This post is going to wander a bit, so please do bear with me.
I’d like to start with an announcement:
oDesk is going to end support for Internet Explorer 6 some time in September 2008.
I thought I had better put that out there just in case we have some readers who still use IE6 and don’t check the oDesk Community often enough. If you’re in that group I really recommend going out and getting Firefox 3, or either upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 or Opera 9, or even Safari if you’re a Mac user. Internet Explorer 8 is already in beta, so there’s no reason to be two generations behind the curve.
My own preference is for Firefox 3, although I use other browsers when I have to. (I admit it, I’m a browser junkie and have four installed on this machine.)
Now that we’ve finished that important public service message, we now return you to your regularly scheduled posting.
In a previous post, I discussed some of the pros and cons of Google Documents and other forms of ‘Cloud Storage.’ While I do think Google Documents make a great collaborative tool I still have serious issues with storing client data on someone else’s machine.
Luckily, I have found an alternative.
Before I go into it further, I recommend you brace yourself, as I won’t be surprised if Nelson fires off a full broadside at this one (I expect him to look at it with his blind eye due to the source.)
Windows Live FolderShare
The idea is simple. It’s a peer to peer (P2P) application that lets you mirror folders or directories on multiple computers. It has built in security settings that also allow you to either restrict access to yourself or share the folder with someone else.
Currently I have it set up so that my main writing directory (which has sub-folders for my personal and business work) is mirrored between my desktop and my laptop. This lets me open a work file on either computer and have it automatically update on the second so long as I have an internet connection.
What I like is that it meets two of my needs simultaneously. It gives me an automatic real-time backup for any work I do as all my files are mirrored on the other machine, and also gives me automatic synchronization so I can work whenever I need to or wherever I am without worrying about having the right version of the document.
Now for my second trick:
It also allows me to share folders with someone else. This means that if I’m doing collaborative work with one or more other people we can share a folder and use it as a document repository. We can each mirror the folder and then any time I update a file my client can have access to it immediately.
This works very well on oDesk with the payment guarantee which means I don’t need to worry about whether I’ll be paid for what I have done.
It’s a very useful tool, especially for people like myself who work on multiple computers. In fact I’m thinking of putting the application on one or two of our other computers just to be sure I have backups when I need them.
Nothing beats a backup you don’t have to think about.
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Can you still access your folders/files from another IP while you’re on the go? I’m just wondering how the access restriction works on it.
My personal solution is to run an Apache server and password all of my files so I can access them anywhere. Also, sometimes I SSH to my desktop while I’m out-and-about on the laptop.
This comment was posted while booted to Windows XP.
The access restriction works by a simple permissions system. When you set up the initial shares (called libraries) you determine who can log into them by either Foldershare account or by email. (If you choose email they have to set up a Foldershare account using email.)
As for accessing your files, that’s never a problem because the files are stored locally. Each computer maintains a local copy of the data and Foldershare simply updates the other copy with any changes you make whenever it has an IP connection. It doesn’t matter where the two computers are, they will synchronize as long as both are active and have an internet connection.