Dropbox is already a very powerful utility for Mac OS X, but if you’re knowledgable in Unix, you can make it even better. Here are five ways that you can use Unix to get more out of Dropbox.
1. I wanted to update my copy of the HTML processing tool Tidy today. I was happy to find instructions for building Tidy under Snow Leopard, but it also reminded me of another way that I’ve been using Dropbox for some time now.
If you compile and install Unix utilities on your own instead of using MacPorts, Fink or Rudix, you will most often be asked where you want to install these utilities to. Normally the answer is /usr/local/, and you would use ./configure -prefix=/usr/local. I became frustrated with installing programs to /usr/local/ because I use two or three different Macs, and I would inevitably find that I was trying to use a program on a computer where it wasn’t installed. I’d have to find it, download it, configure it, compile it and install it before I could actually do whatever it was that I wanted to do.
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Five Dropbox tips for Mac Unix nerds originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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