Dropbox updated to 1.0, brings selective sync to masses

Dropbox has been one of the easiest ways to sync files across multiple computers since its initial release in 2008. On Thursday evening, the company officially rolled out version 1.0 of the program, bringing with it a whole host of improvements, including—to the joy of MacBook Air users everywhere—support for selective folder sync.

According to the company, the update features “huge performance enhancements” thanks to a completely rewritten back-end; Dropbox claims version 1.0 reduces the strain on your computer’s memory by up to 50 percent. And on the Mac, the entire program has been re-coded in Apple’s Cocoa framework for a smaller download size (a 20 percent reduction), and UI improvements have been made across all three platform offerings.

The banner feature of 1.0, however, is undoubtably Selective Sync: this allows you to select which folders and files found within your Dropbox appear on which of your computers. Each computer has a separate preference pane within the application, so you can, say, choose only certain folders to sync with your work computer while the rest of your files remain accessible on the Web. The company has a good how-to available for those curious about the feature’s particulars.

Additionally, the update brings support for extended attribute sync. This allows users to easily upload and sync files with resource forks (parts of a file that certain programs use for storing information) without fear of data corruption or deletion.

Dropbox 1.0 is free and available for download from the company’s Website in Mac, Windows, and Linux flavors; Mac users should be running OS X 10.4 or later.

Courtesy - http://www.macworld.com

Apple battle iAd vs Google AdSense and HTML5 vs Flash

Last week was a busy week for Apple, starting with the new iPhone agreement to develop applications using the SDK 4. I don’t want to make comments about that at this point. I believe anything can happen before they release the iPhone SDK 4, moving forward Steve Jobs presented the first preview of the iPhone OS 4, which finally will support Multitasking , but the main point during his presentation was the iAd announcement which in my opinion impact Adobe and Google.


Months ago Apple acquired Quattro Wireless, a major player in mobile ad space, during this event Steve Jobs announced an advertising service called iAd, which offers more them simple advertisement service. When you touch an ads in iPhone today you are redirected to a browser closing your application, the new iAd is integrated in the platform and will change the user experience allowing to see ads without quit of the application. Apple will provide the whole ads infrastructure and will share the revenue with the developers.


Steve Jobs used an News app to demo the iAd integration, the app included a Toy Store iAd banner. coincidence or not the ads use HTML 5 and not Flash. Steve wasn’t subtly and mention HTML 5 at least three times, you can see the audience laughing out loud.


It seems iAd and HTML 5 are part of apple strategy to kill Flash, at the same time will help Apple to increase revenue, will be interesting to see Google strategy to convince developer to use AdSense instead iAd.