onjegolders Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Hi guys, happy New Year one and all, hope PW continues to grow as impressively in 2013 as it certainly did in 2012. The last 12 months or so I've mainly been working from home and been very happy using my MacBook Pro, I'm really used to it and with my SSD upgrade it runs really smoothly. Whenever I've had to work domewhere else, I've happily taken it with me and I can carry on with my work. I've just moved into a new office though and have dug out my oldish (2008) IMac, cleaned it up a bit and booted it up and it's tempting to return to using a desktop computer after a long time away but I have a couple of issues: 1) I don't think this IMac model can receive an SSD upgrade (Crucial don't seem to think so) and it's not that it's slow, it just feels slow having used an SSD for the past 12 months so am wondering whether I should keep it in the office as a secondary computer, or invest in a new one or just be happy with it's current performance. 2) Also I'm wondering if any of you have a similar scenario where you try and keep two computers synced? The idea of using a desktop at work again is appealing but I want to be able to switch on at home if I need to work on something on my laptop. I currently use dropbox which works ok but it can often seem to take a really long time to upload stuff and I'm worried about coming to the end of the day and not being able to get synced. Was just interested in your thoughts on the issue, do you have a decent system or do you just stick with your laptop? Cheers! Apologies as this covers some of the same ground as Matthew's article here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 I´m using Cubby. https://www.cubby.com/ If you choose the Pro Version, your devices syncing via LAN. Another option is your own cloud. http://owncloud.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Thanks Luis, my brother was telling me about Cubby - does it have any differences with Dropbox? I suppose to use the LAN I'd have to bring my laptop to work with me, though I suppose I could do but sort of defeats the point. Owncloud looks interesting too, will have to check that out, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Well, I didn´t used DropBox so far, thus no idea about the differences. Maybe the best would be to compare the product features of both services. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Thanks, I'm having a problem syncing my mamp folder to cubby. It did used to be synced with DropbBox though it isn't any longer and when I try to drag&drop the folder, nothing happens. Any idea why this may be happening? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Just right-Click on the mamp Folder and Click "make this Folder a Cubby" no need for Drag n drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Hiya Luis, I don't have that option on any of my folders. Strange. Also was thinking it may be that MAMP stores its folders underneath Applications. Do you have MAMP synced currently using Cubby? Is it definitely possible? Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowled Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 I used to do the same thing with two Linux machines and used Unison to keep them synced. However, you'd (probably, unless you get static IPs for both machines) have to have both machines in the same network to be able to sync them. Unison is (I think) discontinued, but it's pretty stable. Also, Cubby sounds way more convenient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Hiya Luis, I don't have that option on any of my folders. Strange. Also was thinking it may be that MAMP stores its folders underneath Applications. Do you have MAMP synced currently using Cubby? Is it definitely possible? Thanks again Have u installed the cubby client properly and is the cubby process running? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Thanks Yellow. Yep Luis, it all seems to work ok but it does say in the FAQ that Cubby doesn't allow to use folders that are children of "Applications" so that may be it. Does it work for you or have you not tried with MAMP? It also doesn't appear to like symlinks so not sure that would be an option, though it worked with Dropbox... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 OK, I think I'm getting there, I'm having to store my htdocs and db folders outside the "Applications" folder and symlinking to them using SymbolicLinker. Think I'll USB the files over initially as it will take days otherwise! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbroussia Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 There is a "LAN Sync" option in Dropbox ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 Thanks, I think the LAN thing is of no great use to me. I was going that way with Cubby then realized that both computers had to be on at the same time which sort of rules out syncing with my laptop if I leave it at home. Besides, I'd rather have the stuff backed up properly. Have now ditched Cubby as it seemed to be in an endless upload cycle. I'm trying SugarSync but may end up going back with Dropbox. One frustration that seems to be shared with all these solutions is just how slow it is to do the initial upload! My MAMP folder is only about 700MB but at this rate it could take days! Can't imagine what it would be like to upload GBs of stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 The main problem is the number of files not how large the folder in MB actually is. Try to upload 700mb in one file via FTP and then upload 700mb splitted into 2k files, you would see the difference 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 The main problem is the number of files not how large the folder in MB actually is. Try to upload 700mb in one file via FTP and then upload 700mb splitted into 2k files, you would see the difference You're right I was coming to the same conclusion! Still, I find it pretty slow, the number of uploads it says it has to do is still going up so I have no idea how long it will take still! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogo Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 I just used rsync to backup the public files from my server to my fedora laptop and it works really well. It's comes by default in most linuxes and apparently in macs too. Have a look http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/using_rsync_keep_your_files_sync_0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 Thanks Diogo though Command line is a bit beyond me at the moment and I need to be able to upload the contents somewhere to download it at a different location. The Cloud seems the logical choice to me? Has anyone had any experience of syncing their mamp folders to the cloud? How long it took etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 Moved back to Dropbox and all was still slow, constantly indexing and downloading file list, dl/ul speeds of 4kb/sec , finally managed to uninstall, unlink, and pretty much start again and it's actually been very quick. The whole lot seemed to upload in less than 30 minutes and downloading isn't taking too much longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horst Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Hi, why not use a USB(3) storage (16 GB Stick in wallet) and on both machines a backup | synch | versioning software. (seems to me much faster) If it must be an online solution, maybe there is something for the mac like a CVS-Server (or subversion or other).You could put this on a home machine and access with dyndns-ip. Additionaly you have a versioning system than! (couldn't live without anymore) I'm working on windows and use free CVS-NT Server for about 8 years now. As clienst I use Tortoise-CVS,what was forked to Tortoise-SVN somedays when subversion came into more popular. I have no clue what is better or not,my CVS-NT server now is runninng on a 6 or 7 years old P4 with WinXP. I use it as a Netstorage too, and it fetches everydaya radio program what is loved by my son (and other radio shows too) If you have not an old windows box somewhere stand in the corner, it may also be possible to use a VirtualBox together with any WinOnly-Solution or any Linux/Unix-Solution. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onjegolders Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 Thanks Horst, I have to say though I'm sure there are technical advantages to what you advocate, I have had no issues using Dropbox in the last couple of months. All my important stuff is synced and backed up to the cloud. Dropbox's versioning has already helped me out when I overwrote a style.css file by mistake and when I need to collaborate on a project, I can just share a folder and watch things sync neatly. I remember trying to do all of this "offline" a few years ago and the thought process involved dedicated server computers, local networks, back up disks and many many headaches! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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