Open and edit files in web apps right from your desktop
Updated: Click to read Picnik’s, Zoho’s, and Scribd’s blog entries about Syncplicity.
Announcing new products and features is always the most exciting time for all of us here at Syncplicity. That’s why today was especially fun. We got to launch something big! The big news? Syncplicity is now integrated with Zoho, Picnik, and Scribd in addition to Google Docs and Facebook.
From the very beginning, Syncplicity’s vision has always been to turn your data into something you never even have to think about. When you consider all the places you use it today, you’ll realize that getting it to where you need it, keeping it up-to-date in all the places you use it, and having constant access to it is no small feat. We live in a world that revolves around digital information; it was about time someone made dealing it with it as easy as it once used to be.
Why has dealing with data become so darn complicated anyway? The fact many of us now use multiple computers and devices on a daily basis certainly played a role in it. But that’s only one part of the picture. Even more significant is the rise of the web and its transition from a place where you primarily publish content to a place where you also create it. As the web becomes a serious companion to our desktops and we find ourselves creating and consuming content in both places, keeping it all in sync is a Herculean task.
That’s why we built Syncplicity and why today’s announcement is so exciting. With this release, Syncplicity lets you open and edit your files in any application you like – whether that application is installed on your desktop or lives in your web browser. There are no uploads and downloads to worry about, no additional places to keep your data in, and no out-of-date copies of your files lurking around the web. All your data is always in one place and always available on your computer, just as you’re used to.
While we designed the system to be open and extensible so any website can offer their services to you right on your desktop, we also picked and partnered with three industry leading web applications that you can start taking advantage of right away. They are:
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Scribd, the best place to store, share, publish, and view your documents.
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Zoho, the leading web-based office suite with an unparalleled feature set.
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Picnik, the simplest to use, yet most powerful photo editing site on the web.
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Here is how easy we made it: just right click on any supported document or photo, open the Syncplicity menu, and click Preview in Scribd iPaper, Edit in Zoho, or Edit in Picnik. Syncplicity will automatically open your chosen application in a web browser, load your document into it, and, when you’re done, sync any changes you make right back to your desktop. There are no accounts to create, no usernames and password to enter, and nothing to upload or download. Have I also mentioned it’s all free?
Both worlds – the offline world on your desktop and the online one in your web browser – have a lot to offer. With Syncplicity, there’s no need to move to one or the other exclusively. We’ll bridge them together for you so you can take the best from both.
Let us know what you think, what work and what doesn’t, and what other web applications you’d like to see integrated with Syncplicity. If you’re a company or a developer interested in becoming available to users on their desktops, get started at https://my.syncplicity.com/developers.
See you at the forums!
Ondrej
Newest Syncplicity Employee
hello everyone! i wanted to introduce myself to the syncp community. i recently joined and i’m already right in the thick of it! since the first beta, i’ve been playing around with syncplicity and thought it was a really good product. leonard and i had met through a mutual friend of ours and quickly bonded over the trials of startup life. at the time, i had founded my own startup and was trying to get that off the ground. like many other people on the forums, i had been badgering him to develop a syncp mac client since most of my personal files are on macs.
when leonard decided they would make the mac client one of their highest priorities, i was inbetween things and he somehow convinced me that if i wanted a mac client, the quickest way possible would be if i wrote it myself. this will teach me never to ask for anything again 
. i also discovered that isaac and ondrej were really awesome guys and also much smarter me, so it was an easy decision.
looking at the forums, i’m pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have given syncplicity such positive and useful feedback. i am really excited to have such quality users and will work hard to match the level of excellence the windows client has achieved. i will be contributing to the forums from now on. if you have a concern or idea for the mac client, feel free to drop me a line on the forums or directly at ian[at]syncplicity[dot]com.
-ian
Blog E-mail subscription
We recently added the ability to get updates the Syncplicity blog via e-mail. You can now get the latest Syncplicity news through your web browser, your favorite RSS reader, or delivered straight to your e-mail inbox. It’s your choice.
You can use the links under Subscribe to enable the subscription of your choice.
Enjoy!
Leonard
Keep an eye on Syncplicity with FriendFeed
We set up a FriendFeed group for Syncplicity over the weekend as a more informal venue to mention what’s on our minds and what we’ve got up our sleeves. Hope to see you there!
Share your files with anyone!
Need to quickly send a file to someone? Don’t bother with email! It’s slow, unsecured, and has limits on the size of your attachments. Why not just let your mom, friend, or colleague download your file with a single click?
With the latest update to Syncplicity, you can. If your files are being synced by Syncplicity, your computer already did all the hard work of uploading them – so why do it again? Just right click on any file in any Syncplicity folder, open the Syncplicity menu, and click “Get a shareable link…”. Syncplicity will come right back with a link you can send to anyone.
This is what it looks like:
And this is the window that will pop right up:
The link you get is a public one so anyone, even people without Syncplicity accounts, will be able to use it if they find out about it. The link contains a secret key so only those people you give the link to (and people they give it to) will be able to dowload your file.
And as everything else in Syncplicity, all downloads are secure and fully encrypted.
Let us know what you think about this feature on our forums – we’d love to hear about how you use it!
Have a great week,
Ondrej
Press Coverage
Syncplicity has been getting a lot of great press coverage lately. You may have run across these articles, but I’ll be the first to admit that you’d be hard-pressed to find any of these reviews through our website. We’re working on updating our website, but in the meantime I’ll post new reviews here. While we’re still in the process of hunting down all Syncplicity reviews, here are a few from the past week that I’ve run across:
Hear it here first — literally. The Power of Information radio talk show recently covered Syncplicity. You can listen to the full show by clicking here. Fast-forward to 17:07 to hear just the Syncplicity specific bits. You can also listen to it on the radio. Times are available on their site.
VUNet’s blog, Download Junkies did a comparison of Syncplicity and SugarSync, concluding: “We have both a SugarSync and Syncplicity account and prefer the design of Syncplicity.”
MakeUseOf recently covered Syncplicity as in an article with a great title, “A Tryst with Syncplicity”. I didn’t entirely get their Cheer/Boo system though.
Austrailian magazine, PC Authority honored Syncplicity with their highest rating, 5 out of 5 stars.
I’m excited to see such great reviews, especially since we’re still in beta!
Leonard
Improved online file browser
We’re excited to announce an improved online file browser for files you’re synchronizing with Syncplicity. In this release we made the following improvements:
- Recycle a file/folder – Moves a file to the Recycle Bin online and on your local computers
- Permanently delete a file/folder – Completely remove a file from Syncplicity’s backup
- Empty Syncplicity Recycle Bin – Clears all deleted files from Syncplicity’s backup
- Add New Directory – Create a new directory from the online browser
- New navigation buttons: Back & Forward, and Up Directory
- Improved the tree navigation and fixed several bugs
Here’s a shot of the new file browser in action:
There’s a brand new pop-out menu on files. You can either right-click on a file/folder or click the little Syncplicity icon to bring it up. Right now, we have a few options in the menu and we’re planning several more. Here’s the menu in action:
And here’s the menu when you’re browsing deleted files in the Syncplicity Recycle Bin:
We’re excited to publish these updates as they’re based on a lot of user feedback. Keep sending us your suggestions!
- Isaac
A quick word from your products guy
Hi everyone,
Our blog was a long time coming and I’m excited to finally see it up here ready for postings!
What do I do at Syncplicity? During the day, I figure out what you – our users – want from Syncplicity. I take all your feedback and use it to decide what our product needs next and what shape our new features need to take. I’m the guy who loves to get emails, forum replies, and blog comments from you because they make my job so much for fun, not to mention so much easier!
The rest of my time is spent making sure Syncplicity fulfills its promise of bridging your desktop and the web. We envision a future where it won’t matter where you store and work with your files – we want that to be something you don’t even have to think about. After all, why shouldn’t you be free to use the best tool for the job in the best environment possible? Whether that tool is a desktop application or an online Web 2.0 site, or whether that environment is your desktop or your browser, Syncplicity will make sure your data is everywhere it needs to be.
We have a lot in store for the future and I can’t wait to start sharing that with you, discussing your ideas and suggestions, and hearing from you about what works and what doesn’t. Looking forward to catching up with you on our forums!
Ondrej
Lots of data!
Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Isaac. Today, the database, a few back-end systems, and the website are my focus. Let me tell you a little about what makes this pretty darn interesting from a DBA perspective:
The Syncplicity database is pretty incredible. Most website databases perform a lot of read operations and a few writes, mainly to maintain a little state information about the user. I think 10 – 100 KB is more than enough state information per user for almost any web database. However, the Syncplicity database is nothing like that. Our databases have quickly grown to triple digit GBs in size as we synchronize your files across all your computers. That’s a lot of state and a lot of writing. Pretty incredible! And, we’re scaling very well to handle the load. So, keep it coming!
Feel free to contact me thru the comments, forums, or Contact page if there’s something you’d like to know. We’ve got some exciting information in the works… stay tuned!
Cheers,
Isaac – VP of Technology
Welcome!
On behalf of the Syncplicity team, welcome to the Syncplicity blog!
We will be posting the latest and greatest news, useful tips and tricks, and some of our thoughts so you can see some of our thinking as Syncplicity grows and moves out of beta.
Along with myself, Syncplicity’s other co-founders, Ondrej and Isaac, will be posting on here as well. They’ll be introducing themselves shortly.
We have some topics lined up over the next few weeks, but if you have any questions or topics you’re interested in, post up a message in the Syncplicity Forums. We’ll be taking interesting questions and hot topics from the forums and covering them in more detail here.
I’m very excited about this new blog. It’s my hope that you’ll find this informative and have as much fun reading it as we have writing it!
Leonard Chung – CEO