[sf-lug] What's the best way to sync two laptops?

Michael Shiloh michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com
Sun Nov 27 13:55:20 PST 2011


I now have two laptops which I'll use somewhat interchangeably. What's a 
good way to sync work between them?

My main job is teaching, so I have many teaching notes and other
documents. Dropbox might be a good way to sync these. I'm going to be
doing some 3D design so I'll have inkscape and blender files as well.
Dropbox again, I think.

What about browsing stuff? History, passwords, bookmarks. I use
Vimperator, which has such a good history mechanism I rarely use
bookmarks but rely heavily on history. I could put my entire .mozilla
directory in Dropbox. In fact I could put all my . files (cshrc, vimrc,
etc.)

How do you prefer to handle mail? Do you prefer to keep it on the server
or on your local computer? If local, how do you sync multiple computers?
If remote, how do you work with past messages when offline?

Up to now I've downloaded my gmail to my laptop and not deleted on the
server. That gives me a local copy to work with if I have no Internet
access, as well as an online backup I can access via my cellphone.

Sent email is stored only on my laptop, meaning I don't have access to
it when I'm away from my laptop.

I've always felt this was not an ideal situation, but fixing this was
not a high priority. Keeping everything on the server means I'll run out
of space eventually, and keeping a local copy means I consume space on
my hard drive.

Concrete suggestions as well as your own persona experience and methods
will be most appreciated.

Years ago I remember reading about someone who had everything checked in
to CVS, including all his email. This allowed him to sync his computer
at home, work, elsewhere using CVS. Interesting solution.




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