Why hasn't Dropbox extended its main service with something like this yet?

Incredibly simple apps like puu.sh and Skitch have taken off as separate apps and there has been a scattering of Dropbox-integrated third party tools, which I typically have to give away my Dropbox key to use. There's so much data on the web that is difficult to pull out of the cloud, and Dropbox is in the unique position of bridging these two realms.

Dropbox has a lock on the position of market leader in file storage, but they haven't built a platform. There was an article a few days ago which described how Dropbox is a feature, not a product, and the whole company would be put out of business if Apple/Microsoft/Google just rebuilt the functionality (a bit hyperbolic, but worth a thought). But I don't think there have been more than a few features since I started using Dropbox a few years ago, and it's not for a shortage of engineers.

So perhaps they are building more like a platform and releasing it when it's ready? Who knows.

Ripping content out of a youtube might be denied in some EULA so maybe Dropbox just doesn't want to get involved due to legal issues. In any case, Dropbox does one thing and does it well. Anything else is extra and I congratulate them for keeping their game together.

It is a violation of the YouTube EULA and there will also be bandwidth/rate limits imposed.

One of the reasons Dropbox is so popular is because of its drop-dead simplicity. I know more features are nice, but how many new features will detract from Dropbox's main business model - a stupid-simple syncing program? One? Ten?

Also to build up credibility as a developer. My concern as a student is that there isn't a huge community of other open source developers around - so by working on these projects, I'm missing out on the chance to build something with a fellow student, work on my own startup, etc. (consider that substantial programming takes a lot of time)

And tech meetups are great, but it seems a waste of these few years to be going to them instead of meeting the people around college.

So I don't know. You tell me?

I understand why they wouldn't want to serve ads on Wikipedia, but isn't it a bit hypocritical to say the choice is so they can maintain editorial independence? Because for someone who wanted to influence the foundation, donations are probably just as good a way to do so - it just forces them to be more straightforward about it.

It's not immediately obvious from the label what the button does, but it is from experimentation. And unlike the multistep 'cut' or 'paste' buttons or 'move to' (which pops up a dialog, I think?), the discovery process for a user is one click.

Or maybe two. One to go from selected file to all other files, and another click to get back.

Summaries are not necessarily crap and people need some way to tell if what they're going to read is worth their time.

In reality, all this script does is make it easier for people to filter for what they want to read.

There really isn't a way to learn hotkeys other than searching for them and practicing, and people expect computers to be intuitive so much that they never do that. I wonder how many people aren't consciously aware of how much faster they could get at using their computer if they spent an hour learning.

Middle-aged to elderly women LOVE hotkeys. Show them how to cut/copy and paste text with Ctrl-C|X|V and they are hooked. Ctrl-A to select everything is another such gem.

Or holding Shift or Ctrl to select multiple items (eg files to delete).

They always(!) lighten up and smile when I show them (no hyperbole!).

One of the reasons that elderly people like keyboard shortcuts is because learning how to use a mouse can be quite difficult, as it requires precise hand-eye coordination (which is also why it's slow, causing techies to rely on the keyboard as much as possible). At that age, not only is it difficult to learn how to operate new devices, but their afferent & efferent neurons may not be up to the task to begin with.

Yup. When my mom tries to double click a mouse button, I hear anything from two to five clicks, and the mouse shudders under her hand as she attempts this. The result is predictably unpredictable. She seems to do OK with single clicks.

I wonder if it would be better if we would make software actually less intuitive to use, and by doing so, forcing people to spend that hour to learn at least some basics.

Every time someone makes a 'society thinks' post, I mentally replace those words with 'you think'. And then I make mental self-corrections.

I didn't find much to correct for, though. You can't look for the opposite of narcissism to recognize leaders. And the startup community does a good job of encouraging alternative measures of skill.

I'm guessing you're still in Nepal. Focus on a market you know well and look for provable business models - it'll be easy to narrow down your ideas. Also, I wouldn't be ashamed of cloning something from somewhere else and bringing it to your community. There are going to be opportunities in a place like Nepal that aren't in the tech hubs.

Dreamweaver required you to know quite a bit about HTML. Muse is like InDesign/Photoshop, which people use to do mockups of designs (not UIs/wireframes) today. It cuts translation to code from the workflow. That's a meaningful shortening of the feedback loop for a designer.

As for the rest of us, we don't have to be concerned till Muse starts learning the quirks and features of CSS faster than ourselves.

"don't know how to start putting them together to make something that works"...try a Github search?

Design patterns is a great next step, but it sounds like you're not quite there yet. Something intermediate-level like Dive Into Python will give you more ideas.

I made apps with WxWidgets and Django after learning the basics, but there are a million directions to go in. They just all involve building things and learning as you go.