Hack week!

Published on January 13, 2011

For all of last week, the Dropbox office was transformed into a gigantic open workshop for our first annual Hack Week. Hack week is a dedicated week for members and friends of the team to work on something entirely new, while turning some of the ideas that have been brewing in the back of our minds into reality. This gave everyone the chance to work on projects that might not fall under their team, and opportunities to work alongside Dropboxers they normally couldn't. The idea was for everyone to dedicate themselves to pure creation and construction of Dropbox projects that were engaging, complicated, and most of all, fun. Complementing Hack Week were a variety of activities including: C type declaration bee, ping pong tournament, DDR tournament, and a drawing contest. Also, many friends of Dropbox hung out for the week to help with some of our projects. Thanks for stopping by! All in all, our first ever Hack Week was a huge success, and many of the breakthroughs made during the past week will probably be making their way to a Dropbox near you. Here are a few photos of the office during hack week (I told you guys we'd be offering a tour of the new office, so hopefully this works too :P)

Here's a taste of some of the amazing projects that were cranked out during Hack Week (Keep in mind, all of these amazing ideas were executed in just five days): Musicbox (Rian, Will, Brian, Michael Grinich) - Musicbox is a way to browse and listen to music in your Dropbox on your iPhone by artist, album, and song name rather than filename, no wires needed :). It also exists in a snazzy HTML5 interface. Google Docs sync (David E) - Sync files between your Google Docs and your Dropbox. Android SDK Improvements (Martin) - Providing better sample material for the thousands of Android developers out there. Dropbox Rewind [Coming soon to a Dropbox near you!] (Trevor) - Perhaps the most cosmic Hack week project-- hop to your Dropbox at any point in the past. (Support for the future on the way) File system usage analytics (Albert, Kevin, Darren, Dan, Jie) - We have to stay a little quiet on this one, but let's just say the future of Dropbox will change the way you sync files. Desktop file indexing (Tom M, Nick, Chris) - Storing an index to your Dropbox so that it's available from any client (incuding mobile)! Windows debugging improvements (Tom H) - It's now easier than ever to debug the Windows client of Dropbox And lastly, and perhaps the one most relevant to y'all....

Dropquest

(Jon, Aston) - A multi-step scavenger hunt for all you Dropboxers that tests your wit and resourcefulness-- Win free space and epic prizes (including the Hack week shirts you see in the pictures)! To get started, head to the Dropquest forums page! A huge shout-out to Rian for making our first Hack Week as amazing as it was. Thanks also go to Teresa and Nancy for their hard work in making sure everything ran smoothly. We're looking forward to more Hack Weeks in the future, too! Now, what kind of ideas do YOU think could make great Hack Week projects?

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Jon Ying

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