Bunny Blog

I recently got a new-to-me laptop, and…well, let me back up.

I’ve had two computers for about four years now, a desktop and a laptop.  In the past, I’ve put files onto a flash drive whenever I needed something on the other computer.  Which worked fine.  There were only one or two times when I got to a coffee shop and realized that the latest draft of the script I was working on was sitting back at home on the desktop.

Overall, the system worked. When I got this new-to-me laptop, however, I wanted a better system.

I looked around on the internet, and found various offerings.  At first, it was easy to whittle down the choices.  Some were Windows only (my laptop is a Mac), some cost money, and some were dropbox-style sync services.   What I was looking for was something that would sync my two old computers’ files, then sync my desktop with the newish laptop.

The best option, I found, was Microsoft Live Sync, A.K.A. Foldershare.This service did exactly what I was looking for.

How it works is this:   You upload the software onto your computer, then start adding files to sync.   You click a folder on your desktop, say “Scripts,” then point it to the “Scripts” folder on your laptop, and Live Sync gets the two folders to match.  If there are two versions of the same file, it creates a copy so you can sort it out later.

Of course, being Microsoft, they don’t explain any of this on their website.   You just have to close your eyes, pray to whichever god you’re worshipping that day, and click the download button.

You may have to organize after you’ve synced your folders.   For instance, if you have a “Pilots” folder in your “Scripts” folder on your desktop, but on your laptop you have two folders, “Drama” and “Comedy,” within “Scripts” instead of “Pilots,” Live Sync will copy all three folders - “Pilots,” “Drama,” and “Comedy,” onto both computers.   If there were duplicate folders/projects within those folders, you’ll have to go through and sort it out.

One drawback is that you have to have both computers on in order to do the actual syncing.   You can work on one computer, and it’ll track whatever changes you make, but you have to turn the other computer on and connect to the internet in order to sync those new files.

You can also access your computer files remotely via Live Sync, and from what I can tell, there are no folder size limits (there may be file size limits, however, I’m not sure).   I copied all 35 GB of my music catalogue via Live Sync onto my laptop.   It took forever, but it beat having to go back and forth with a flashdrive.