Tools & Services

Wer mich kennt weiss: Ich suche immer noch nach einem Weg gegen die Krankheit, Daten auf mehreren Rechnern synchron zu halten. Nachdem Syncplicity jetzt anscheinend ohne Vorwarnung (!) einfach nur noch bestimmte Dateitypen abgleicht, und mir nie ganz wohl damit war dass meine Daten bei denen (bzw. Amazon) liegen, habe ich heute mal mit dem neuen TeamDrive Server gespielt. Noch kann ich nicht viel sagen, aber der erste Eindruck ist schonmal sehr gut.

Kurzzusammenfassung: Man kann auf einem eigenen Server - alternativ auch bei TeamDrive - verschlüsselte so genannte "Spaces" anlegen, und diese mit anderen Nutzern teilen (oder auch nicht). Die Daten werden unter den Teilnehmern abgeglichen, ich glaube man kann als Eigentümer auch individuell Lese/Schreibrechte vergeben. Mir geht es sowieso primär darum meine eigenen Kisten synchron zu halten. Geil (weil selten) ist, dass man keine Adminrechte braucht - die Spaces lassen sich lokal als Ordner einbinden und es gibt 'ne Portable, dh. ich komme auch in der Uni (oder sonstwo) "sicher" an meine Daten. Achja, und Revisionen gibts auch.

Leider müssen die Herren von TeamDrive auch Geld verdienen, deshalb ists nicht kostenlos. Ich konnte mir aber über eine Aktion kürzlich einen Key für einen Personal Server und einen Client geschenkt ergattern und kanns so ausführlich testen.

Somit sieht meine "Low Budget"-Lösung momentan so aus: CrashPlan für Backups (auf anderen Rechnern, bei Freunden und auf dem vServer, die kostenlose Version langt für alle meine Bedürfnisse) und TeamDrive zur Synchronisierung von Daten (testweise).
Continue reading "Teamdrive Server, erste Experimente"

I'm still hunting for a good "all-inclusive" solution for backup, online storage and versioning. Lately, more and more services pop up (there's an incomplete list buried in my wiki), but TeamDrive stands out because you can use it with any WebDAV storage. I like Syncplicity for its ease of use ("zero configuration"), but I just don't feel well knowing that my files are out there, unencrypted, on some strangers' server.
Now that they've added HTTPS and Vista x64 support, I really need to try it. Also, it is the only tool in this area that doesn't require administrative privileges and runs from a USB stick ("portable"). Linux and Mac versions should be out soon.

Also, you might want to look at the somewhat similar PowerFolder (no versioning, no WebDAV support).

There are so many inventions these days, it's easy to miss one. I've seen Swype logos, but didn't bother to look closer at this gesture based keyboard input software. Watch this demo, it's impressive! Continue reading "Swype Gesture Keyboard Input for Mobile Devices"

SocketSniff is a nice little utility that lets you monitor network traffic of selected Windows processes. Continue reading "SocketSniff - Monitor Network Traffic of Specific Applications"

Envision the "perfect backup and synchronization tool".

• synchronize and/or backup selected file sets
• unlimited revisions (version history)
• support central servers and/or decentralized client exchange ("peer to peer")
• support to backup to external drives, including the full file history
• work offline and still have a version history
• local revision history is automatically distributed to all participating clients
• transparent
• automatically monitors/tracks changes and immediately sync in the background
• (alternatively, eg. for files that are constantly changing (email database), do scheduled or manual syncs)
• if network/other clients are available, sync with them (including file history)
• if connected to selected external drives, auto-sync to it
• safe encryption on all clients/servers (both storage and transfers)
• of course, only store and transmit incremental updates (deltas)
• "traveller mode":
• web interface to download individual files from any revision
• sync complete set of files from a specific date/revision without admin rights
• open source, FREE
• platform independent
• independently scalable to "unlimited" clients

To get the idea, compare with Dropbox and Syncplicity.

Sounds too good to be true? It does exist (well, sort of) ! See my wiki for details.

I've been looking all my life for an acceptable backup and synchronisation tool. Even with enough technical experise and an own server, I just cannot find the right software.
Recently, some new services popped up that transparently sync and backup your files on the net: Dropbox, Syncplicity, SugarSync and Microsoft Live Mesh.

Judging from the outside, all four look surpisingly similar. Yet, there are some differences that I'd like to discuss here. I haven't looked at all of them, so I will restrict my comparison to Dropbox and Syncplicity: Live Mesh accounts are not available publicly and it's Windows-only, SugarSync only offers a free trial, no limited long-term free accounts. Also, even though there are clients for other operating systems available, I have only tested the Windows versions. Continue reading "Evaluating Dropbox and Syncplicity: A First Comparison"

The first article in my series about tools I just have to install right after Windows installation and use daily in my life is about a mostly unknown open source software called CopyHandler. Ever since I moved to Windows from DOS and got used to "multi tasking", the standard Windows copy routine annoyed me. I guess we've all grown accustomed to its defects, because I don't ever hear people complaining about it.
Think again. Can you tell me why I have to live without a simple mechanism to pause/resume whenever I want (surviving shutdown and network loss), why it took Microsoft over 10 years to check if the destination has enough space before it starts the transfer, and show me a reliable progress bar including transfer speeds? (Yes, Vista actually has it) Is it so hard to have an option for notification on completion, or when it stopped for some reason? Why does the Vista copy routine take ages after I cancel it?

CopyHandler neatly integrates into Windows up to the point that it (optionally) intercepts your drag and drop transfers transparently and handles them, while you can still select the default copy/move from context menu. Let me give you a quick list of features and options:

• pause, resume, restart
• auto-resume on error, shutdown when done
• set priority
• detailed information about copy/move progess
• sounds on error/completion
• small or detailed status window, or none at all (tray icon)

By far the most important feature and the most annoying Windows defect (I actually started to write my own utility for that before I found this gem): You can configure a number of concurrent copy tasks and all subsequent copy actions will be queued. No more ugly disk seeking when you move a number of files with separate selections!

Unfortunately, the author doesn't seem to have much time to maintain the tool (last update was in October 2006). It works great, but has a few problems: After installation, make sure to select your language in the settings, or it will switch to some illegible character set next time. Also, don't forget to register the shell extension (there's a menu item for it), or it won't integrate. More importantly, it does not support Unicode characters in file names (German umlauts are okay), so you will have to copy those with the default Windows copy routine. And I haven't found a way to get it integrated into Vista 64bit yet because the shell extension is a 32bit DLL (other than that, it works on Vista too). The source is available, so maybe I'll try compiling it for 64 bit some day. Edit 25th March 2008: A new version of CopyHandler has been released today. It finally supports Unicode and Vista 64bit!

I have prepared a short (one minute!) screencast as an introduction to CopyHandler, don't miss it. Continue reading "Tools I Can't Live Without: CopyHandler"