I signed up to the beta for Dropbox (a service that backs up and syncs all of your files in a certain folder over the Internet). Since I work on multiple computers, I thought it would be a handy tool.
And it WOULD BE, if the developers weren't so clueless.
For example, during installation in Windows, it will close ALL of your Explorer processes. Without warning.
I mean, I can understand that it has to close them to add itself. I get that. But the lack of warning is dumb (I lost a couple of deeply-nested folders this way).
But that's not the big one. The big one is when you set your Dropbox directory.
No matter what you specify, it will APPEND "My Dropbox" in Windows. Supposedly, this is to protect people from installing into their root directories (people are dumb), BUT it also won't allow you to install to ANY root directories, even on OTHER DRIVES/PARTITIONS. Which is to say, you can't even have F:/My Dropbox (also, appending a subdirectory with a *SPACE IN IT*?). So the best you could do would be F:/Dropbox/My Dropbox (which is a lot of header for the path of EVERY FILE in your Dropbox). It's dumb.
But even THAT'S not the REAL BIG ONE. The REAL big one is that it will append "Dropbox" in Linux! *NOT* "My Dropbox". So, if you dual-boot on your machine, you can't point both Dropbox directories to the same location! You're forced to sync EVERYTHING TWICE, in two different places, taking up twice the disk space. WAY DUMB.
The current official "solution" is to use an OLD version of Dropbox that isn't as retarded. Seriously, that's what they tell you to do. They've known about this problem since version 0.6.394 and now we're at 0.6.402 and it's STILL NOT FIXED (months have passed).
The Dropboxers just seem to have NO CLUE, which does not bode well for the tool. At this point in time, I have to recommend that people AVOID DROPBOX LIKE THE PLAGUE. It's definitely not ready for prime-time, and it is getting WORSE. I think I might have to close my account there, because it's getting to the point where I don't feel I can trust the people behind it (if they're THAT clueless).
It's enough to make me feel all RANTY RANT!
RIP Lovely wife
3 months ago
Posts
Couldn't you of just made a symbolic link in Linux to point the "Dropbox" directory to the Windows one?
ReplyDelete"Couldn't you *HAVE*..."
ReplyDeleteHave, not Of. Please be aware that this mistake drives me INSANE. ^_^
Anyway.
I tried that, and it ended up causing system instability. Also, after linux crashed, it reset the Dropbox directory, and because I didn't notice and stop it, it RE-DOWNLOADED all of my files (about 1.5 gigs).
Also, Windows would blue-screen. So neither system was stable.
Not good times. ^_^
Have (not of) the same problem dual-booting linux/xp but there is a workaround for this - http://wiki.getdropbox.com/DropboxAddons/DropboxPath that requires .net 3.5 - will give it a try and report
ReplyDeleteDropbox is nothing more than a buggy piece of shit.
ReplyDeleteMediafire works ten times faster, And its also ten times easier to wrap your head around, something tells me that the developers at Dropbox don't have a clue what "work flow" means or if they do there just against it.
@Jason, are you damaged?
ReplyDeleteMediaFire is a completely different service. It is not comparable to Dropbox.