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Emulate Lion's Versions in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word does not support Lion's "Versions" feature yet, but there's no reason to panic. There are a few options that you can use to cobble together a work- around until the Mac BU team updates the Office suite. Also worth mentioning: although I am focusing on Microsoft Word, the same technique can be used in just about any word processing or text editing application. "Does the app provide any auto-save settings?" The first thing to check is whether the application that you are using offers any auto-save or auto-recover options, even if it doesn't support Versions specifically. Microsoft Word offers two auto-save options. To find them, launch Word, then go to Preferences -> Save and check the options shown below: The middle underlined option is the most important: it says to save auto-recover information every minute. I think the default is every 10 minutes, but a lot can change in 10 minutes. The top checkbox is optional, but creating a backup means that you have another way to recover if something goes wrong. Options never hurt. These backups are stored in the same directory as the original, and the filenames end in "~" which is a long-standing convention for backup file names. The third is also optional, but personally I prefer the older .doc format simply because it's more compatible with other non-Microsoft applications. The XML-based .docx format also got a bad rap previously for compatibility issues with Dropbox, although if you're running the current version of the cloud storage utility you shouldn't have any problems. (That said, .docx is the better format, not to mention the more modern format. I think of the ".doc or .docx?" choice sort of like choosing between .mp3 or .m4a: the newer formats have technical advantages, but not as many applications support them. The difference, of course, is that it's usually pretty simple to convert between .doc and .docx.) "Where does the app store files?" Some applications automatically store files in a certain folder structure, and you can't move them (at least not without getting into creating links, which may or may not work well). Text editors and word processors, however, generally let you choose where to store files you create; Office also has settings for default folders for saving and auto-recovery under Preferences -> File Locations: Note that setting the default for "Documents" does not mean that you can't change it for individual files later, it just tells Microsoft Office where to start when opening or saving new files. You can also change the location of the AutoRecover files. I put mine into ~/Dropbox/Backups/Microsoft Office/ because if the computer I'm on dies completely, I can access the data from any other Dropbox-connected account. Is this an unlikely scenario/edge case? Absolutely. Does it hurt to set it anyway? Nope. "But my application doesn't have those settings!" Check out Default Folder X which, as the name implies, can set the default folder for just about any application (plus other things). Dropbox No doubt you noticed that I suggested using Dropbox to save the files. That's not just because they are available online or on any iOS device. Dropbox also keeps every revision for the past 30 days. That means that every time you hit "Save," a separate version is saved on Dropbox. Browsing Dropbox revisions isn't as visually slick as using Versions on Lion. To view them, select the file in Finder, and then use the Dropbox icon on your Finder toolbar, or Control-click (right-click, or two-finger click) on the file and use the Dropbox contextual menu. That will launch the Dropbox website and show you a listing of all the versions, and give you a chance to download them (some file formats can even be previewed online). While Dropbox only saves 30 days' worth of revisions, Dropbox Pro users also have the option to add the Pack-Rat feature which will keep revisions indefinitely. With every save, you are creating an off-site backup of your latest work, so even if you only use one computer, Dropbox is the place to save your most important and most often changed files. "But what if I forget to press save? My app doesn't have any sort of auto-save functionality!" Don't fret if your app doesn't have auto-save; you can add it to any application very simply by using Keyboard Maestro. It's as simple as creating a macro which says "If I am using {insert application name here}, and there is a 'Save' button, press it every X seconds or minutes." I've created just such a rule for Microsoft Word here: This rule will only run when Microsoft Word is active and there is a menu option for "Save" (which will be disabled if you don't have any files open). If it does find the Save menu item, it will select it. (You could also tell it to press "⌘ + S" but I prefer selecting menu items to keyboard shortcuts.) With this rule you never have to worry about spending an hour on a Word document only to lose it all when the app crashed and you realized that you had forgotten to save it. If the file isn't saved when the Keyboard Maestro macro runs, it will prompt you to name the file. (There are other applications like Keyboard Maestro which support the same kind of features, but Keyboard Maestro is the one that I know and use. If you would recommend others, let us know in the comments.) Versions is great, but there's no need to wait for your app to support it Versions is a great addition to OS X, and I love not having to remember to save, but only a handful of applications support it at the present time. If you want to (or are required to) use another application, take a few minutes to check out your auto-save options. There are few things more frustrating than losing unsaved work, but the good news is that there are fewer and fewer reasons for that to ever happen.
HTC strikes Dropbox deal, will offer 5GB free on Sense 3.5 phones
HTC has now launched itself into the clouds, confirming that its latest Android phones will get an extra 3GB of storage with Dropbox. According to Pocket-Lint, the extra space will extend to all HTC devices running Sense 3.5, which at the moment means it's limited to the forthcoming HTC Rhyme. We probably won't see the Dropbox deal extend to HTC's Windows Phones though -- Microsoft reckons it has the whole file-syncing thing covered.
Kokuyo's CamiApp brings paper back to note-taking (video)
Between Samsung's Galaxy Note and the Boogie Board Rip, a mini-trend emerged at IFA last week with companies attempting to bridge the gap between paper notebooks and digital devices. Japanese office supply manufacturer Kokuyo is looking to get in on the action, utilizing devices that consumers already own. In August, the company's CamiApp was released for iOS, with an Android version coming later this month. The app scans and digitizes handwritten text, letting users edit, highlight, email, tag and share the information with apps like Evernote and Dropbox. The apps are specially designed to work with forthcoming "smartphone-friendly" paper notepads from the company. According to Kokuyo, the notebooks have "special features" that make digital capture easier. Eight different notebooks will be made available tomorrow. The company is also working on making the CamiApp notebooks available overseas.
Daily iPad App: Elements 2
Elements is one of many text editors available in the App Store. It supports Dropbox, Markdown and TextExpander which makes it popular among iOS users. It's available for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad, but the iPad version really shines as a text editor. Version 2 was just released and adds several notable features for editing and exporting documents. The iPad version uses the entire screen and the large onscreen keyboard, which makes it easy to create a text document or markdown file from scratch or edit an existing one on the fly. I don't have a Bluetooth keyboard and was unable to test this functionality in the latest version of the app. All documents can be uploaded to your Dropbox account and synced across devices. Even when you are offline, the file changes will be saved and uploaded when you connect. Elements uploads files to a default /Dropbox/Elements/ folder and you still can't change that location. Variety is the spice of life and Elements has a bunch of export options that let you save your file as an HTML or PDF document. You can export the document to Tumblr, Facebook, Dropbox, Evernote, iTunes, and email. The editor UI has also been tweaked with a new dealt font of Museo Sans, a new Markdown preview view and appearance settings that are now available from the within the app. Elements 2 also removed the ability to change the background color setting, a change that users of the earlier version may find annoying. Elements is a very capable text editor for the writer or coder that uses their iPad regularly. It's a universal app available for US$4.99 from the App Store.
Silent Dropbox update adds Lion support
Unless you have super-sekrit magic powers, haunt the Dropbox forums or are Steve Sande, you might not have noticed that Dropbox finally upgraded to a Lion-compatible build. Dropbox normally uses a silent-but-deadly approach to handle its updates. Basically it installs it automatically for you sometime within a week or so of the new release. But would it kill Dropbox just to give you an alert and let you know that it's ready? Especially for a big change like restoring the Dropbox submenu in Lion? Here's how you can manually upgrade without waiting for Dropbox to catch up. First confirm that you are running an earlier version. Dropbox > Preferences > Account reports the current version. Next, head on over to the install page and download the 1.1.40 installer. Open the dmg. Quit your earlier Dropbox install and drag the new version into Applications. Then launch the updated app and Bob's your uncle. If you're one of the few dozen people who have been using my GrabUpper utility to generate URLs while waiting for Dropbox to catch up to Lion, you'll be pleased to know that the utility continues to work with the 1.1.40 release. It will monitor your Dropbox folder and create URLs whenever you drop something in. For everyone else, you can revert to using the contextual pop-up menu (Right-Click > Dropbox > Copy Public Link) now that it finally works on Lion.
Dropbox security bug temporarily allowed logins without authentication
Earlier today, a code update to Dropbox introduced a bug that temporarily allowed access to users' accounts and files without authentication via the company's web interface. For approximately four hours, from the time that Dropbox made the changes until the service's developers were able to correct the error, user accounts were accessible by merely typing in the email address associated with the account. "This should never have happened," Dropbox says on its blog. "We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again." TechCrunch notes that many Dropbox users store sensitive files using the service, and it's a sobering thought that such files were theoretically freely accessible by anyone for any period of time. Dropbox claims that less than one percent of users logged into the service while authentication was inadvertently optional, and it logged out all user sessions as a precaution. This is not the first time concerns have been raised over possible security issues with Dropbox, but the fact that user accounts and files were accessible without authentication may mean that users looking for a secure online file storage system may want to look elsewhere when iCloud debuts this fall.
Ten ways to replace iWeb and MobileMe hosting
Yesterday, we reported on a rumor that Apple's website creation software, iWeb, is about a year away from obsolescence, along with MobileMe's hosting of iWeb sites. An iWeb user allegedly sent Apple CEO Steve Jobs an email asking if he should start looking for another website builder and a new host, and Jobs provided one of his patented terse replies: "Yep." In my post about this, I mentioned some alternatives that TUAW readers might want to look at. Here I'm going to take a more detailed look at several easy website creation tools and hosting alternatives, so that you can start making your plans to move away from iWeb and MobileMe. I will not be covering professional web design tools in this post, as iWeb is designed for easy creation of sites. Instead, all of the suggestions I'll make here are aimed at the folks who just want to create a relatively good-looking website quickly, without a lot of training. iWeb hosting via FTP If you want to keep using iWeb for a while but would like to move your iWeb site away from MobileMe hosting, then get yourself a domain name, get a web host, and start publishing via FTP. iWeb 3 made it possible to publish your website on a traditional web host. You set up the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) settings in iWeb's site publishing settings, and pressing the Publish Site button takes care of uploading graphics, text, and any changed pages to the host. Just about every major and minor web hosting provider supports FTP. Note that some of the standard iWeb features, including password protection, blog and photo comments, blog search and the hit counter don't work when you use FTP for publishing. The great thing about this solution is that you can just change the host for your website, point iWeb to the new host, and publish your same old site to the new location. Not much is lost in translation, and you won't need to go through a lot of redesign work. Unfortunately, iWeb probably won't be supported in the future and may eventually stop working with future releases of Mac OS X. The other negative? You'll need to pay for web hosting from one of the many hosting providers. You can also use your own Mac as a web server (no matter how old), but that's the subject of another post... iWeb hosting on Dropbox If you have a lightly-used iWeb site and don't feel like spending money on web hosting, consider getting a free Dropbox account and hosting your iWeb site there. I wrote some instructions on how to use Dropbox as your iWeb host a while back, so check them out. Advantages? You can continue using iWeb for a while longer. Disadvantages? Dropbox isn't designed for large-traffic web hosting, and might shut you down if your site is wildly popular. Likewise, if you have a huge and complex iWeb site with a lot of photos, you might go over the free 2 GB free storage limit and have to start paying for web hosting. Facebook Do you just want to have a "site" where you can post pictures and videos, let your friends know what you're doing, and get comments on your content? Then you may just want to move over to Facebook. It's free, and most of your friends and relatives are probably already using it. Facebook is fine for the new material you create, but how do you move your old posts to the land of Zuckerberg? It's probably not going to work very well. I can envision some sort of long session involving copying and pasting text to Facebook, but with the constantly changing wall of content on Facebook, your old content is going to be wiped off the wall fairly soon. If you have a lot of your iPhoto pics on your iWeb site, then you're in luck. Just open up iPhoto, put all of those iPhoto pics into an album, and then use Share > Facebook to move the photos into a Facebook album. What if you're looking for a more personal and unique site? That's where my next suggestions come in. WordPress / WordPress.com When I want to put a website or blog together quickly, I use WordPress. This blogging tool (content management system) has been around for years, and it is wildly popular. Over 14% of the top 1 million websites were created in WordPress, and the most recent major release of WordPress had been downloaded over 32.5 million times by February of 2011. There's even a professional version, WordPress VIP, which our sister site TechCrunch uses as its underlying CMS. WordPress is not a Mac application; rather, it is an AMP (Apache / MySQL / PHP) application that runs on a server (or on your Mac). You log into a dashboard from your favorite web browser, add content, change the look and feel of the site with themes and plugins, and then publish your changes. There's no need, as in iWeb, to make changes locally and then wait for your modifications to be uploaded to a server. For beginning WordPress bloggers, I recommend a free WordPress.com account. It's a great way to learn how WordPress works, all your content can be migrated to another WordPress host at a later date if necessary, and the fairly new step-by-step tutorials are an incredible way to learn all about this powerful content management system. If you decide to head out on your own, most major web hosting providers have one-click installers for WordPress. In other words, you sign up for a hosting plan, then say that you want WordPress installed. A few minutes later, you get an email from your WordPress site saying that you need to log in and create an administrative account. Do that, and you're on your way to blogging superstardom. Among the hosting providers that provide one-click installations of WordPress are Bluehost, DreamHost, MediaTemple, and GoDaddy. Note that you're going to have to pay for a hosting plan, so maybe the $99 you'll be saving every year by not renewing MobileMe will pay for your web hosting. WordPress is remarkably powerful, and a vast developer community is constantly creating new plugins to add functionality to the tool and designing new themes to make pages that are unique and beautiful. If you can't find a theme to your liking, there's always Artisteer, an app that you can use to easily create your own custom theme. iWeb users who might have set up a small shop using something like Google Checkout or PayPal buttons can actually get a real web commerce site going with WordPress. There are several plugins now available for WordPress that integrate with shopping cart services like FoxyCart. Finally, WordPress is an excellent way to get familiar with most content management systems. For anyone who has aspirations to become a professional blogger, starting with WordPress can get you familiar with the tools and workflow that you'll need to move on up the ladder. Tumblr Want a very easy to use and free way to host a website? Tumblr's a good start. You can sign up for free in minutes and be posting immediately after that. There's a selection of Tumblr themes -- none of which I found to my liking -- that you can choose from, and all you need to do to post is have a web browser or use an iOS app like Tumblr (Free) or QuickTumblr ($2.99, for iPad). As you can see from the Tumblr dashboard screenshot above, once you've logged into your account you have a choice of what you can post. Each one of these buttons leads to a data entry page that you can use to post a specific type of content. On Tumblr, you can create some social engagement by choosing other tumblelogs to follow, or by liking/favoriting posts which you can quote or reblog on your own site. Tumblr's bookmarklet and email posting tools are pretty snazzy, and they make it easy to clip and share popular links or videos. You can call in posts from your cellphone, if you like blogging in audio format. We even have a TUAW Tumblr for material that might not be suitable for the main site. I personally don't like the vibe or feel of Tumblr, which is why I use the next tool for some personal posting. Posterous The only thing you need to start a Posterous blog is an email account. Why? Because you can actually do a lot of your posting by just sending emails to a special Posterous address. You can also use the web-based editor with Safari, Firefox, Chrome, or any other modern web browser to update your information. Posterous is completely free, and there's also a free iPhone app for posting on the run. I've been using Posterous on and off for three years for my personal blog, and I really like it. There are some great themes -- the current one I'm using uses a grid of fifteen photos to show the last fifteen posts, and it works very well on an iPad. Speaking of the iPad, I recently found out that I can use the handy Writing Kit app ($4.99) to write posts in Markdown and then email 'em to Posterous for publishing. It also has some of the same posting options as Tumblr, and it offers a Groups feature for collaboration & sharing among friends or family. [Since it's graduation season, don't miss the Posterous "instant collaborative photo album" trick, which leverages the geolocation features of the Posterous iPhone app to cluster pictures around an event. So slick. –Ed.] As far as I'm concerned, Posterous is the best for free hosting of personal websites. It's incredibly flexible, drop-dead simple to use (I mean, how hard is it to send an email?), it has links to and from the social networking world, offers great looking themes, supports your own private domain names, and never seems to have any downtime. However, for small business sites, which are one of the other main uses for iWeb and MobileMe hosting, it's really not appropriate. Squarespace Businesses looking for a way to make beautiful sites with associated hosting should take a peek at Squarespace. This is a combination of a typographically-friendly web-based design tool and hosting that produces some great-looking sites. As with MobileMe hosting, you can have Squarespace host your own domain, and the hosting prices are relatively low -- $144 to $432 per year depending on how popular your site is, how many editors you want, and how many big business features you need. As with WordPress, Squarespace is easily integrated with shopping cart services. And when you see small business sites like this or this, you can see how professional and compelling Squarespace websites can be. Drupal / Drupal Gardens WordPress probably powers more websites and blogs than any other content management system, but Drupal is another hugely popular tool. It's an open source system like WordPress, meaning that the software is written and supported by a community, and the base files are free for the copying. Drupal powers the websites for The Economist, Examiner.com, and even the White House, so you can see that it's a professional system. For those who are making the move from iWeb and MobileMe hosting, Drupal Gardens might be a good place to start. It's a hosted system similar to WordPress.com and offers a lot of the power of Drupal 7. It's free for low-bandwidth use, with paid subscriptions for more users, more traffic, and support. Drupal sites can be extremely idiosyncratic in style, and the content management system has built-in features like forums, polls, galleries, and more. The free account is a great way to get your feet wet in the ocean of Drupal, and you can then either move to a paid subscription or put a Drupal installation on another host and move your content. RapidWeaver I've talked a lot about web-based blogging tools here, but what about easy Mac-based website tools? RapidWeaver ($59.99) from Realmac Software is a favorite of a lot of Mac users. In many ways, RapidWeaver is similar to iWeb. You create a site using a template, add pages, drop in addons (like widgets in iWeb), and then publish your site. While you're working on your content, you can toggle between an editing mode and a view of the site as it will look when it's published -- that's helpful for making sure that there are no surprises when the publish button is pushed. If you use RapidWeaver, you'll need to have a web hosting provider. The app supports FTP publishing, so just about any web hosting provider will be able to accommodate your site. Realmac has a store for RapidWeaver themes, plug-ins, and another feature called Stacks. Themes define the look and feel of the site, plug-ins provide extended capabilities like forms or ecommerce, and stacks are another way of including features that are not built into the basic app. There's a free trial available from RealMac before you buy RapidWeaver from the Mac App Store or direct from the company. Sandvox Another venerable web creation app for Mac is Sandvox 2 ($77) from Karelia Software. For a website creation and publishing experience that is close to that of iWeb, but with a lot more features and flexibility, Sandvox is probably the way to go. Even the user interface for Sandvox looks a lot like iWeb. As with both iWeb and RapidWeaver, there are a variety of themes included, many of which come in more than one choice of color. Unlike with iWeb, you can edit the raw HTML of your website and even run it through the W3C Markup Validation Service from within the app. Sandvox includes a long list of objects (essentially the same as iWeb widgets or RapidWeaver plug-ins). Things like Amazon lists (for use with an Amazon Associates account), a built-in Facebook "Like" button, Flickr thumbnails, or a built-in Twitter feed are easy to drag right into a Sandvox page. Once again, you'll need to get web hosting from any of the many providers out there. Sandvox supports publishing not only through FTP and SFTP, but WebDAV as well. You can download the app for a free trial and see if Sandvox is for you. Conclusion These are just ten of the possible web creation and hosting solutions that iWeb users have available to them. If you're currently hosting an iWeb site on MobileMe, it's a perfect time to start thinking about what you'll do in the post-MobileMe world. Whether you choose to continue using iWeb for a while and just host your site elsewhere, or decide to go with another tool or a web-based content management system, there's no better time to begin planning your website redesign or move. Keep in mind, though, before you tear up every bit of your carefully crafted iWeb workflow: it is still June of 2011, and there will be a full year before the MobileMe servers go dark in June of 2012. It's likely that we'll be hearing something more from Apple with regard to iWeb site migration around the time of the iCloud launch later this year. After all, as Fortune points out, this isn't the first time that an Apple web publishing tool has been kicked to the curb -- .Mac HomePage got the boot in July of 2009. I did not include professional-level tools like Adobe Dreamweaver in this list, since we wanted to show tools that anyone who is well-versed in the use of iWeb could easily use. If you favor other easy-to-use web creation and publishing tools, let us know in the comments.
MobileMe: Some speculation about the transition to iCloud
I'll start this post off by stating the obvious -- there's a lot about how MobileMe services will transition to iCloud that we don't know yet. But I'm going to take a stab at some of the most pressing questions we've received from TUAW readers regarding the transition. As more facts come in, we'll update this post and/or let you know in a new article. First, let's talk about what's available in MobileMe as it stands today. The details are in that graphic above, which is taken directly from the web-based MobileMe service. There are web-based versions of Mail, Contacts (Address Book), and Calendar (iCal); there's Find My iPhone, which has already become a free service; there's iDisk, a "cloud-based storage" solution; and then there are things like Gallery and iWeb hosting. Speculation #1: Web-based versions of Mail, Contacts, and Calendar will be de-emphasized I'd speculate that the web-based versions of Mail, Contacts, and Calendar will get less attention going forward, and might even disappear on June 30, 2012. Seriously -- who needs them? If you have a Mac or three, you'll sync Mail, Address Book, and iCal through the free iCloud service. The same with your iOS devices, which will send Mail, Contacts, and Calendar changes to the iCloud, where they'll all be echoed to the rest of your digital world. For Windows users, you'll be using Outlook 2010 or 2007 to sync to the iCloud. The only scenario in which you might not be able to get to your "stuff" is when you're using a public computer of some sort at a hotel, on a cruise ship, or at a cybercafé in Spain. Of course, you don't want that to happen, so you'll have your iOS device with you. Hook up to Wi-Fi or use your 3G data service, and the problem is solved. That's why they call them mobile devices. [The counterargument would be that dropping web-based access to PIM and email from iCloud would be a pretty big competitive disadvantage for the service, compared to Google and Microsoft offerings. It's equally likely that the web components will simply flip over from MobileMe to iCloud without any new features or engineering effort -- since Apple is already doing a passable job on them. –Ed.] Speculation #2: iDisk disappears Apple's already stated that iCloud will back up your content -- music, photos, apps, and documents. But there's nothing out there about what will happen to your other stuff. I personally have about 15 GB of iDisk storage available to me on MobileMe, of which I've actually used about 3 GB. All of my important data is sitting out in my Dropbox, syncing between my Macs and iOS devices. I personally don't see the need for iDisk in this world of Dropbox, but there are others who may be using iDisk since they either don't know about Dropbox and similar services or don't want to migrate to them. I think iDisk is going to go extinct, but that Apple will provide iDisk users with a variety of third-party cloud storage solutions and warn them to migrate their data well in advance. There is a full year to prepare. Speculation #3: Gallery is toast Gallery was Apple's way of creating web-based photo albums of your photos for sharing with friends and relatives. Once again, I can't see a need for it in the post-MobileMe world. Apple has already provided an "out" to those who want to share their photos to the world -- iPhoto supports sharing pictures to both Flickr and Facebook. I don't know what Flickr's membership is these days, but Facebook has well over 600 million users, and a good number of them may be former or current MobileMe subscribers. Those two services are perfect for photo sharing, and I'd be willing to bet that the current number of photos hosted in Gallery is a tiny fraction of the number out on Facebook or Flickr. Another reason I think Gallery is going away is the tendency for people to use iOS devices as a sort of electronic photo album. I don't know how many times I've seen my wife show off photos of our trips to friends or complete strangers using either her iPhone or iPad. It's a lot easier than telling them to go out to some long-winded MobileMe URL to see a gallery of pictures. Speculation #4: So long, iWeb hosting As the author of several editions of a book on iWeb, I have a vested interest in the future of this Apple product. However, the future just doesn't look all that bright for iWeb. The software hasn't been updated recently, and there is a lot of rumbling out on the Apple Support Forums about what will happen when MobileMe disappears. My guess? Apple will once again tell MobileMe users that they need to find their own hosting. iWeb can publish websites to a number of hosts, so it's no big deal to republish on a new one. I even wrote a post almost two years ago about how to use free Dropbox space to host an iWeb site, so there's a solution. Finally, a significant portion of the people who set up iWeb sites initially were putting together personal sites. Many of those people have probably gone the easy route and are either letting friends know about their lives via Twitter and Facebook, or have set up sites with free services, like Blogger or WordPress.com. Nevertheless, judging by the frustration and concern on Apple's support boards, this may be one of the trickiest transitions to manage. Conclusion Before some of our readers who are adverse to change go all ballistic on me in the comments, remember what I said at the beginning -- we don't really know what's going to happen to some of these services between now and the demise of MobileMe on June 30, 2012. All of this is speculation about what will happen, based on my personal perspective. If you have an alternative idea, or you're a disgruntled MobileMe employee who wants to spill the beans, please let us know about it in the comments or send us a tip via the "tip us" button at the top of the page.
Dropbox joins arms with Sony Ericsson and Softbank, looks to expand elsewhere
By Dropbox's own numbers, its base has grown from five million to 25 million users in the last year, and now claims paying customers in 175 countries. Not content with this explosion, however, the company is establishing partnerships in the mobile arena to kick its growth into hyperdrive. Sony Ericsson is the first willing participant, and several of its phones (including the Arc and Play) will ship preloaded with the software throughout ten European countries. On the mobile carrier side, Tokyo-based Softbank will soon include the blue box on a handful of its Android devices, and Verizon is being courted by Dropbox, too -- nothing definite between these two, however. Good first steps, but if the company really wants to get rolling, it might want to pair up with a phone that has world domination in mind. Just a thought.
BoxyTunes app streams music from your Dropbox music folder
There's a short but interesting analysis on Wired's Gadgetlab about Google's Music Beta service and how a simple US$2 app, BoxyTunes, does everything you hoped Google's service would do but doesn't. Music Beta was launched last week at Google's I/O Developer conference. It currently only works in web browsers and on Android devices. The web-based service does not work on iOS devices because it uses Flash. BoxyTunes, on the other hand, simply streams any music, podcasts or audiobooks it finds in your Dropbox folder to your iOS device. It allows you to set up playlists of tunes in your Dropbox, use your earbud controls as if you were listening to iTunes and listen to music in the background while performing other tasks. And if Music Beta does ever come to iOS devices, Wired author Charlie Sorrel points to a another potential advantage of BoxyTunes. Uploads may be faster as Dropbox creates an MD5 hash of every file you upload and won't upload a second copy if that file already exists on their servers.
Dropbox under fire for security concerns (updated)
Update: Dropbox has sent us a response to the issues raised in this article; it is reproduced in full at the end of this post. Popular cloud file syncing service Dropbox, much beloved by TUAW, has been in the news lately. On the one hand, it announced it had hit a new high of 25 million users, which is a number that is both pleasingly big and pleasingly round. On the other hand, it has been the target of some strongly worded criticism for its security features -- or, more accurately, problems with them. The most recent of these criticisms arose from an update to the Dropbox Terms of Service to state that if the government asks, it will hand over your files: As set forth in our privacy policy, and in compliance with United States law, Dropbox cooperates with United States law enforcement when it receives valid legal process, which may require Dropbox to provide the contents of your private Dropbox. In these cases, Dropbox will remove Dropbox's encryption from the files before providing them to law enforcement. This isn't terribly surprising, although on first glance it might sound awful. Consider the alternatives. If Dropbox receives a legally binding subpoena court order (thanks for the correction, JBB) in a criminal case demanding the release of data, what else could anyone expect it to do except hand the data over, right?
Dropbox app updated as the service hits 25 million users
Dropbox has quickly become the must-have app and service for many people. Launched in 2007, about the same time as the original iPhone, Dropbox is a wonderful way to synchronize files between computers of all types. According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, the company is announcing that Dropbox now has 25 million users, up from just 4 million a year ago. The numbers are astounding -- over 200 million files are saved to Dropbox daily, about a million every five minutes. Concurrent with the announcement of this user milestone, Dropbox has updated its self-named app to version 1.4. Part of the update brings the action buttons (Dropbox, Favorites, Uploads, Settings) back to the bottom of the user interface in a tabbed fashion, but the new version of the app improves on the way that uploads from the iOS app are handled. It's now possible to upload many photos and videos from the camera roll to a specific folder in Dropbox. That functionality is useful and seems like a logical extension of the way that the Dropbox app works, but the other new capability really adds usefulness to the app. Dropbox can now accept direct uploads from external apps. For example, I received a Word document in Mail.app this morning from a travel operator in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I wanted to save it into my Dropbox "Travel" folder, so I downloaded the document in Mail, tapped on it to "Open In," and there was a new item on the list of usable apps for Dropbox. By saying that I wanted to open the Word document in Dropbox, the upload interface appeared and I was able to point the document to my specific folder. This method of adding documents from a number of iPhone and iPad apps is quite speedy, and it works in any app that uses the "Open In" dialog. Dropbox Version 1.4 is available now as a free download from the App Store. [via MacStories]
World Backup Day: Ad-hoc backups to the cloud & more giveaways
Happy World Backup Day! The only safe way forward is to back up; that's why we've joined the cause for data saving with tips, techniques and giveaways all day today. As Steve mentioned earlier today, there are lots of cloud-based backup services eager to help you protect your data while solving the onsite/offsite conundrum. A backup of uncertain status in a single location isn't much better than no backup at all -- for one thing, it gives you a sense of confidence that your data is protected when it might not be. Getting your data tucked away with Dolly Drive, Backjack, Backblaze, Mozy, Carbonite or CrashPlan may not be the fastest or cheapest approach, but sooner or later it may save your bacon. Compare and contrast plans here. (Lifehacker has a full rundown on how CrashPlan can help you sleep soundly at night, knowing your backups are solid.) Even if you're not up for a full-on cloud backup solution (whether due to bandwidth or budget constraints), there are still some surprisingly easy ways to back up your key files in the cloud, and do it for cheap or free. All of these approaches require a bit more thinking than the automated tools above, but if you're the sort of person who makes copies of your bank statements or saves your dry cleaning receipts, then you can probably get into these habits, too.
Amazon launches 'cloud locker' music service
Amazon announced Cloud Drive and Cloud Player for the Web and Android, a new web-based service that lets you store your music and other files in the cloud and access them on the go. Streaming music is possible using a web-based player compatible with the Mac and PC as well as an Android application. The Cloud Drive service competes with online storage solutions like Dropbox by letting you upload music, video, photos and other documents to an online locker. The service provides you with 5 GB of online storage space for free, and additional storage capacity is available for a minimal fee. The paid service includes 20 GB of storage for $20, 50 GB for $50 and so on. Amazon's Cloud Player service is free and brings music streaming to the masses who shop Amazon's web store. Amazon apparently launched the service without the blessing of the recording industry and is working on securing post-announcement licenses. The online retail giant is forcing the music industry to play its hand and either support the service or risk appearing as the bad guy by shooting Amazon down. It's a gutsy move, but one that Amazon needs to make if it wants to catch up with its competition. Speaking of competition, read on to find out how Amazon is taking on Apple's popular iTunes music service.
ScanDrop comes to Mac: makes scanning to cloud services simple
I've been a fan of a paperless workflow for a couple of years now, and I rely heavily on Evernote for organizing everything scannable that crosses my desk. One of the tools I've found invaluable for speeding up the scan and filing process is ScanDrop, as it allows me to scan a document and do basic image editing. I can also send a PDF to Evernote with a name, tags, and the appropriate Notebook setup without having to juggle files between multiple applications. Unfortunately, this has also kept my scanning leashed to Windows, since ScanDrop didn't exist for Mac OS X. I was delighted to find out that OfficeDrop has debuted a Mac OS X version on the Mac App Store at the bargain launch price of US$1.99. If you aren't an Evernote user, ScanDrop also works directly with Google Docs and OfficeDrop's own commercial cloud service, or you can scan files to any location on your drive, enabling you to sync documents to Dropbox, iDisk or similar solutions. The only downside is ScanDrop depends on the service to do optical character recognition (OCR), so you'll need to be an Evernote Premium user, a subscriber to OfficeDrop, or put up with the limitations with Google Docs' OCR. If you're saving to your drive, you may need to find an additional tool for OCR or live without searchable text documents. Make sure to read over the details about scanner support to make sure ScanDrop will work with your hardware before you click purchase.
How to transfer files between Macs
When two or more Macs are gathered in the name of Steve Jobs, there's a good chance that someone is going to want to transfer files between those computers. Macworld's Kirk McElhearn, who also hangs out at TidBITS.com and is a fellow Take Control Ebooks author, has written an excellent tutorial on nine ways to transfer files from one Mac to another. Whether you're a Mac newbie or a longtime Mac-head, it's a good read. McElhearn's nine methods include: Email (although there are size limitations) File sharing, found in System Preferences > Sharing Using a shared disk such as a Time Capsule Using iChat file transfer, which is great if you use iChat a lot since you just drag and drop files Sync with Dropbox Send files via Dropbox Use MobileMe sharing (or use YouSendIt if the files exceed MobileMe's size limits) Burn CDs or DVDs Use a sneakernet with a USB thumb drive, SD card or external hard disk drive McElhearn left FTP and several other transfer protocols off of his list, since they require a server. One of my favorite file transfer tools for Macs before Dropbox appeared on the scene was DropCopy (free for personal use on up to three Macs), a fast way to do drag-and-drop file transfers between Macs. What other methods of file transfer between Macs can you think of? We'd love to hear some of your experiences in the comments.
DropPhox wirelessly connects your iOS camera with Dropbox
DropPhox (US$1.99) from DaVinciWare Inc. is a little gem that everyone using an iOS device with a camera (and Dropbox) should go out and buy. This app allows you to snap pictures or videos, and have them wirelessly transfer to your Dropbox account via either 3G or Wi-Fi. We love Dropbox around here and use it for just about everything. The first thing you'll do is link DropPhox to your Dropbox account. By default, a folder will be created in Dropbox -- named, not surprisingly, DropPhox, but you can change it if you'd like. Once you take a picture, if there is a connection, the pictures or videos will transfer. If no connection exists, transfer will be put on hold and resume as soon as DropPhox detects one. That's it. It works seamlessly, perfectly and every time. There are a number of things you can set either in DropPhox, or in the Settings app to tailor things to your liking. The first one is the size of the image. I don't have an iPhone 4, but on my 3GS, I can choose between, original, 1200x600, 960x1280 or 600x800. This is important, since an original resolution shot can be over 3 MB large, and sometimes you don't need the higher resolution image in Dropbox. In the Settings app, there are also options to enable or disable saving to your camera roll, choose a date format (all the shots are named starting with the date, so this may come in handy) and a few other settings. In the DropPhox app, you can provide the needed Dropbox settings, select a saving directory and turn Geotagging on or off. %Gallery-117536%
Apple MacBook Air survey gets chatty about 3G
Apple isn't much of one for customer surveys, but this recent missive to select MacBook Air owners has all sorts of goodies inside it. Most notable is the large amount of questions on 3G data connectivity, a feature that Apple has so far avoided adding to any of its laptops, even though it sells a tablet computer with the functionality. Interestingly, Apple has waited so long on this feature that its primary objection -- the need to pick a specific carrier over another -- has disappeared thanks to Qualcomm's Gobi chipset. On the other hand, most people get 3G data onto their laptops these days through tethering, whether it be with their phone or a dedicated MiFi-style device, and Apple's survey seems to be designed to pick up on the prevalence of all these tendencies. Other aspects of the survey deal with data storage and syncing (MobileMe and Dropbox get shout outs), missing functionality that keeps the Air from being a primary computer, and other miscellany. If you want to get overanalytical with the whole thing, Apple might actually be trying to feel out the dividing line between an iPad and a MacBook Air, instead of the dividing line between a MacBook Pro. Perhaps this year's expected Sandy Bridge or (we wish) Fusion refresh of the MacBook Air could have something more in store? Check out the source link for the whole thing.
Share links between Mac and iOS with Dropbox trickery
It's beginning to look like the holy grail for any Mac user that also totes around an iPhone or iPod touch -- being able to open URLs remotely so that one can view them later from the comfort of their big, delicious Mac screen. Thanks to MacStories and their readers, we now have a workaround that fits the bill quite nicely. There are a number of apps and services that let one send links to the iPhone easily, but no one seems to have truly mastered sending links the other way. For that, you'll need a Dropbox account, some knowledge of Folder Actions on OS X and at least one cup of coffee. In the end, you'll be using Dropbox as a middleman between your iOS devices and your Mac, which monitors the Dropbox folders for URLs using Folder Actions. The point is, this is a very doable and very effective workaround for the time being. I'm still waiting for a single service that will streamline the way we send content between desktop Macs and their touch-based brethren, but I'm never one to turn down a fun afternoon of desktop tweaking. You can find the full set of instructions over at MacStories.
The paperless office: How to get there (and a discount e-book offer)
Last Wednesday on TUAW TV Live, I discussed my success over the past year at moving towards the ultimate goal of a paperless office. I thought it would be a good idea for me to pass along some of the methods I've been using to accomplish this elusive goal, and also offer a deal to our readers for an e-book all about the subject. My earliest steps towards a paperless office actually came a few years ago, when I went to electronic statements for my banks and credit cards. However, up until the beginning of 2010, the filing system for my business consisted of big binders or folders into which I would slip the printed copies of those statements along with a ton of other paperwork. Now, as the statements come in my email as PDFs or are downloaded from the bank or credit card company website, I save them directly into special folders in my Dropbox.
