Dropbox, SugarSync, Live Sync
A while ago I had to look for an alternative for live-sync (the Microsoft synchronization tool between multiple computer) because Apple hadn't bothered to tell anyone in advance of certain changes between OSX 10.5 and 10.6. I chose Dropbox. Dropbox is a paid for service and it works pretty much like Live Sync, except that it also stores files on the Dropbox servers.
There is no doubt that many people find this attractive but it also collides with my companies security policies (I use the synchronization services to keep copies of all files on my Mac, Windows 7 desktop (yes I still have one of these) and my home servers (for storage & backup)). So recently I decided to look around again to see if MS has fixed the issues and it seems they have. However, i looked around and to my surprise there aren't many services that "just to sync" .... they all have "cloud storage", which I really don't like, imagine what would happen if Dropbox or Sugarsync got acquired and change the terms-of-service, they simply could decide to mine all the stored date for 'interesting opportunities', yes I'm suspicious I know but there are good reasons why ISO27001 forces companies to think about where they keep their data and who has access to it.
Apart from all this security and 'i-don't-want-to-have-my-live-in-the-cloud' stuff I also found a few problems with Dropbox and Sugarsync:
- Dropbox requires a single 'drop-box' directory from where the synchronization happens. I have several different directories on my machines in the various location and I don't want to move them to a single directory, I don't want to adapt my way of working for this program. Sugarsync doesn't have this 'problem'.
- neither Sugarsync nor Dropbox have an easy mechanism to have someone else's shared directories storage on my system in a location that I want. Dropbox will store it in the 'Dropbox' directory, Sugarsync doesn't store it at all, it just gives the user access to the 'cloud' directory
There is a third program I looked at: PowerFolder ... it does what live-sync does but at a rather steep price: $90/year. It does have the ability to keep files in the 'cloud', but if that is needed Microsoft Mesh might be suitable as well, though that is still in Beta and from what I've read not everybody is really happy with it.
So, in the end I'm reverting back to live sync for the 4 machines that I have and the 2 additional machines from my dad (for his photos) and my father in law (also for his pictures). It seems a service that works and is simple to use, which is a real benefit, I found both Sugarsync and Dropbox to have too many features for my liking.
Colibri – Quicksilver for Windows
I was looking for a quicksilver replacement for windows ... I'm a commandline person for launching applications, what can I say. So I installed colibri. It works great but for a few oddities with windows 7 64 bit: when I want to launch a 64 bit application (like photoshop) via a shortcut to the "C:\Program Files" directory (it works well with 32-bit application launch via shortcuts to the "C:\Program Files (x86)" directory) I get the following error message:
"Path to Shortcut"
The specified path does not exist.Check the path, and then try again.
after come looking arround I found a workaround (link):
1. create a folder somewhere on your disk.
2. hold down shift on that folder, right-click and select open command window here.
3. type: mklink /D foldernameyoucreate "full path to original folder in quotes"
example: i created a folder called x64Fix on my disk to hold all my symbolic links for the apps that aren't working. i created my symbolic link inside of it like so (using photoshop as an example):
C:\x64Fix>mklink /D Photoshop "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4 (64 Bit)"
4. verify message that symbolic link was created (you should also see a shortcut arrow on the Photoshop folder).
5. You should then have a folder path like C:\x64Fix\Photoshop
6. Create your shortcut for the jumplist from C:\x64Fix\Photoshop folder path to the exe rather than the real path.
so, instead of your shortcut being:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4 (64 Bit)\Photoshop.exe"
it will be
"C:\x64Fix\Photoshop\Photoshop.exe"
This works it seems and now I can launch a 64 bit applicaiton from colibri. Anyway, colibri is great, look here: http://colibri.leetspeak.org/ and it works on windows 7
