Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

For several years I have been keeping my current files on an SD card synchronized with files on two different computers. Early on I tried to keep track of what I’d changed and copy the files using Windows Explorer. Wow — that got old, not to mention confusing, in a hurry.

I began to look for an application that would let me sync a folder without giving it a lot of thought. Initially I used something called Allway Sync, as it was presented as a free file sync via USB. Well, the free version only permitted you to do a few syncs each week. I did many syncs each week — sometimes several each day, so either I had to pay for the application or find something else.

That is when I found Unison, “a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other.” (from The Unison Page)

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The network at my office has been giving me fits since I moved in. It’s a brand new building with brand new wiring. I was excited to put my computers and router into the offices and get to work.

But from day one I had trouble with my networking. It would work great then run extremely slow. I played with MTU. I complained to my DSL provider. I flashed routers. I replaced routers. I ran DD-WRT firmware. Nothing fixed it… until I thought of something called RFI.

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I bought a Dell bluetooth card for my Inspiron 6400 so I could sync my PDA with my Laptop. The card seemed to work well with Vista. However, my ipaq HX-4700 would not agree to perform a bluetooth sync, so I figured I wasted my money. When I upgraded the hard drive on the laptop, I noted the bluetooth did not work, but I really didn’t care — until I replaced my HX-4700 with a Samsung SCH-i760. Bluetooth sync was looking attractive again, but I couldn’t get that bluetooth card in my Inspiron to work. Although it was activated in the bios, it didn’t exist in the system configuration. And the blue light was out.

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