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

[Samir Faci]

Person opinions take with a grain of salt...  inline responses.


On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 3:55 PM, Michael Shiloh
<michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

I've used Dropbox and UbuntuOne for that.  I think dropbox would be a
better solution,
though if you're purely Ubuntu.. UbuntuOne integrates pretty nicely
into their ubuntu
one default application set.

>
> 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.)

I use chrome mainly and it syncs / encrypts all your password,
history, application, bookmarks etc...
tied to your gmail account. If you use firefox, I think they have
something called firefox sync that's similar.



> 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?

I tend to use gmail for everything... I never had an issue not being
able to access
the server.  (Not that it hasn't happened ).

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmpbfngldlkglhimk
 (Gmail offline) I'm not sure if it's
tied to the chromebooks or not.


>
> 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.

I wouldn't even use CVS to store source code, let alone binary files.
I've done
something similar with git before...though I would not push my entire
$HOME to version
control.

ie.  I have a project that's essentially my cover letters, resumes and
such.  It's done in LaTex which
is plain text... so I keep it in version control..and I can go back in
time and see what I removed/added.

I push my changes up to github, and then pull them down on another
machine if I need to work on it...

I don't think that any version control system is designed to store
/manage gigs and gigs of binary data. So
I would steer away from that personally.

>
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-- 
Samir Faci
*insert title*
fortune | cowsay -f /usr/share/cows/tux.cow

Sent from my non-iphone laptop.