Dropbox v. Evernote v. ?

[mr_ed]

There are apparently a whole bunch of file hosting services. I've seen Dropbox and Evernote mentioned here in the forum - does anyone have any strong preferences?

-- Ed

[emusan]

I personally use Dropbox, I think evernote is more intended for use with text files or pdf files or notes in general, whereas dropbox can be used with anything...

[=X=]

Not really an eDGe only question, you probably will get more respones in the Android section.

Dropbox and SugarSync really are more direct competitors and are considered "Storage" boxes. I have an account for each and each has their strength and bonuses.


But Evernote is really on a class of it's own, it's not really considered a "storgage" app, but more of an "Organizer" for folks on the go,

Evernote claim to fame is the ability for the user to take a picture, load a picture to their database server. At some point in time Evernote runs an OCR on the image and make that image searchable (you never see the OCR results). The idea is you can take pictures of your notes, schedule, recipes, or anything else you might have to recall at a later date.
You can also create text base notes or add additional notes to your images, upload documents. etc...

Then open up evernote and search for what ever you are trying to recall. The search is very fast and works great.

I do use it quite often for my kids sport scheduled, school schedules, business notes, etc. I've always stored images digitally since college so Evernote was something I really needed. The nice thing is I don't have to wade through images to get the one I need I can just do a search and evernote pulls it up.



Note on any storeage device make sure not to store sensitive materials even images because they can be scanned and archived. Evernote is upfront about this, but there is nothing stoppign dropbox,sugarsync from doing the same.

[Last_of_the_PEs]

I've read some disturbing things about Dropbox. I use it for innocuous stuff, but apparently the files are not encrypted and Dropbox employees are free to troll around in them. They tell you straight out that they will only store one copy of a file even if multiple "customers" save it, so they are looking at everything you store.

Obviously on a PC, you can encrypt things in ZIP files or other files, but it's more difficult on a tablet. If you're clever though, you can use multiple online services to store quite a lot of data for free.

[toolio]

From Drobox:

I would say the fact that they mistakenly left their system wide open Sunday for four hours is a bigger concern. I say that as a Dropbox customer. On the issue of employees poking around files, here is what Dropbox says about that.

"Dropbox employees are prohibited from viewing the content of files you store in your Dropbox account, and are only permitted to view file metadata (e.g., file names and locations). Like most online services, we have a small number of employees who must be able to access user data for the reasons stated in our privacy policy (e.g., when legally required to do so). But that’s the rare exception, not the rule. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit employee access except in these rare circumstances. In addition, we employ a number of physical and electronic security measures to protect user information from unauthorised access."

[ivanjt]

Maybe I should consider myself privileged - I have my own personal 'dropbox' on our server plus I have full access to all the files on our FTP server as well through ES File Explorer

I have always been wary of having anything stored in the 'cloud' ever since we had to try and reconstruct a clients data that had been stored there and then 'disappeared' when the cloud servers went down.

[Last_of_the_PEs]

Yes, Dropbox PROHIBITS employees from trolling files. I'd be a whole like happier if they could say PREVENTED though.

FTP servers are fine, but they don't synchronize. That's the appeal of Dropbox, Sugarsync etc. You can probably setup an FTP command to copy only changed files up, then down, on both a PC and an eDGe, but if you that big a geek, you'd write your own synch program.

Anyone with a domain name can generally store data, even without hosting or a website.

Those online synch systems would be really cool if they'd do in-file Deltas!

[ivanjt]

You can probably setup an FTP command to copy only changed files up, then down, on both a PC and an eDGe, but if you that big a geek, you'd write your own synch program.

Actually my programmer produced some scripts to allow our port of rsync to do that so we can keep all the portables in sync.

[lestatar]

I have used Dropbox since they launched. Never heard of the other one.

DB is quite useful, personally and professionally. Yes, I am aware of all the issues with DB in the news of late. Am I concerned? Personally, not terribly so.

I use DB to share/remotely access/sync non-confidential, low importance stuff anyway. It is horrible about the breeches and they need to clean up their house internally, but I ain't too worried and will give them the opportunity to set things aright.

The service and benefits are useful enough for me at this point to take this stance. Plus I have 4GB of free storage, a couple above and beyond the 2GB standard [from simply filling out a few non-personal surveys online and from references.]

[janhall_us]

Originally Posted by Last_of_the_PEs

FTP servers are fine, but they don't synchronize.

Take a look at Syncness on the Amazon App Store. I use this to sync between my EE, PE, and my NAS. You can specify directories that you want synced and set up a schedule to run or sync on changes. Truly a local "dropbox".