Servage Magazine

I realized that many of my friends are still not aware of, or using, the smart new synchronization and backup applications available out there. So to all of you who might be in the same boat, I just want to remind you: Backups are good, synchronization is clever. It’s even available for free. Don’t wanna be in an “I told you so…”-situation, when your loose some important files some day! So please check out this previous article. It’s really easy, and it could save your day.

Ever since I started using a notebook I have had the same annoying problem that everyone else seems to have: How to go about syncing data between multiple computers? During the years I have tried many, too many, solutions. Home-made scripts, synchronization software, backup programs and more, just to have my files the same way across my computers. Today, where data is shared between a lot more devices than earlier (work desktop, home desktop, laptop, mobile phone…) this issue is more apparent than ever before.

Some time ago a friend told me about this data-sync-thingy called Dropbox. Hmm, I thought, yet one of those almost-working-solutions. It claims to integrate with any operating system and allow you to select a folder that will be automatically synced with your other machines via Dropbox’s servers. Thereby you have all your files accessible from anywhere (including a webinterface). It also claims to sync only changes in files, making the synchronization process very fast, almost instant. And it’s even free of charge.

Well, what can I say? My surprise after having tried so many other (non-working) solutions during the years was very big, when I learned that Dropbox really works. And it does. Simple and free. I have been trying it for a while now. I have a total of about 1.5 GB of data in the system, and all my daily work is synced seamlessly. I don’t really see of feel any system resources being used, but yet, magically, when I go home, I have all the files from work right there :-) Give it a try. This is very useful!