{"id":18937,"date":"2013-01-18T20:44:57","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T04:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wapreview.com\/?p=18937"},"modified":"2013-02-13T21:51:53","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T05:51:53","slug":"lumia-920-review-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/18937\/","title":{"rendered":"A Linux User’s Nokia Lumia 920 Review – Part 2: Using Dropbox With Windows Phone 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BoxShot-Dropbox-Diectory-Listing\"<\/a> \"Box-Shot-Text-Editor.png\"<\/a> \"BoxShot-Sync-Settings\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I don’t use cloud file storage services much, but I do use Dropbox<\/a> for online note taking\u00a0on all the platforms (Linux, Android, Symbian) I use. The notes are just plain text files containing\u00a0things I want to remember and have available everywhere like; family member’s clothing sizes for gift shopping, GSM hash codes, frequent flier numbers, train schedules, tech tips, etc.\u00a0I create and update the notes with a text editor; gedit on Linux,\u00a0redak<\/a> on Symbian and Text Edit<\/a> or the built in editor in the Dropbox app on Android.<\/p>\n

I’ve been taking notes on my mobile devices since my Palm Pilot days. Initially I used Palm Memos, then Zaurus Memos, then Symbian Notes.\u00a0I currently have hundreds of\u00a0these\u00a0notes, some over 10 years old.<\/p>\n

Migrating notes from one\u00a0proprietary\u00a0platform to the next was always painful and time consuming. So I recently converted all my notes into plain text files and organized them by category in Dropbox folders, which I believe that’s a future proof solution. If Dropbox goes away I can copy my local folders of text files to a different cloud\u00a0storage\u00a0system or even my FTP server.<\/p>\n

I prefer Dropbox over other cloud services because it has robust clients for the three platforms that I use. On Android and Linux I use Dropbox’s own clients and on my Nokia N8 I use Cutebox<\/a>, a very good 3rd party client for Symbian Belle (I still carry my Nokia N8 quite a bit, especially when I plan to do some photography). The apps on all three platforms let me store local copies of my notes, so I’m not dependent on having connectivity to be able look something up.<\/p>\n

I like to be able to use Dropbox on Windows Phone like I do other platforms, by keeping a copy of my Dropbox notes in a file system folder where I could open them with any text editor or other compatible app. But Windows Phone doesn’t have a user accessible file system so that’s not possible. However each Windows Phone app does get read\/write access to it’s own sandboxed area of the filesystem so a Windows Phone Dropbox app should at least be able to able to:<\/p>\n