Zibity

The response to the release of Quicksand has been phenomenal. Since it was launched about three months ago, Quicksand has received fantastic reviews and been picked up by some pretty high-profile sites. For new visitors, Quicksand is a free app of mine which lets you automatically sync your recently opened files with the cloud!

Interestingly, Quicksand’s use picks up over the working week quite noticeably and then drops down over the weekend, which suggests that many people are using the app at work. This is a great testament to how well people trust and appreciate Quicksand.

Speaking of appreciation, Quicksand has received fantastic coverage in by the media. Mac AppStorm rated the app 9 out of 10 stars, and wrote the following:

If you work at all with cloud syncing services such as Dropbox, then Quicksand is a must-have. Quicksand is a seemingly simple app that could potentially save you a lot of time and inconvenient situations.
      – Mac AppStorm

Idealog, a New Zealand magazine, interviewed me about my projects, and commented that “Quicksand tackles a problem that hasn’t been addressed by Silicon Valley giants like Dropbox and Google.” Other websites including MacWorld Norway and AddictiveTips also published very positive reviews. Users also responded very warmly to Quicksand, and it currently has a 5 star rating on MacUpdate.

In conclusion, I’m very happy with Quicksand’s success so far. It took a lot of work to develop, but it’s been truly fantastic to see the reaction online. I’ve got a couple more exciting new features on the way, and I look forward to continuing my journey syncing deeper into Quicksand.

Quicksand lives quietly in your Mac’s menubar.  Whenever you open or edit a file, Quicksand automatically copies it to a special folder synced with your favourite cloud storage solution (all Mac cloud storage solutions, including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive, are supported).

With traditional cloud storage solutions, only files within a special folder were synced, and you had to plan in advance to make sure that you had the files you needed. Quicksand makes this all so much easier, because you don’t have to think about what you sync with the cloud — Quicksand takes care of it all for you by automatically syncing your 50 most recently opened files.

Because Quicksand syncs with the cloud storage solution you already use, you get to take advantage of the full power of the cloud, with amazingly useful features like undelete and revision history.

To learn more about Quicksand, watch the video below, then visit the Quicksand page to download the app and revolutionise the way that you interact with the cloud.

I’ve been working really hard over the past few months on an exciting new app for Macs. I feel it’s coming close to being ready for public use, but I want to make sure that it’s as perfect as it can be before I release it.

To do this, I need some beta testers. I’ve already got some, but I would like more! If you are interested in getting your hands on some pre-release software, reporting bugs, and eventually getting the app for free, please send me a message mentioning which version of Mac OS X you are running.

Edit: Thanks to everyone who replied. I’ve got enough beta testers for now, and I’ll be sure to let you know if I need any more!

Edit 2: Quicksand, my new app, has now been released! Check it out here.

Today MacDropAny passed an amazing milestone: a grand total of 160,000 folders synced to the cloud. Since MacDropAny was released in February 2011, it’s been used by thousands of people in over 80 countries.

People love MacDropAny because it just works. It’s by far the most simple way to sync any folder on your Mac with a number of great cloud syncing services, allowing you to gain access to your important files from wherever you are.

Recently, with the release of version 2, more sync services were added so that MacDropAny now supports syncing with Dropbox, Box.com, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, and iClouDrive. To support MacDropAny’s international user base, version 2 added support for French, Dutch, Spanish and German, making it even easier for people all over the world to use.

Here are some interesting statistics about MacDropAny:

• Over 160,000 folders have been synced with the cloud.
• Approximately 70% of MacDropAny’s users can use the app in their native language.
• The largest user group is from the United States (18% of users), followed by Germany (10%), Spain (8%), and France (7%).
• A folder is synced using MacDropAny, on average, once every 5 minutes.

I’ve received some fantastic feedback about MacDropAny. It’s rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on MacUpdate.com, and has been well reviewed in MacWorld, LifeHacker, Applesfera (in Spanish), Me Cambio a Mac (in Spanish) and many more sites.

None of this would have been possible without the amazing support of MacDropAny’s users and the amazing people who donate to help support continued development. MacDropAny is free, and this is only possible because of users’ kind generosity. I’d like to thank everyone who has donated, tweeted, blogged, helped with bug testing and translated for me – without you guys, MacDropAny wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is today.

MacDropAny is constantly evolving (and hopefully improving too!). If you’ve got a suggestion for a new feature, a new service to sync folders with, or just want to say hello, please feel free to send me a message.

Thanks,
Sebastian Hallum Clarke (MacDropAny’s 15 year old developer) 

I’m happy to announce that iClouDrive, my free app which lets you sync folders between your Macs using your iCloud account, has just been updated to v1.14 with translations into both Spanish (thanks to Fernando Sánchez!) and French.

This means that many more people will be able to use iClouDrive in their native language. If you’d like to help with translating one of my apps into your language, please contact me!

You can download the latest version on the iClouDrive page of my website.

This is a video walkthrough of how to sync any folder on your computer with the cloud, using MacDropAny, my free app.

I’m very happy to report that with the release of MacDropAny v2.03 last night, MacDropAny is now available in a total of four languages; French, Dutch, German and (of course) English.

I’d like to extend a big thank you to the great translators, Leander Stellemans for Dutch and Thomas Schulze for German, who have helped me to bring MacDropAny to the native languages of many more users. Someone has kindly offered to translate MacDropAny into Spanish, and I expect to have this included in an update soon.

If you speak another language, and would be willing to spend about 15 minutes translating some MacDropAny into your native language, please get in touch. At the moment, I’m especially keen to get an Italian translation, but all languages will be happily accepted.

Update (23 Nov 2012): Thanks to Fernando Sánchez, MacDropAny v2.05 is now available in Spanish! You can get the latest version here.

Version 2.01 of MacDropAny, the easiest way to sync any folder on your computer with the cloud, was released today. This update adds a Dutch localization (thanks to Leander Stellemans!) and also fixes a bug which caused a fatal error message to appear if a duplicate folder was about to be made.

You can get the latest update on the MacDropAny page.

I’m very happy to announce to you today the release of MacDropAny version 2.0! This release is a major step for MacDropAny, and app which has served users over 145,000 times since its release in February 2011.

MacDropAny is by far the easiest way to sync any folder on your computer with the cloud. This update packs a number of great features and improvements, including:

• Added support for Box.com and iClouDrive cloud storage and syncing solutions, in addition to the already supported Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive.
• Added French localisation.
• Fixed support for the right-click menu in Finder.
• Improved speed.
• Many bug fixes.

You can download the latest version from the MacDropAny page of my website.

I would also love to translate MacDropAny into more languages, especially German and Spanish. If you’d be interested in helping translate, please contact me.

Thanks,
Sebastian

It is with much excitement that I announce to you today the release of iClouDrive: the easiest way to use your otherwise unused iCloud storage space for syncing files between your Macs.

iClouDrive works like many other file syncing services. It creates a folder on your computer which is auto-magically synchronised with all of your other Macs. Apple gives all iCloud users a free 5GB portion of storage, and it is this storage that is used for syncing files

As with all of my apps, iClouDrive is free, and can be downloaded today! I hope that you find iClouDrive useful, and please feel free to contact me about any questions or comments you may have.

I’m happy to announce the release of MacDropUpdate v2.1.1. This update fixes broken functionality, and allows MacDropUpdate to once again function as the easiest way to make sure that you’re always running the latest version of Dropbox.

As always, you can download the latest version from the MacDropUpdate page on my website.

Thanks,
Sebastian 

MacDropAny was originally released in February 2011 as an easy way to sync and folder on your computer with Dropbox. Since then, support has been added for Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive, and over 145,000 folders have been synced.

I’m now in the process of entirely re-writing MacDropAny to be faster, more bug-resistant, and to have more features. To this end, I’d love to hear what features you’d like to see in the next version of MacDropAny. I’m especially interested to hear if there are any other cloud services you’d like to have MacDropAny work with.

If you have any feature request, please either comment on this post, or send me a message and I’ll see what I can do.

I am often asked for instructions for how to synchronise a folder to multiple computer. This could be useful if you wanted to have your Desktop, Documents folder, or something else easily accessible on all of your Macs.

This can be done easily thanks to MacDropAny, my free app. To do this, just follow these simple instructions:

1. Make sure that you have a backup of your computer (or at least a backup copy of the files you are going to be tinkering with). As outlined in the Zibity Software Licence, I cannot be held responsible for any loss of data incurred as a result of using my apps.
2. Pause (or quit) Dropbox on all of the computers which you want to sync
3. On the first computer, use MacDropAny to sync your Desktop folder (or Documents, Downloads, etc.).
4. Repeat this previous step on all of your other computers, however you must make sure that you locate the “Dropbox copy” of the folder in the same location inside your Dropbox. For example, in the root (top) folder of your Dropbox, and you must make sure that when you are asked what you want the folder to be called, that you use the same name on all of your computers.
5. Unpause (or launch) Dropbox on all of your computers at the same time.
   Let Dropbox sync all of the changes.

If everything has worked correctly, you should now have a folder which magically keeps itself in sync.

You can do this with any folder which is on your local machine (ie not on an external drive). Additionally, it is not reccomended to sync folders with thousands of files (your Applications folder, for example), as Dropbox can sometimes throw a bit of a hissy fit when you do this.

If you find MacDropAny particularly useful, please consider making a small donation to help support future development. I’m only 15 years old, so any contribution, no matter how small, will be greatly appreciated.

I’m happy to announce the release of version 2.1.0 of MacDropUpdate. This update fixes a slight issue with the donation prompt, and at the request of @daskajaspamt, allows you to turn off all alerts (both Growl and dialog boxes) by running the command defaults write com.zibity.macdropupdate2 alerts no in Terminal.

You can download this version from the MacDropUpdate page of my website.

When I was living in Paris, I did some on-and-off tech help for family friends and other people in the community who wanted a friendly person to come along and deal with their computer problems. I’m happy to announce that I’ll be continuing this now that I’ve moved to New Zealand under the branding of The Eastbourne Helpdesk (Eastbourne is the area I live in).

If you would like some affordable help with your digital problems, contact me. If you’re in the Eastbourne area, I’ll be happy to come to your house and assist you on-site. If you’re somewhere else, it’s quite likely that I’d be able to help you with your problems remotely over the internet. Send me a message and we’ll see what we can do!

I’m happy to release version 1.8.3 of MacDropAny. This update fixes a bug which prevented users from syncing a folder located at the root of the drive. Go get it!

I’m happy to announce that today I’m releasing v2.0.9 of MacDropUpdate. This update makes MacDropUpdate work again with the new forum design, and you should now be updated again!

Please download this latest version from here: downloads.zibity.com

Big thanks go to Nils Weber for his help in putting together this fix.

Thanks,

Sebastian