Digital Lifestyle

The problem with these services is that they are run by people who typically fall into one of two categories:

1) The mind-bogglingly talented engineer who doesn't trust anyone else to do the work so he takes it all on himself under the assumption that everything he does is perfect and doesn't need to go through regression testing because testing is only necessary when there is a chance that something won't work. After all, he's been working 18 hours a day on this so he knows it's going to work.

2) The mind-bogglingly clueless engineer who graduated from college last week and just knows that he can climb this corporate ladder if he just sits there and does everything he is told to do... to the letter... and not daring to speak up on the off chance that he actually notices something horribly wrong with the process either out of fear of getting blamed for it or just because the list of instructions on his checklist don't include "tell someone whether the server catches on fire."

Companies hire the first type of engineer because they feel like they're getting 3 engineers for the price of one. They hire the second type of engineer for the same reason.

Always encrypt anything important that you keep in the cloud. Or anywhere else, if you really value the information in it.

OK, perhaps my phrase was a little harsh for dropbox. One small glitch does not a crisis make.

I stand by that comment for Sony however.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2011 02:26PM by Tony Leggett.

I love and evangelize DropBox. I don't put anything personal on it.

Finally. iOS wireless syncing.

http://9to5mac.com/2011/06/24/heres-what-is-new-in-ios-5-beta-2-including-wireless-itunes-sync/

BASTARDS



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2011 03:55PM by John Willoughby.

I hate dropbox. It led to my one and only yelling at by the Big Boss. We were to put recent projects on the Dropbox along with other activities that he requested. I dutifully uploaded everything. My local dropbox showed everything was fine. I was yelled at for not doing anything. Where have you been for the last three months, he asked. I said, I have no idea what you are talking about? Your performance is pitiful. You have nothing to show! What do you mean oh hallowed Big Boss? You have nothing compared to what other people sent me. It turned out that out of camaraderie I had sent a bunch of stuff related to other people's work along with mine. It synced. Mine did not. Dropbox did not warn me that the Dropbox was full. Was the Big Boss an ass? Yes. Was I stupid for trusting? Yes. I thought some kind of warning about failure to sync would happen. Should Dropbox be used for enterprise? NO. Insanity.

Ugh, sorry to hear, Baha. I had a similar (in a way) problem once: my cycling team lost a sponsor (and I was in charge of sponsorship) because that company thought we'd done nothing to update them for a year. What had happened was that the lovely newsletters and updates I'd made and sent out had gone to the spam folder of that one person at that company. My mistake? No, I did everything right, technically, but didn't follow up that it was getting through. Was their reaction unwarranted? Yep.

Did Big Boss at all back off when you turned your laptop around to show him or her all the work you had in your Dropbox?

That is a UX issue, but... I think I've received "full" warnings when I had to delete or un-share a folder.

ddt

Dropbox has caching issues, notification issues, latency issues... even among geeks (of which I still call myself one). Mokers and I were exchanging some stuff, and it wasn't there then it magically was.

ddt…ugh… yes sounds familiar.

the big boss doesn't say he's sorry. it took me about two weeks to figure out what the hell had happened. in the meantime i damn near killed myself with new product. in the end he said he liked what he was seeing. asshole.

I just use DropBox as a mini-cloud, storage for stuff that's not important enough to warrant a permanent place on my iOS devices. And my encrypted passwords.

In my quest to post on Spork from as many different platforms as possible, I'm posting this from a Logitech Revue.

This is a decent box but still suffers from some clumsiness. It's surprisingly good at browsing the web on a TV screen, though.

Can you get your Atari 2600 online?

ddt

Failing to secure a great price on introductory U-verse, I am dropping subscription television and going all IP (and DVDs in the mail). Upped my netflix to 4 at a time plus streaming. If comcast can get their internet only plans to about $50 a month, I may go there. DSL elite (6 Mbit) for $20 a month is pretty good for now.

We dropped cable for the 2 disc Netflix plan + HDTV via antenna (using EyeTV) on a Mac Mini nearly two years ago. It’s the central hub for all our photos, music, videos, and various iDevices as well. 15G up/down is $66/month though.

I dropped CableTV before I went to India and never started it back up again after I got back. I now have an antenna in the attic, the single-disc Netflix subscription and Amazon Prime. This has been more than sufficient for me.

never had pay TV (cable/dish/Uverse)
But it's because I hate monopolies AND I am a man that knows my limits. That is, I would die within 4 days of getting cable and not moving from in front of the TV.

Have been having problems with wifi in our new house. Was dismaying about it all...

Just bought some Trendnet adapters at my local Microcenter. Went from 428kb/s upstairs to 16mb/s… No configuration. Impressed.

What do you guys think about a thread for UI/UX issues? Especially since we're talking about OS X, iOS, and "everyone else"?

I'd love to go on about the Windows Explorer UI (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/08/29/windows_8_design_to_radically_depart_from_mac_os_x_lion.html).

ddt

Heh, a ribbon in Windows Explorer. Man, it hurts.