpander for iOS Updated with Dropbox Sync, Tweetbot Support

If you own an iPhone or iPad and you’re used to typing a lot using Apple’s virtual keyboard for iOS (which will soon receive some interesting updates with iOS 5 on the iPad), you might also be a TextExpander user. Developed by Smile and available both on the Mac and iOS, TextExpander is a fantastic utility that allows you to create “snippets” to type frequently-used text using short abbreviations. Personally, I use TextExpander on a daily basis on my Mac to type “http://” in Twitter for Mac (which for some reason doesn’t allow you to copy links), personal information in websites I visit every day, or sentences I often write down in email responses. Whilst TextExpander for Mac is tightly integrated into the operating system and works with every app, because of the different nature of iOS third-party developers have to manually integrate their apps with TextExpander once installed on a user’s device. Currently, more than 100 apps for the iPhone and iPad sport TextExpander integration.

With an update released today, Smile has added Dropbox support to TextExpander for iOS, allowing users to sync snippets created on the Mac through the popular online service. Dropbox integration in TextExpander for Mac has been around for months as an alternative to MobileMe and local sync to share snippets “over the air” on multiple Macs. The same functionality is now available in the new TextExpander for iOS, which will require you a couple of taps to authorize with your Dropbox account, and import snippets into the app. The Dropbox sync option is available in the Settings, and it works both on the iPhone and iPad. In the Settings, there’s also a new option to sort snippets – version 1.2 brings “other fixes and improvements” as well.

You can try the new Dropbox sync functionality by downloading the latest TextExpander for iOS on the App Store. Apps that support TextExpander snippets include Second Gear’s Elements (recently updated to version 2.0), and Tapbots’ powerful Twitter client, Tweetbot.

Preview of Elements 2.0: Revamped Interface and Web Publishing

Last August we previewed Second Gear’s Elements 1.0, a Dropbox based text editor for iOS. Since then it has seen a few updates such as an improved UI, sub-folders, Markdown preview and improved file saving - that’s a lot of great improvements from 1.0 to 1.5. Elements is bar none one of the best Dropbox text editors available. Are you ready for a little preview of what Second Gear has in store for Elements 2.0? Read more

iCloud Storage: International & Competitor Pricing Comparison

Last night, Apple launched a first developer beta of iCloud.com, a set of web apps based on the iCloud functionality originally introduced in iOS 5 beta that mimic the appearance of Apple’s Lion desktop apps like Address Book and iCal, or the Mail app for iPad. The new web apps, seen as replacements for MobileMe’s existing web offerings, have been completely rewritten to take advantage of iCloud’s faster and invisible sync of content between devices, and they also include a new web-based version of iWork that, however, isn’t live yet. Screenshots (and videos) of the iCloud web apps have surfaced online and partially on Apple’s website too; early screenshots of the login page had been leaked ahead of the WWDC in June.

The iCloud web apps provide an alternative to their iOS and OS X counterparts – being entirely web-based, they can come in handy “if you happen to be away from home without your computer or one of your iOS devices” so that “you can access your mail, contacts, and calendar — ad-free — from any computer at icloud.com”. Read more