14 ms·

Really nice, but the thing is... Dropbox has gone beyond just file sharing. One example: I used to use Flickr for photo sharing, but cameras got better, images

by buro9 14y ago

Really nice, but the thing is... Dropbox has gone beyond just file sharing. One example: I used to use Flickr for photo sharing, but cameras got better, images got bigger, and I have a lot of photos. I moved from Flickr to Picasa as it could cope with the directories full of photos and I didn't have to manually upload them and Google's storage space was cheaper. Then I ran out of space... over 100GB of photos, where next? Hello Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sc/um5zf95urdk3zmg/2SaSCUIQd8 https://www.dropbox.com/sc/um5zf95urdk3zmg/2SaSCUIQd8 And I've told a few photographers about this, and a few weeks later a friend of a friend of a friend excitedly told me on a forum how you can photo share in Dropbox. And what I'm basically seeing is that the problem of "file sync" is being considered as solved by lay consumers, who really aren't prioritising encryption, and the problems that they now have is "share this directory of photos", and "share that directory of videos", and "sync this music privately, but let me play it back". Dropbox isn't just file sync anymore. What it is, is a serious threat to Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Amazon MP3 Locker, Google Play Music, iTunes, etc. And consumers are not thinking in terms of encrypted sync, they're just thinking in terms of "I just want to do X, why is it so hard", and so I can't see this (very nice) solution really solving the problems that consumers have, that will make them prioritise security.

ronnier 14y ago
I really feel that BS is a different use case.
- buro9 14y ago
  You're probably right... the bittorrent speciality. I guess the marketing is to provide them with a nice level of deniability. It's not a Dropbox competitor, it's just encrypted folder sharing.
  - manishsharan 14y ago
    I would respectfully disagree with what you seem to be implying. This service would mostly be used by us who are wary about trusting Google/Microsoft/Dropbox and the judgement of their automated decision systems with our life . Yesterday there was a HN story about a guy who got kicked off Google Docs because an automated program was trolling/mining through their users files and its judgement was not to be questioned by mere mortals. What if I put a picture of me and my kid playing in the swimming pool -- what is to prevent Dropbox/Google/Skydrive from tagging it as offensive and setting an overzealous DA or social-worker upon my family ? People have been arrested/detained at border crossings for perfectly innocuous pictures like these. Therefore if you think privacy is only important for people stealing stuff, your are being naive.
    - yid 14y ago
      Drop a TrueCrypt partition into your Dropbox [1], and you get the Dropbox QoS as well as the encryption for your kids' swimming pool photos. Plus, for non-swimming photos, you can just use the regular Dropbox folder. [1] http://tonyonsecurity.com/2012/08/05/securing-your-data-on-dropbox-truecrypt/ http://tonyonsecurity.com/2012/08/05/securing-your-data-on-d...
      - andrewflnr 14y ago
        Nonono. You shouldn't have to guess which photos will be flagged by some drone and put them in a special locker.
      - mikeash 14y ago
        Does this avoid conflicts in the event that you change two different files on the TrueCrypt volume at the same time on two different computers?
        jpalomaki 14y ago
        I think BoxCryptor is better than TrueCrypt for this purpose. BoxCryptor encrypts each file separately so the sync works as expected. https://www.boxcryptor.com/ https://www.boxcryptor.com/
      - manishsharan 14y ago
        I am not looking to hide stuff; I merely do not want my stuff accessed by third parties without either a search warrant or my explicit consent on a file by file basis. BitTorrent Sync seems to have a cool solution for me; my home desktop is almost always on.
    - jmillikin 14y ago
      > Yesterday there was a HN story about a guy who got > kicked off Google Docs because an automated program was > trolling/mining through their users files and its > judgement was not to be questioned by mere mortals. Wasn't that the user who was using a Docs form/spreadsheet to collect passwords from his customers? Google has stated that such forms are reviewed manually after being reported (for example, http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/7pKj6aXBKpM http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/7pKj6aXBK...), which means there must have been at least two humans involved. IMO the risk with cloud storage isn't in getting suspended by some daemon run amok, it's in data being too easy to leak. Files stored in Google Drive or Dropbox are just one accidental "share" click away from becoming public.
  - jcoder 14y ago
    And here I am, just 4 points shy of being able to downvote this.
    - zanny 14y ago
      I'll bring you one point closer and do that for you!
    - cyberfart 14y ago
      you sir, just won my first ever comment upvote (well, probably not the first ever)
bane 14y ago
The only things that really keeps me from sharing photos via dropbox is a) I use my picassa photo albums for big dumps of regular photos I take when out and about, the storage is big enough I don't have to pay anything (yet) and I have thousands upon thousands of photos there b) I use my flickr account (paid so unlimited) to put up photos I've curated and cleaned up and processed and stuck on a map someplace and given a detailed description of...basically I use it as a detailed travelog of places I've been. I'm about 4 years behind on it to be honest, but the flickr uploadr let's me bulk upload and getting things into the account currently isn't the bottleneck in my proces
andrethegiant 14y ago
100Gb of Dropbox costs $10/month, BitTorrent Sync is free.
- mseebach 14y ago
  Dropbox has your stuff stored away in a fairly secure facility, while BitTorrent Sync just syncs between machines you've installed it on. That's worth something. Of course, you can just rent a cheap VPS somewhere and have it sync your BTS folders, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find a VPS with 100 GB storage for less than $10/month.
  - zepolen 14y ago
    http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix_vserver/vserver-produktmatrix http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix_vserver/vserv...
    - mseebach 14y ago
      The biggest HDD that page offers is 80 GB at €20 = $26/month.
    - scott_karana 14y ago
      80 GB for 20 Euros isn't exactly 100 GB _available_ storage for under $10. :P
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - axusgrad 14y ago
    Also, Dropbox is user friendly. I can recommend it to my family members, and they have a referral program to encourage me to do it. What does BitTorrent Sync do that rsync cannot? On the other side of the argument, I bet BitTorrent Sync will become as friendly as Dropbox, and perhaps third-party backup services will offer what Dropbox does. At that point, rsync's only advantage would be an open-source license.
lifeformed 14y ago
Nice bike.
- niels_olson 14y ago
  Yeah, I'd like a little more info about the stem. It looks like a quill, but then there's that cam. I've had bad luck with those in the past, wondering how this one is done.
  - buro9 14y ago
    I've updated the photos in the link above to include more build photos. The bike is made by a gent named Robin Mather who lives in the South West of England. His website is unfortunately a poor one, but he's got coverage elsewhere: http://apracticalguide.wordpress.com/ http://apracticalguide.wordpress.com/ http://www.bespoked2012.co.uk/BespokedBristol/Robin_Mather.html http://www.bespoked2012.co.uk/BespokedBristol/Robin_Mather.h... http://www.headsetpress.co.uk/features/robin-mather-building-bikes-in-the-uk/ http://www.headsetpress.co.uk/features/robin-mather-building... The stem is a fully bespoke (the whole bike is) ahead stem. It uses a barrel with a 6mm allen bolt through it. The barrel is split in two and the bolt squeezes the two halves to give a large contact area with the stem. It's worked well, no complaints. One of the goals of that bike was to design it such that it looked aesthetically clean of bolts, fixings and braze-ons. An example of that is the rear rack... remove the rack and mudguard and there is clearance for cyclocross tyres, and there are no braze-ons that give even a hint that the frame can take racks. I was going for a single multi-purpose frame (touring, cyclocross, urban-fixed) by simply changing wheelsets and basic things... any change should be a 10 minute job. But yet, even with multiple uses I did not want to compromise the looks to achieve it. The photos show the bike in the most complex configuration, the Rohloff hub, the dynamo front hub, the racks, the mudguards, the flat handlebars with Rohloff shifter. But basically you can strip it to a fixed gear bike with belt drive and just a front brake in 10 minutes, and then shove it in a suitcase (S&S couplers) and go travelling with it. And even with all of that... the bike may be custom, but I kept everything compatible with standard parts so it's easy to get a long life from the bike as parts will be available. That stem... well, any stem can go on there. Robin's a cool guy too. Which helps when you go this crazy on spec'ing a bike.
lifeguard 14y ago
I work for a startup and want to sync my dev machines at home and work and also a build farm. Bt sync is a good solution. I am a musician and want to sync my tracks with a few producers. Bt sync is a good solution. I am a political activist and want to ensure my data will be available to my affinity group even if Dropbox is threatened with a state security letter. Bt sync is an excellent solution.
- niels_olson 14y ago
  > I am a political activist ... Bt sync is an excellent solution. I think it will need more cute cats before you can make that call. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_activism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_acti...
  - gph 14y ago
    Why? How is the government going to shut down what is basically a private decentralized p2p network? There isn't any central server they can take out and the traffic over the network would look like any other encrypted traffic. If they gained access to the sync group with full permissions they could destroy it and get IP addresses, etc. And the format itself might not lend itself to all the needs of a political activist group. But I don't see how the cute cat theory holds any water here.
    - 6d0debc071 14y ago
      It would look like any other encrypted information, but I'm unsure that the traffic patterns themselves wouldn't be distinctive.
      - lifeguard 14y ago
        Not the point of the use-case. And obviously Tor could be added to the mix.
        14y ago
mcintyre1994 14y ago
Dropbox's core offering boils down to file sync + cloud sync. There's many use cases where that's what you want - access on whatever devices you have the app installed on, and also over the web. Cloud sync leads to storage limits (which don't make sense as a consumer for file sync, but are necessary for large scale cloud sync) and centralisation (desirable for vast access, not so much for some situations). BT sync isn't a Dropbox replacement, it's a file sync replacement that's superior in some ways, but lacks the benefits of being combined with cloud sync.
- pessimizer 14y ago
  Is there anyone interested in cloud sync for its own sake? In other words, if the entire thing works seamlessly and identically in-house, and assuming a disciplined backup strategy, is there anybody going "But if it were in someone else's data center, that'd be so much better!" BT sync sounds like a complete replacement for dropbox for people with the skills and willingness to set it up.
  - ephoz 14y ago
    Pushing this, for a hacker setting up a VPS is a matter of minutes... BAM cloud-sync! ;)
  - mcintyre1994 14y ago
    It's a fair point, but if we consider the GP's claims, they're pretty much all benefits of cloud sync. You get a web-based view for your albums, you can share easier outside of your own devices, you can - as he says, compete with the top services for photo, video and music sharing. Cloud sync makes you a media company. Personally, I use cloud sync for a lot of backup stuff. Granted, it's mostly Git to BitBucket, but in school I used to push documents to Dropbox or Box just to have a backup. I wasn't interested in having my essays synced to my phone, just that if my other versions died I could download my work again to another device. If you're referring to companies though, no I doubt they'd want a seamless and perfect system in somebody else's data center. That said, a data center and a perfect seamless cloud backup solution is a considerable cost, especially for a startup. But yep, I agree, BT sync would be perfect if you didn't want/need Dropbox remote backups or web services.
webwanderings 14y ago
I pretty much agree. Correct me if I'm wrong but Dropbox were the first to have come up with Camera Upload feature, which basically makes any average user go trouble free with their cellphones, tablets, snapping away photographs knowing that they will be ready on their desktop to view if they want to. Google+ does that too now, but this is in fact a killer feature which has been adopted well by the average folks out there. So yes, Dropbox is not just about file sharing anymore.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Unless it was launched more than 2 years ago, then the Google+ app had it first.
  - oblique63 14y ago
    Yeah, I don't remember when dropbox started prompting me for photos, but I know it was after my galaxy nexus started uploading them automatically for me... which I find to be quite convenient. I don't really use G+ for anything else, but I've grown quite reliant of that particular feature recently. Though, I believe the use case GP is describing might be a bit different, depending on whether or not a dedicated camera is being used and how large the image files are...
- deleted 14y ago
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- deleted 14y ago
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nostromo 14y ago
Sharing photos was solved for the 99% by Facebook & Apple & Google. If you're a photographer with gobs of high resolution photos Dropbox is perfect for you, but I imagine that is a niche pain point. What is a much bigger opportunity is a way that easily lets groups share music and movies. This cannot be solved by a centralized service like Dropbox for legal reasons. This is what would concern me if I was Dropbox; BTSync's killer feature is off limits to Dropbox without a complete change in architecture (and some soul searching about if they want to risk ending up like Kim Dotcom).
- mtgx 14y ago
  You can auto-sync high-res photos in Google+, too, but it ounts in the 5 GB free storage you have.
  - pistoriusp 14y ago
    Images that are 2048x2048 and below don't consume space on Google drive.
    - ebtalley 14y ago
      this was all well and good to me until I saw that Google shut down someones account for violation of TOS. Im already mulling over alternatives. This might be one of them.
      - NicoJuicy 14y ago
        He had a spreadsheet with passwords and usernames of his client (they were a lot of them). Automation of Google's algorithm thought he was a hacker, they fixed it and he got his account back. You should have read the whole story ;-)
        bad_user 14y ago
        So why is Google looking inside the uploaded files, if the files aren't public? If the guy was a "hacker", so freaking what?
jcastro 14y ago
It's not just filesync, but layman's backup too. It's nice to be able to rollback/undelete files. Plus everyone is forgetting that Dropbox snagged Audiogalaxy a while back, so I'm expecting to be able to stream music back to myself from my Dropbox at some point as a service. I just moved a bunch of stuff to btsync to mess with it but I still need to find a place offsite to keep it in addition if I want it to replace Dropbox. I'll likely use both tools in combination.
k2enemy 14y ago
> And consumers are not thinking in terms of encrypted sync, they're just thinking in terms of "I just want to do X, why is it so hard", and so I can't see this (very nice) solution really solving the problems that consumers have, that will make them prioritise security. I have a use case that is pretty common among my peer group and BT Sync has been the best solution I've been able to find. In a nutshell, I need to sync large datasets across multiple computers. Dropbox: expensive AeroFS: buggy, used too much bandwidth, and slow Sparkleshare: uses git which chokes on large files Git Annex Assistant: didn't work reliably on mac rsync/duplicity/unison: needs extra logic for detecting file changes I also think the "Dropbox replacement" idea is a strawman created by the TorrentFreak article. I've never had the impression that BT Sync is trying to replace Dropbox. It is just trying to do p2p sync with a great interface and some nice features such as read-only and one-time secrets.
- deelowe 14y ago
  What about crashplan?
  - __david__ 14y ago
    Isn't that a different use case? Crashplan creates a opaque encrypted binary blob on a remote computer which is useful for backup, but not really for syncing files around.
    - deelowe 14y ago
      I think the encryption can be disabled, no?
  - k2enemy 14y ago
    I tried crashplan also, but the showstopper is escaping me at the moment.
    - niels_olson 14y ago
      Crashplan is great as a backup plan and offers a web interface for times when everything else has failed. I have used it to retrieve things a few times and I highly recommend it as a backup plan. But their web interface isn't their selling point, and you can't manipulate the files. It's read only access. It does track diffs, though, so that can be pretty handy.
taude 14y ago
It doesn't bother you that it takes days to upload any significant number of photos with native sensor resolutions to Drop Box?
Terretta 14y ago
> I used to use Flickr for photo sharing, but cameras got better, images got bigger, and I have a lot of photos. Why is this a problem with Flickr? I am generally shooting high res full frame, and post to Flickr. I have about a terabyte of images. There's no 100GB storage limit, just an annual flat fee. Family can download full resolution images for printing. My grandmother can have my Flickr Photo Stream as a screensaver in her TV. I also enjoy fantastic two way integration with photo management tools, with tagging syncing back. I can't see why I'd pay Dropbox considerably more for less features. (What's more, if Flickr doesn't like a public photo's content, the worst that will happen is getting marked "not in public search areas", with an easy redress to get reinstated. It's unclear to me what Dropbox will do. Meanwhile, if Google doesn't like a public photo, I can lose my Google Account, as photogs have found to their chagrin.)
- tsycho 14y ago
  I am using Everpix at the moment, but Flickr seems like a better deal and has much more features. Except for a critical one....auto-uploading from pre-specified folders & Photo Stream. Do you manually upload all your photos, or is there a better way?
  - Terretta 14y ago
    You can auto load with a number of third party tools. Early on, I had a Perl uploader that would space things out during the day to keep a steady stream of new files posting. That shot me into Explore top 500 frequently. These days I like FlickStacker on iOS and FlickrExport on OSX. I just post sets when I'm done with triage. http://ipont.jubilo.ca/ip/flickstackr/ http://ipont.jubilo.ca/ip/flickstackr/ http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/ http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/ I like Everpix too, fun to see what it comes up with for its "moments". Cool idea.
- wingspan 14y ago
  > I also enjoy fantastic two way integration with photo management tools, with tagging syncing back. Which photo management tools do you use? I currently have around 45k photos (~200GB) and Picasa is sometimes just too slow. I am planning to get a DSLR soon, so total size is going to be expanding rapidly. What kind of tools would you suggest? I am on Windows mainly, so Mac-only is not an option. Thanks!
tteam 14y ago
If you are a photographer, Our Tonido (http://www.tonido.com http://www.tonido.com) solution is simply perfect. It is not expensive as dropbox, and no storage limits, supports variety of photo formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF, CR2, NEF, CRW and more). As dropbox, we have good mobile apps for all the popular platforms. Pretty much majority of our paid users are photographers.
- afterburner 14y ago
  Oh, it's "unlimited storage" because it's remotely accessing your computer, so your computer is the storage. An interesting workaround.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  I think for photographers, the backup functionality of most "sharing" sites is pretty important... and Tonido seems to not address that at all (by design). It still looks like an interesting product, mind you...
muyuu 14y ago
It's dropbox but without all the features that creep the fuck out of me and that I need to carefully disable or block. Dropbox for privacy minded people if you will.
afterburner 14y ago
224 photos? I need a solution for on the order of 40,000... for which Flickr is perfect, since there is no storage limit, just a very small flat fee.
- buro9 14y ago
  Nope, that's just one directory. I was just illustrating the one photo sharing piece... which is as simple as drag a folder into Dropbox, and go to the web interface and click share. I have approx' 40k photos (not including the .raw files) over about 180GB (including the .raw files).
  - afterburner 14y ago
    OK, so that's costing you $200 a year, instead of $25 on Flickr.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
BitTorrent also solves this with, um, torrents.
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
For me, Dropbox uploads are painfully slow.
mattty 14y ago
Clicked your dropbox link, thought "those look familiar", check back, it's velocio!
GilbertErik 14y ago
> Then I ran out of space... over 100GB of photos, where next? Uhm... how about the 200 GB plan? Or the 400 GB plan. Or 1 TB for $49.99/month? Or you could contact sales about Google Cloud Storage: https://cloud.google.com/pricing/cloud-storage https://cloud.google.com/pricing/cloud-storage Or you could just buy S3 storage. Actually, there are literally dozens (to maybe even hundreds) of alternatives for hosting static content for less money for more bandwidth.
glesica 14y ago
FWIW this product fits my use case perfectly. I want to sync lots of data, but I don't want to pay for Dropbox because I really, really don't care if my stuff gets into the "cloud". I just want it across machines. Currently I use AeroFS, but this looks spiffy and might find a home on my hard drive.
Intermernet 14y ago
I know this may not be practical depending on the amount of space required, but you could probably run a very cheap EC2 image with a huge EBS volume attached for a year for cheaper than the bigger Dropbox offerings. For example, a micro instance, with 500GB of EBS storage, with allowance for 1% data growth per daily snapshot (S3 backed), and 50GB of transfer per month will apparently cost $175.68. The 500GB plan from Dropbox will cost you $499 . I'm thinking, with enough data, Bittorrent Sync wins the pricing war, and I've been doing some testing on the client and it seems really resilient to data changing while syncing etc.

by buro9 14y ago

ronnier 14y ago

I really feel that BS is a different use case.

buro9 14y ago
You're probably right... the bittorrent speciality. I guess the marketing is to provide them with a nice level of deniability. It's not a Dropbox competitor, it's just encrypted folder sharing.
- manishsharan 14y ago
  I would respectfully disagree with what you seem to be implying. This service would mostly be used by us who are wary about trusting Google/Microsoft/Dropbox and the judgement of their automated decision systems with our life . Yesterday there was a HN story about a guy who got kicked off Google Docs because an automated program was trolling/mining through their users files and its judgement was not to be questioned by mere mortals. What if I put a picture of me and my kid playing in the swimming pool -- what is to prevent Dropbox/Google/Skydrive from tagging it as offensive and setting an overzealous DA or social-worker upon my family ? People have been arrested/detained at border crossings for perfectly innocuous pictures like these. Therefore if you think privacy is only important for people stealing stuff, your are being naive.
  - yid 14y ago
    Drop a TrueCrypt partition into your Dropbox [1], and you get the Dropbox QoS as well as the encryption for your kids' swimming pool photos. Plus, for non-swimming photos, you can just use the regular Dropbox folder. [1] http://tonyonsecurity.com/2012/08/05/securing-your-data-on-dropbox-truecrypt/ http://tonyonsecurity.com/2012/08/05/securing-your-data-on-d...
    - andrewflnr 14y ago
      Nonono. You shouldn't have to guess which photos will be flagged by some drone and put them in a special locker.
    - mikeash 14y ago
      Does this avoid conflicts in the event that you change two different files on the TrueCrypt volume at the same time on two different computers?
      - jpalomaki 14y ago
        I think BoxCryptor is better than TrueCrypt for this purpose. BoxCryptor encrypts each file separately so the sync works as expected. https://www.boxcryptor.com/ https://www.boxcryptor.com/
    - manishsharan 14y ago
      I am not looking to hide stuff; I merely do not want my stuff accessed by third parties without either a search warrant or my explicit consent on a file by file basis. BitTorrent Sync seems to have a cool solution for me; my home desktop is almost always on.
  - jmillikin 14y ago
    > Yesterday there was a HN story about a guy who got > kicked off Google Docs because an automated program was > trolling/mining through their users files and its > judgement was not to be questioned by mere mortals. Wasn't that the user who was using a Docs form/spreadsheet to collect passwords from his customers? Google has stated that such forms are reviewed manually after being reported (for example, http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/7pKj6aXBKpM http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/7pKj6aXBK...), which means there must have been at least two humans involved. IMO the risk with cloud storage isn't in getting suspended by some daemon run amok, it's in data being too easy to leak. Files stored in Google Drive or Dropbox are just one accidental "share" click away from becoming public.
- jcoder 14y ago
  And here I am, just 4 points shy of being able to downvote this.
  - zanny 14y ago
    I'll bring you one point closer and do that for you!
  - cyberfart 14y ago
    you sir, just won my first ever comment upvote (well, probably not the first ever)

bane 14y ago

The only things that really keeps me from sharing photos via dropbox is a) I use my picassa photo albums for big dumps of regular photos I take when out and about, the storage is big enough I don't have to pay anything (yet) and I have thousands upon thousands of photos there b) I use my flickr account (paid so unlimited) to put up photos I've curated and cleaned up and processed and stuck on a map someplace and given a detailed description of...basically I use it as a detailed travelog of places I've been. I'm about 4 years behind on it to be honest, but the flickr uploadr let's me bulk upload and getting things into the account currently isn't the bottleneck in my proces

andrethegiant 14y ago

100Gb of Dropbox costs $10/month, BitTorrent Sync is free.

mseebach 14y ago
Dropbox has your stuff stored away in a fairly secure facility, while BitTorrent Sync just syncs between machines you've installed it on. That's worth something. Of course, you can just rent a cheap VPS somewhere and have it sync your BTS folders, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find a VPS with 100 GB storage for less than $10/month.
- zepolen 14y ago
  http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix_vserver/vserver-produktmatrix http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix_vserver/vserv...
  - mseebach 14y ago
    The biggest HDD that page offers is 80 GB at €20 = $26/month.
  - scott_karana 14y ago
    80 GB for 20 Euros isn't exactly 100 GB _available_ storage for under $10. :P
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- axusgrad 14y ago
  Also, Dropbox is user friendly. I can recommend it to my family members, and they have a referral program to encourage me to do it. What does BitTorrent Sync do that rsync cannot? On the other side of the argument, I bet BitTorrent Sync will become as friendly as Dropbox, and perhaps third-party backup services will offer what Dropbox does. At that point, rsync's only advantage would be an open-source license.

lifeformed 14y ago

Nice bike.

niels_olson 14y ago
Yeah, I'd like a little more info about the stem. It looks like a quill, but then there's that cam. I've had bad luck with those in the past, wondering how this one is done.
- buro9 14y ago
  I've updated the photos in the link above to include more build photos. The bike is made by a gent named Robin Mather who lives in the South West of England. His website is unfortunately a poor one, but he's got coverage elsewhere: http://apracticalguide.wordpress.com/ http://apracticalguide.wordpress.com/ http://www.bespoked2012.co.uk/BespokedBristol/Robin_Mather.html http://www.bespoked2012.co.uk/BespokedBristol/Robin_Mather.h... http://www.headsetpress.co.uk/features/robin-mather-building-bikes-in-the-uk/ http://www.headsetpress.co.uk/features/robin-mather-building... The stem is a fully bespoke (the whole bike is) ahead stem. It uses a barrel with a 6mm allen bolt through it. The barrel is split in two and the bolt squeezes the two halves to give a large contact area with the stem. It's worked well, no complaints. One of the goals of that bike was to design it such that it looked aesthetically clean of bolts, fixings and braze-ons. An example of that is the rear rack... remove the rack and mudguard and there is clearance for cyclocross tyres, and there are no braze-ons that give even a hint that the frame can take racks. I was going for a single multi-purpose frame (touring, cyclocross, urban-fixed) by simply changing wheelsets and basic things... any change should be a 10 minute job. But yet, even with multiple uses I did not want to compromise the looks to achieve it. The photos show the bike in the most complex configuration, the Rohloff hub, the dynamo front hub, the racks, the mudguards, the flat handlebars with Rohloff shifter. But basically you can strip it to a fixed gear bike with belt drive and just a front brake in 10 minutes, and then shove it in a suitcase (S&S couplers) and go travelling with it. And even with all of that... the bike may be custom, but I kept everything compatible with standard parts so it's easy to get a long life from the bike as parts will be available. That stem... well, any stem can go on there. Robin's a cool guy too. Which helps when you go this crazy on spec'ing a bike.

lifeguard 14y ago

I work for a startup and want to sync my dev machines at home and work and also a build farm. Bt sync is a good solution. I am a musician and want to sync my tracks with a few producers. Bt sync is a good solution. I am a political activist and want to ensure my data will be available to my affinity group even if Dropbox is threatened with a state security letter. Bt sync is an excellent solution.

niels_olson 14y ago
> I am a political activist ... Bt sync is an excellent solution. I think it will need more cute cats before you can make that call. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_activism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_acti...
- gph 14y ago
  Why? How is the government going to shut down what is basically a private decentralized p2p network? There isn't any central server they can take out and the traffic over the network would look like any other encrypted traffic. If they gained access to the sync group with full permissions they could destroy it and get IP addresses, etc. And the format itself might not lend itself to all the needs of a political activist group. But I don't see how the cute cat theory holds any water here.
  - 6d0debc071 14y ago
    It would look like any other encrypted information, but I'm unsure that the traffic patterns themselves wouldn't be distinctive.
    - lifeguard 14y ago
      Not the point of the use-case. And obviously Tor could be added to the mix.
      - 14y ago

mcintyre1994 14y ago

Dropbox's core offering boils down to file sync + cloud sync. There's many use cases where that's what you want - access on whatever devices you have the app installed on, and also over the web. Cloud sync leads to storage limits (which don't make sense as a consumer for file sync, but are necessary for large scale cloud sync) and centralisation (desirable for vast access, not so much for some situations). BT sync isn't a Dropbox replacement, it's a file sync replacement that's superior in some ways, but lacks the benefits of being combined with cloud sync.

pessimizer 14y ago
Is there anyone interested in cloud sync for its own sake? In other words, if the entire thing works seamlessly and identically in-house, and assuming a disciplined backup strategy, is there anybody going "But if it were in someone else's data center, that'd be so much better!" BT sync sounds like a complete replacement for dropbox for people with the skills and willingness to set it up.
- ephoz 14y ago
  Pushing this, for a hacker setting up a VPS is a matter of minutes... BAM cloud-sync! ;)
- mcintyre1994 14y ago
  It's a fair point, but if we consider the GP's claims, they're pretty much all benefits of cloud sync. You get a web-based view for your albums, you can share easier outside of your own devices, you can - as he says, compete with the top services for photo, video and music sharing. Cloud sync makes you a media company. Personally, I use cloud sync for a lot of backup stuff. Granted, it's mostly Git to BitBucket, but in school I used to push documents to Dropbox or Box just to have a backup. I wasn't interested in having my essays synced to my phone, just that if my other versions died I could download my work again to another device. If you're referring to companies though, no I doubt they'd want a seamless and perfect system in somebody else's data center. That said, a data center and a perfect seamless cloud backup solution is a considerable cost, especially for a startup. But yep, I agree, BT sync would be perfect if you didn't want/need Dropbox remote backups or web services.

webwanderings 14y ago

I pretty much agree. Correct me if I'm wrong but Dropbox were the first to have come up with Camera Upload feature, which basically makes any average user go trouble free with their cellphones, tablets, snapping away photographs knowing that they will be ready on their desktop to view if they want to. Google+ does that too now, but this is in fact a killer feature which has been adopted well by the average folks out there. So yes, Dropbox is not just about file sharing anymore.

mtgx 14y ago
Unless it was launched more than 2 years ago, then the Google+ app had it first.
- oblique63 14y ago
  Yeah, I don't remember when dropbox started prompting me for photos, but I know it was after my galaxy nexus started uploading them automatically for me... which I find to be quite convenient. I don't really use G+ for anything else, but I've grown quite reliant of that particular feature recently. Though, I believe the use case GP is describing might be a bit different, depending on whether or not a dedicated camera is being used and how large the image files are...
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nostromo 14y ago

Sharing photos was solved for the 99% by Facebook & Apple & Google. If you're a photographer with gobs of high resolution photos Dropbox is perfect for you, but I imagine that is a niche pain point. What is a much bigger opportunity is a way that easily lets groups share music and movies. This cannot be solved by a centralized service like Dropbox for legal reasons. This is what would concern me if I was Dropbox; BTSync's killer feature is off limits to Dropbox without a complete change in architecture (and some soul searching about if they want to risk ending up like Kim Dotcom).

mtgx 14y ago
You can auto-sync high-res photos in Google+, too, but it ounts in the 5 GB free storage you have.
- pistoriusp 14y ago
  Images that are 2048x2048 and below don't consume space on Google drive.
  - ebtalley 14y ago
    this was all well and good to me until I saw that Google shut down someones account for violation of TOS. Im already mulling over alternatives. This might be one of them.
    - NicoJuicy 14y ago
      He had a spreadsheet with passwords and usernames of his client (they were a lot of them). Automation of Google's algorithm thought he was a hacker, they fixed it and he got his account back. You should have read the whole story ;-)
      - bad_user 14y ago
        So why is Google looking inside the uploaded files, if the files aren't public? If the guy was a "hacker", so freaking what?

jcastro 14y ago

It's not just filesync, but layman's backup too. It's nice to be able to rollback/undelete files. Plus everyone is forgetting that Dropbox snagged Audiogalaxy a while back, so I'm expecting to be able to stream music back to myself from my Dropbox at some point as a service. I just moved a bunch of stuff to btsync to mess with it but I still need to find a place offsite to keep it in addition if I want it to replace Dropbox. I'll likely use both tools in combination.

k2enemy 14y ago

> And consumers are not thinking in terms of encrypted sync, they're just thinking in terms of "I just want to do X, why is it so hard", and so I can't see this (very nice) solution really solving the problems that consumers have, that will make them prioritise security. I have a use case that is pretty common among my peer group and BT Sync has been the best solution I've been able to find. In a nutshell, I need to sync large datasets across multiple computers. Dropbox: expensive AeroFS: buggy, used too much bandwidth, and slow Sparkleshare: uses git which chokes on large files Git Annex Assistant: didn't work reliably on mac rsync/duplicity/unison: needs extra logic for detecting file changes I also think the "Dropbox replacement" idea is a strawman created by the TorrentFreak article. I've never had the impression that BT Sync is trying to replace Dropbox. It is just trying to do p2p sync with a great interface and some nice features such as read-only and one-time secrets.

deelowe 14y ago
What about crashplan?
- __david__ 14y ago
  Isn't that a different use case? Crashplan creates a opaque encrypted binary blob on a remote computer which is useful for backup, but not really for syncing files around.
  - deelowe 14y ago
    I think the encryption can be disabled, no?
- k2enemy 14y ago
  I tried crashplan also, but the showstopper is escaping me at the moment.
  - niels_olson 14y ago
    Crashplan is great as a backup plan and offers a web interface for times when everything else has failed. I have used it to retrieve things a few times and I highly recommend it as a backup plan. But their web interface isn't their selling point, and you can't manipulate the files. It's read only access. It does track diffs, though, so that can be pretty handy.

taude 14y ago

It doesn't bother you that it takes days to upload any significant number of photos with native sensor resolutions to Drop Box?

Terretta 14y ago

> I used to use Flickr for photo sharing, but cameras got better, images got bigger, and I have a lot of photos. Why is this a problem with Flickr? I am generally shooting high res full frame, and post to Flickr. I have about a terabyte of images. There's no 100GB storage limit, just an annual flat fee. Family can download full resolution images for printing. My grandmother can have my Flickr Photo Stream as a screensaver in her TV. I also enjoy fantastic two way integration with photo management tools, with tagging syncing back. I can't see why I'd pay Dropbox considerably more for less features. (What's more, if Flickr doesn't like a public photo's content, the worst that will happen is getting marked "not in public search areas", with an easy redress to get reinstated. It's unclear to me what Dropbox will do. Meanwhile, if Google doesn't like a public photo, I can lose my Google Account, as photogs have found to their chagrin.)

tsycho 14y ago
I am using Everpix at the moment, but Flickr seems like a better deal and has much more features. Except for a critical one....auto-uploading from pre-specified folders & Photo Stream. Do you manually upload all your photos, or is there a better way?
- Terretta 14y ago
  You can auto load with a number of third party tools. Early on, I had a Perl uploader that would space things out during the day to keep a steady stream of new files posting. That shot me into Explore top 500 frequently. These days I like FlickStacker on iOS and FlickrExport on OSX. I just post sets when I'm done with triage. http://ipont.jubilo.ca/ip/flickstackr/ http://ipont.jubilo.ca/ip/flickstackr/ http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/ http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/ I like Everpix too, fun to see what it comes up with for its "moments". Cool idea.
wingspan 14y ago
> I also enjoy fantastic two way integration with photo management tools, with tagging syncing back. Which photo management tools do you use? I currently have around 45k photos (~200GB) and Picasa is sometimes just too slow. I am planning to get a DSLR soon, so total size is going to be expanding rapidly. What kind of tools would you suggest? I am on Windows mainly, so Mac-only is not an option. Thanks!

tteam 14y ago

If you are a photographer, Our Tonido (http://www.tonido.com http://www.tonido.com) solution is simply perfect. It is not expensive as dropbox, and no storage limits, supports variety of photo formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF, CR2, NEF, CRW and more). As dropbox, we have good mobile apps for all the popular platforms. Pretty much majority of our paid users are photographers.

afterburner 14y ago
Oh, it's "unlimited storage" because it's remotely accessing your computer, so your computer is the storage. An interesting workaround.
snogglethorpe 14y ago
I think for photographers, the backup functionality of most "sharing" sites is pretty important... and Tonido seems to not address that at all (by design). It still looks like an interesting product, mind you...

muyuu 14y ago

It's dropbox but without all the features that creep the fuck out of me and that I need to carefully disable or block. Dropbox for privacy minded people if you will.

afterburner 14y ago

224 photos? I need a solution for on the order of 40,000... for which Flickr is perfect, since there is no storage limit, just a very small flat fee.

buro9 14y ago
Nope, that's just one directory. I was just illustrating the one photo sharing piece... which is as simple as drag a folder into Dropbox, and go to the web interface and click share. I have approx' 40k photos (not including the .raw files) over about 180GB (including the .raw files).
- afterburner 14y ago
  OK, so that's costing you $200 a year, instead of $25 on Flickr.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

BitTorrent also solves this with, um, torrents.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

For me, Dropbox uploads are painfully slow.

mattty 14y ago

Clicked your dropbox link, thought "those look familiar", check back, it's velocio!

GilbertErik 14y ago

> Then I ran out of space... over 100GB of photos, where next? Uhm... how about the 200 GB plan? Or the 400 GB plan. Or 1 TB for $49.99/month? Or you could contact sales about Google Cloud Storage: https://cloud.google.com/pricing/cloud-storage https://cloud.google.com/pricing/cloud-storage Or you could just buy S3 storage. Actually, there are literally dozens (to maybe even hundreds) of alternatives for hosting static content for less money for more bandwidth.

glesica 14y ago

FWIW this product fits my use case perfectly. I want to sync lots of data, but I don't want to pay for Dropbox because I really, really don't care if my stuff gets into the "cloud". I just want it across machines. Currently I use AeroFS, but this looks spiffy and might find a home on my hard drive.

Intermernet 14y ago

I know this may not be practical depending on the amount of space required, but you could probably run a very cheap EC2 image with a huge EBS volume attached for a year for cheaper than the bigger Dropbox offerings. For example, a micro instance, with 500GB of EBS storage, with allowance for 1% data growth per daily snapshot (S3 backed), and 50GB of transfer per month will apparently cost $175.68. The 500GB plan from Dropbox will cost you $499 . I'm thinking, with enough data, Bittorrent Sync wins the pricing war, and I've been doing some testing on the client and it seems really resilient to data changing while syncing etc.