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Topic: Keeping files in sync between laptop and desktop

Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 10-29-2004 07:51 PM

If I want to do work on my laptop some times and on my desktop at other times, what would be the best way to keep the files up to date on both computers other than dragging the files I just worked on to a disk and taking that disk to the other computer? (I currently do this with an SD card.) FYI, I do not have a network. But I do have a Palm OS device, so if software exists that would allow me to do it that way, that would probablly be my preferred method.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-30-2004 12:15 AM

Depends on what kind of computer(s) you have.

For instance, I sync my iBook and my iMac by simply plugging a FireWire cable between the two of them and pressing "T" while the iBook boots up. The laptop becomes an external FireWire HD. (Target Disk Mode is the official name for it.)

If I dind't have FW on both machines I could do ALMOST the same thing with an ethernet cable. (Doesn't matter if it's a crossover cable or a patch cable. The ports auto-sense the cable.) The only difference is that I would have to make sure that file sharing is turned activated on one of the machines.

But the way I do it most often is to use my AirPort base station as a hub and share wirelessly. Since I only have 802.11b in the wireless hub I only get 11 Mbps. It's good enough for small files. If I have to transfer a lot of stuff I use Target Disk Mode.

As to telling the computer(s) WHICH files to keep synced, I have a folder named "File Sync". There's a folder-action script attached to it. Anything that's dropped into that folder automatically gets synced to the other next time there's a connection.

That's how *I* do it on my Macs using OS X. By now, I'm sure M$ has figured out a way to copy Apple. [Wink]

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 10-30-2004 04:36 AM

I simply connect the two (both running XP Pro) using a bridged connection consisting of a Firewire and an Ethernet crossover cable, and then copy the whole 'My Documents' folder from laptop to desktop (or vice-versa), telling it to overwrite files on the destination drive only if they've been modified on the source drive more recently than the version which is already on the destination. For taking files to and from work (where we're not allowed to plug our own laptops into their network) I use a 1gb USB memory stick, which is enough for anything except a big video file.

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Chris Byrne
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 102
From: Kirwan, Australia
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 10-31-2004 03:27 PM

Hi Ken,

I keep my I-Pod in my work bag. It acts as a removable hard drive should you need to transfer any files between computers and has the added bonus of being a cool walkman. [Wink]

Like Leo said, a flash stick is another alternative, which can be attached to your keyring.

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 10-31-2004 06:45 PM

Both computers are running Win XP Pro. I do not have a network. When I originally asked about this, I was thinking more along the lines of program that would keep the files in sync.

I currently use an SD card and a portable drive for it. I just drag the folder onto the card, pop the drive in the other computer, and drag the folder onto the hard drive. But if I work on my laptop sometimes, and my desktop other times, I have to think which computer has the most current version of a file. Thats why I was wondering if synchronization software exists.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-31-2004 10:28 PM

I don't know for sure but Windows has GOT to be up to speed on this by now:

With my Macs, a piece of ethernet cable is all you need to have a "network". You simply make sure that file sharing is activated on one or both of the comptuers and that the network settings are correct. Bang! You have a network.

In other words, any two or more computers with the correct network, cables and filesharing settings is all that's necessary to constitute a network.

I really don't know a whole hell of a lot about Windows. I refuse to use it unless absolutely necessary. They MUST have figured out a way to do that by now!

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 11-01-2004 05:10 AM

Ken: if both your PC and laptop have Ethernet cards in them then they can be networked together by connecting the two with a crossover cable. Unless your laptop is a pretty old one I'd be surprised if it doesn't have an Ethernet chip on the motherboard. Most desktops nowadays also have an Ethernet card, but if yours doesn't you should be able to get a PCI one for around $10. The crossover cable should cost around $5. Swapping files between the two using Windows XP is very straightforward - the Windows Networking protocol, while basic, is all you're likely to need. This page talks you through the procedure.

Once you've got your PCs hooked up, the way I transfer files is to share the 'My Documents' folder on both machines and then just drag and drop in the appropriate direction. If files on the destination PC have been modified more recently than those on the source, you'll get a window asking 'filename.doc has been modified on DD/MM/YYYY - do you want to overwrite it with an earlier version? Yes/No/Yes to All/No to All'.

The documents folders on my machines are both around 30gb and the whole lot takes around 10 minutes to go through the Ethernet cable.

The only thing the page linked above doesn't cover is the possibility of firewall sofware blocking the link. For example if you're using Zone Alarm, you have to add the Ethernet cards in both machines to the 'trusted zone', and you'd probably need to do something similar with other packages.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-01-2004 07:17 AM

You want rsync (yes, there is a win32 port). You can set up a 2-machine wired network for next to nothing these days, so there's little reason not to go with this and rsync.

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Matthew Peters
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 179
From: Glen Waverley, Melbourne, Australia
Registered: Nov 2002

posted 11-01-2004 08:25 AM

I think we might be missing the point, Ken seems more interested in a file-synchronisation program, rather than hardware.

Microsoft had a feature for this in the original windows 95, called my briefcase. I’m sure it was to assist in this type of thing, especially when updating/synchronising the most recent file between laptop/docking station/desktop.

I never used the briefcase as at that point in time I had no need for one, but there must be a similar software out there that can do what you require.

EDIT: Sorry Scott had left my computer for a couple of hours with out hitting the post button, (never saw your post)

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 11-01-2004 04:26 PM

quote: Randy Stankey
I don't know for sure but Windows has GOT to be up to speed on this by now:

With my Macs, a piece of ethernet cable is all you need to have a "network". You simply make sure that file sharing is activated on one or both of the comptuers and that the network settings are correct. Bang! You have a network

There's nothing for Windows to be up to speed on. "Windows" could do this before Apple even switched to using ethernet, instead of AppleTalk over the serial interface.

To two computers, using a single crossover cable between the two NICs instead of a stared hub or switch based network, appears exactly the same. There's nothing in the terminal or NIC to make hubless networking work. You're just flipping the RX/TX pairs the same way a hub or switch would.

If you've got auto-sensing NICs you might not even have to use a crossover cable. That's not an Apple thing either, though, since they use the same ethernet chipsets everyone else does, which are made by only a handful of companies.

Anyway, while I use rsync a lot, I vote for a simple thumb drive for your application. They negate the need for having both machines together to transfer files and are convenient if you're only dealing with a handful of documents. Keep backups though, as some people have be known to corrupt their thumb drives' data. Usually by unplugging it before unmounting it (Windows = stop device) or mounting it as the wrong file system type.

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 11-01-2004 08:28 PM

quote: Matthew Peters
I think we might be missing the point, Ken seems more interested in a file-synchronisation program, rather than hardware.

Correct.

quote: Matthew Peters
Microsoft had a feature for this in the original windows 95, called my briefcase.

Yes! That's exactly what I'm looking for. I forgot all about that. I searched the help for briefcase. Turns out the feature still exists in XP. I tried it out with my SD card. Not too bad, except that reading and writing to the SD is significantly slower than the hard drive. Perhaps I shall invest in a crossover cable and use Briefcase that way.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-01-2004 10:12 PM

quote: Matthew Peters

I think we might be missing the point, Ken seems more interested in a file-synchronisation program, rather than hardware.

Basically, I assumed that in order to syncronize files on two computers you had to somehow connect them together first. Ken said that he didn't have a network. If you have two computers and an ethernet cable (or what have you) you DO have a network.

Software to sync two computers would be useless if there was no way to get data from one place to another. Using floppies, thumb drives or memory cards just ain't going to cut it.

Thus, the reason I mentioned the hardware.

Daryl,

I just don't DO Windows. Really. I don't know how that shit works, nor do I care to know more than I absolutely have to. That's the reason why I said that they have to be "up to speed".

Maybe it would have been more clear if I had said, "With the amount of standardization in networking, I would be supprised if you couldn't..."

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Matthew Peters
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 179
From: Glen Waverley, Melbourne, Australia
Registered: Nov 2002

posted 11-02-2004 06:22 AM

For future reference, and for anyone who is a “Microsoft Sheep” like me and couldn’t care less about the 10% of radical computer users who must use every possible alternate browser/open source/non-standard/anti-Microsoft stuff [Wink]

heres a tutorial on My Briefcase.

My Briefcase tute

quote:
Using Briefcase
If you use two computers to work on the same files, it is easy to become confused about which copies are the most current. Briefcase helps you make sure files remain identical on both computers.

For example, if you have a computer at work and a portable at home, you can save the files you want to work on at home in your Briefcase folder. Then you can move Briefcase to a floppy disk and edit the files on your laptop. When you take the floppy disk containing Briefcase back to your office, you can instruct Briefcase to update the files on your hard disk, according to the latest date and time stamp.

If you want to update files without using a floppy disk, you can do your update over a network or use Windows XP’s Direct Cable Connection application with a serial or parallel cable.

To all anti-Microsoft extremists [Wink]

don’t take this post as a personal attack, if some of my friends have their way I think I’ll be converted soon, it’s becoming a religion.

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Phil Hill
I love my cootie bug

Posts: 7595
From: Hollywood, CA USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 11-02-2004 09:10 PM

Ken: Just a side question... are you still moving to SoCal? If so, when?

>>> Phil

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 11-02-2004 11:27 PM

quote: Matthew Peters
users who must use every possible alternate browser/open source/non-standard/anti-Microsoft stuff

Yeah, because Microsoft is the poster child for following standards! [Roll Eyes]

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