Synchronizing computers and other devices:Dropbox et al., et al., et al.

[A straightforward summary and update of previous posts (now deleted) without any shaggy dog stories, rants, or parenthetical journeys.]

The Problem: You have two or more computer or other devices with files and folders you wish to keep synchronized (or synced).

The Solution: There are too many solutions! Hence, this post. If your needs are modest, you can get a free 2 to 5 GB account. No credit card required. All you need is an email address. Even a throwaway address will do. Providers hope to transform you or your company into paying customers when your needs outstrip what you can get for free.

Services that provided only backup have introduced syncing to the point where there is only one backup service (Jottacloud) and it to is promising that syncing is comeing "real soon".

Each service is either

• single folder, where the files and folders to be backed up or synchronized are moved into a special folder created by the service, or
• multiple folder, where the user gets to specify the folders that are to be synchronized. (I don't know of any multiple folder backup services.)

Synchronization

Synchronization is backup plus more. Files are not only backed up automatically, but they are also synchronized. That is, when a file is added, deleted, or modified, these changes are automatically propagated to every computer connected to the account. Peer-to-peer sites synchronize files without backing them up on the site's servers.

There has been an explosion of synchronization sites.

Single folder sites include:

• Dropbox, the granddaddy of them all. It has a highly polished feel to it. The user interface is straightforward, for the most part. Dropbox was my first exposure to this service. It became indispensable the moment I installed it. It offers only 2 GB of free online storage compared to the 5 GB of most other services.
• Mozy has been around for a few years. Their Stash is yet another single folder synchronization service.
• Google Drive (Google) and Sky Drive (Microsoft) are sinilar services offered by Google and Microsoft, respectively.
• Perhaps it's premature to list them bu Jottacloud is a backup only service that had been promising synchronization "real soon now". It is based in Norway, where privacy laws are strict. As a new company, it is sometimes amusing to see webpages that ought to be in English sometimes show up in Norwegian. [Update 2013-03-22: Yesterday, I received an email saying that syncing is imminent. This gives me a lot more assurance than a comment on a website.] I'm not sure whether this will turn out to be single folder or multiple folder.
• And how could I have forgotten Box.com? Where Dropbox is the granddaddy of all synchronization services, Box is the grandaddy of backup sites. Box has now introduced "Box Sync". It is another case where all time stamps are changed to the current date whenever files are transferred to another computer. This is a fundamental mistake that would cost at least a letter grade in an intro computer science course! Avoid this service until this is fixed. I will not be monitoring the situation, tho, as I don't get paid for this and life is too short to begin with. You'll have to check for yourself, if you care. If someone sends me an update, I'll note it here.

Multiple folder sites include:

• Cubby. Cubby was not terribly responsive to users during its beta stage. It alienated a lot of beta users, myself included. Things got so bad that I demanded a refund and received it. However, as time goes on, fixes get implemented. The technical problem that caused me to leave has finally been repaired. Cubby's user interface continues to make it a strong contender. It may be difficult to find how to use certain features, but this is true of every site. However, Cubby shines in telling users how files on various devices are linked together. With other multiple folder sites, it may not be clear whether adding a folder on an additional computer will merge the contents or delete all but what is in the latest file.

  There is a mystery surrounding Cubby. It is always doing something. While Dropbox is sitting there doing nothing, Cubby, with just as little to do, is constantly using 3 to 7% of my CPU. I don't think it's evil. It's just using resources for no apparent reason.

• SugarSync behaves like Cubby. While it has been around since 2004, it has issues that would be surprising for a new entrant to the field. On 2013-03-18, I tried using it in place of Cubby to manage two folders on three computers. Since Cubby had been managing them, hey were already synced. Not only did SugarSync change the date on every directory to yesterday, but also it failed to recognize that the folders on one machine were the same as the others. All of its files were copies to the other machines. Since the names were the same, SugarSync added (from [other machine]) to the file name. Then, to top it off, seeing these "new" files on the other machines (new names), it copied them back to the original machine! As of now, definitely a program to AVOID.
• Spider Oak probably doesn't get as much press as it should. Its primary claim to fame is security. Every(?) site encrypts their stored data. However, it is possible for site personnel to decrypt files if it were necessary, say, under a court order. Not so with Spider Oak. A great place to store documents you send to WikiLeaks. However, if you forget your password, there is no way to recover the files regardless of its value or importance.
• I'm not sure how to classify Copy. It's a single folder service that has a way to sync folders outside of Copy's Copy folder. I don't care for it, tho', because it's hard to remember what is synchronized with what. With user friendly sites like SugarSync and Cubby, Copy's procedure for linking folders outside of its own Copy folder is unnecessarily convoluted. It is not for someone who thinks computers should be the ones doing the work.
• Bitcasa is yet another service. It claims to sync, but it does not sync computers. All of the computers link to the same file on the Bitcasa site. Such files are not available offline as is the case for a true syncing program.

Then, there are the peer-to-peer (P2P) services. They synchronize files with no online backup! The problem with P2P is that if a file (or folder) is accidentally deleted from one device, it's deleted from every device. If the second computer is a backup for the first, well...not anymore.

• Cubby has this feature as part of its paid Pro service.
• AeroFS is a free single folder P2P service. (I want to be careful here. It is P2P in that your computers can sync each other without having to store the data on AFS's servers. It does NOT make your computers part of a distributed network that services other users, too.) It is in beta release, so there may still be serious issues to be uncovered and resolved. However, it keeps chugging along and the staff is good about responding to posts in the support section of their website. Their latest goodie is the ability to wipe computers remotely, a very good thing if a laptop is lost, stolen, or strayed.
• GoodSync is listed here for completeness. I don't know much about it. Where other sites offer free 2 to 5 GB accounts with full-featured access, GoodSync's free accounts "...can have 3 or less jobs...and 100 or less files and folders in each job", whatever that means. GoodSync is also unique in requiring a separate license for each computer.
• I'm not sure where to put Syncbox (or iSyncbox, as the company is called), so I'll put it here. Syncbox lets you set up your own cloud storage.for free! A portable hard drive can be plugged into a computer (or router; I haven't tried it with a router, yet) to serve the same function as other services' cloud storage. I tried the simple experiment of erasing a file from my Syncbox and it disappeared everywhere. However, when I checked Events under the software I installed as part of Syncbox, I could click on that event and restore the file.

  Syncbox, like Dropbox and most other services, is a single folder solution. The files being synchronized have to be in a folder called Syncbox. At the moment, I find that the Syncbox (the program that lets a computer connect to your cloud) client has unpredictable effects on my system. I started with less than 1 GB to get a sense of it. There were no ill effects on my home network, but when I gave access to it from a computer at my office, the computer all but ground to a halt. I suspect this will be fixed in future updates but, for the moment, I'm not using it.

What I'm Doing

[Remember, this is the guy who thought Cubby was a great program...until it changed every time stamp it touched so that they were all the same!]

• I'm using Dropbox to synchronize my smaller personal files (song lyrics, photos, and the like).
• I'd been using Cubby to synchronize files between work and home, but I'm puzzled why Cubby is always running. I'll likely go back to it if the problem is ever resolved, but for the moment, after flipping a coin, I decided to use Copy (rather than Mozy Stash) instead. [Tried both Copy and Stash. Their problems are worse that Cubby's, so I'm back with Cubby. I will likely check out Jottacloud, when syncing comes becomes available, as well as Box.]
• I'm using AeroFS to synchronize 121 GB of music files on my desktop and laptop. AeroFS is still being beta tested, so I'm backing up the files onto an external drive every so often. Because AeroFS is in still in beta with possibly unpredictable behavior, it is available by invitation only. If you're eager to try it and understand the risks, I'll be happy to send you an invitation...but only if you appreciate the risks and back things up properly.

A Small Request

IF, I say "if", after investigating some of these sites with their respective strengths and weaknesses, you decide to try

• Cubby, would you do so through this link?
• Jottacloud, would you do so through this link?

It gains me extra space for each referral. I'll remove the links once I've maxed out. Thanks!

Considerations when using synchronization services

After I was already home for my very extended Presidents' Day weekend last Thursday (2/14), I got a call from the office. My hard drive was going to be imaged because I was tangentially involved with a project that was being audited. I was not to touch my computer until the following Tuesday! Nothing like a call like that to make one rethink one's notions about privacy.

It is no longer uncommon for employees to use their office computers and Internet access for personal business. My institution's policy can be read as taking personal use as a given and limiting what is allowed rather than assuming it is forbidden except for carefully defined circumstances. ("Managers have the authority to limit the personal use of institutional systems. Such personal use cannot involve access to confidential data, interfere with work responsibilities, or place an undue burden on institutional systems.") Still, the computers themselves belong to the institution and the institution is free to do whatever it wants with them.

My first reaction was, "Go ahead." There's no porn or classified documents, but...but I would have liked the opportunity to scrub passwords from my browser, even though the browser itself is password protected. The notion of having to change every password was a real killer. I probably did not have to change them, but whenever there's even the possibility that a password is compromised, I change it.

And then it hit me...Dropbox! I'd been using Dropbox to simplify my life by keeping my active work files synchronized between my home and office computers. BUT, I'd also been using it to keep my home desktop and laptop synchronized, so a lot of personal information had found its way onto my office computer. There was my will, personal family correspondence, a lot of gospel music and lyrics, photos from last Christmas season,...

As it turned out, all that was needed was an image of the folder containing information about the project under review, but it was enough to make me truly realize and plan for how much work I'd have if the entire drive had been imaged. Dropbox could no longer be used to handle both my business and personal files. The obvious solution seemed to be to add another service so that one could be used to synchronize business files while the other synchronized personal files.

And so, the search began...

Sensitive trackpad whose cursor jumps apparently at random under Windows? A solution!

I like my latest Win 7 notebook--i7 processor, 500 GB hard drive. Its Windows score is 4.7, but that's because of the graphics subscore. The processor's subscore is 7.1! I really, really like it...except for the reason I wished I'd never gotten it--the trackpad! I couldn't type a sentence without the cursor jumping all over the place, placing words inside of other words and generally messing everything up. The trackpad is so sensitive that the slightest brush, no matter how light, registered as a tap. I suppose I might have been able to solve things by turning off the feature that registers a tap on the trackpad as a press of the left mouse button, but I've used that feature on every other netbook and notebook without incident. I didn't want to stop using it now.

Salvation came in the form of the free utility Touchpad Blocker, which turns off the trackpad for a set period of time between 0.1 and 3 seconds after a keyboard key is pressed. One of the program's options is to have a bell ring each time the trackpad is stopped. I left it on as an experiment, but I finally turned it off because of how often it was ringing.

The bottom line is that Touchpad Blocker turned this notebook into what it should have been in the first place.

Where *is* that file?!?!?!

One of the reasons I don't use an mp3 manager is that I don't think like an mp3 manager. I have lots of music files tucked away in all sorts of folders that make complete sense to me...or at least they did at the time I created them! Things get complicated further because not all of my mp3s are tagged properly or named in ways that suit mp3 managers. The same sort of thing applies to music lyrics and files for my professional work. Most files are stored under a person's name, but every so often I decide to store them under a project name.

This usually works fine. Colleague walk into my office and all of their projects and files are right there under their names. Except when they aren't. Maybe I created a folder for the project? Or, I put it under the lab chief's name? I sort of know what the file's called...

Enter the Everything Search Engine. It's a one trick pony, but, oh, what a trick, and, oh, how well it does it.

The trick is that Everything will locate a file by name (or fragments of a name!) faster than you can type it!

The way it works is simple. Most PCs today have hard drives that use the NTFS storage system, rather than the old FAT-32 or FAT-16. When Everything is first installed, it accesses and indexes the NTFS directory. When you type in the name of a file, Everything doesn't go searching the hard drive. It goes straight to its index. The downside is that since Everything looks only at the NTFS directory it does not have the capability to search by file content.

I've used Search Everything for years and recommended it to others. Lately, though, I'd become disenchanted. Everything seemed to be failing to locate files that I knew where there. In such cases, I'd go to the Everything directory in Program Files to erase the index (c:\Program Files\Everything\Everything.db). Everything would then recreate the index and things would be fine...until next time.

I began a search for a competing program and immediately noticed that Everything is being updated after a hiatus of 3 years and the developer is responding to questions in his web site's forum. I've loaded his latest beta version and have not had any trouble or missing files, so far.

---

Added in edit, January 23: Drat! The problem is still there. Recreating the database still fixes things, but the question is why it gets corrupted in the first place. I'm working through the forums to try to solve this. I'll report back as things develop.

My ideal Android music player...found!

As I tried new candidates in my search for my ideal music player, I realized I left out an important criterion--looping capability, so I decided to start over from scratch rather than post an update. Just that I was about to post, my ideal-enough-that-I-don't-need-another player became available today.

---

My (not necessarily "the") ideal Android player must be able to

• change tempo,
• shift pitch,
• change tempo and pitch while an mp3 is playing,
• loop a section of a track,
• the way a section to be looped is identified, and
• either
  • have a thumb scroll or
  • come up as an option when an mp3 is selected from a file manager

I need the thumb scroll because I have folders with lots of mp3s. My Original Carter Family folder has the 250+ sides they recorded commercially. A folder of fiddle tunes contains more than 1400 mp3s. My file manager has a thumb scroll, so it doesn't have to be built into the music player.

I've come across:

• Audioshift, which doesn't work with Android 4.0+ and has no looping capability
• Audio Speed Changer Pro, which has no thumb scroll and does not appear as an option when I select a music file from my file manager
• Maple, which doesn't allow pitch or tempo to change while a music file is playing looping.
• Only recently, I found Music Speed Changer, which, until today met all of my critera but one--the way a section to be looped is identified.
  • Before today, MSC showed a waveform of the track being played with sliders that could be moved to mark the start and end of a section. There were also Start and End buttons that, when pressed, allow you to enter time in min/sec/msec.
  • I wanted something additional: an A/B switch. That is, I wanted to be able to press something when an mp3 is playing to mark the start of a section and again to mark the end of a section.

Music Speed Changer invites users to suggest additional features, so I wrote to Harald Meyer to suggest the A/B buttons. An upgrade was released today that includes the feature. So, as of today, with Music Speed Changer, I don't need any other Android music player!

I should add that Music Speed Changer works inside out from other players. Typically, one taps on an mp3 file from within a file manager to be asked to select the player to be used to play it. With Music Speed Changer, one taps on the "Import a Song" button inside the player to be asked to select the file manager to be used to locate it! It feels odd the first time it happens, but quickly becomes second nature.

A Windows Media Player Tip for Christmas

Dan Ariely just wrote in the WSJ that he likes New Year's resolutions every year for about a week: for five days before New Year's Day and two days after. Sounds about right to me. At nine days before, I'm getting the jump on things: Regular blogging!

As I type this, we're listening to some Christmas music--Nowell Sing We Clear, Vol 4--which brings me to...

A few years ago, I ripped all of my CDs to mp3. I have them all on a portable hard drive plugged into an old netbook that is now my official media server and added a nice set of wireless speakers. Still, there was a thinness to the music that just about had me ready to find space for my old stereo system. Then, I learned this neat trick, which might be dubbed "a set of Bose speakers built into Windows Media Player". It can be turned on and off while music is playing, so you might begin by starting a track in Windows Media Player so that you can hear what the effect adds to the music.

In Windows Media Players 10, go to the menu bar and choose

• View / Enhancements / SRS WOW Effects
• Click the Turn on link and then do any of the following:
• To enhance the bass, move the TruBass slider to the right.
• To enhance the stereo effect, move the WOW Effect slider to the right.
• To optimize sound output according to your speaker size, click the speakers link until one of the following options appears: Normal Speakers, Large Speakers, or Headphones.

In Windows Media Players 11, right-click on the title bar and proceed as for WMP 10.

The method for getting to the controls under Windows Media Player 12 were invented by someone who is still caught in Colossal Cave's maze of "twisty little passages, all alike".

• Click the Switch to Now Playing button in the lower-right corner of the Player.
• Right-click an open space in the Player, point to Enhancements, and then click SRS Wow effects.
• Proceed as for WMP 10.

Don't be afraid to give it a try. You can always turn it off if you don't like it. Let me know what you think of it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

At the moment, I wouldn't give two bits for a 64 bit operating system!

For me, the arrival of Windows 8 meant...time to get a really nice, powerful, small notebook running Windows 7 while it was still possible. The only problem is that it's become harder and harder to find them with the 32 bit version of Windows 7. Almost everything is shipping with the 64 bit version. I suppose I could have found the 32 bit version if I were hell-bent and determined, but the writing on the wall seemed clear: Time to shake off my Luddite tendencies and move to 64 bit Windows.

The idea behind 64 bits is simple. Imagine the address field in some form in which you insert one number per box. The more boxes, the more addresses you can have. For example, if there were two boxes, you could have 100 addresses--from 00 to 99. If there were 3 boxes, you could have 1000 addresses--from 000 to 999. Computers are the same way. The boxes are bits; each one contains either a 0 or a 1.

So, what's to address? Memory! If a computer has more memory--and can address it--it can work much faster. In practice, 32 bit Windows can use up to 3.12 GB of memory. Anything more than that is wasted. But, with a 64 bit system and lots of memory, memory-intensive programs like video editors will fly!

Quite honestly, I could get along fine with a 32 bit operating system and less than 4 GB. However, the world is going to 64 bits and soon many more programs will take advantage having those extra bits available. By not struggling with finding a 32 bit notebook, I was taking a step into the 2010s.

The downside is that much older programs--those written for DOS and Windows 3.1--will not run under 64 bits. For most people, this is not an issue. For the most part, it's a minor issue for me, except for one thing. It means giving up...no laughing, please...PC-Write. PC-Write was one of the first word processors developed for PCs. I started using it in the early 1980s, when it and PCs were starting to make their mark. I haven't used it as a word process for decades, but for 30 years it has been my text processor of choice, and I can make it fly, especially when writing computer programs and instructions!

The other downside of 64 bits is that, while programs written for 32 bits usually run fine under 64 bits, the two types of programs do not always play well together. That is, there can be conflicts when a 64 bit program calls on a 32 bit program, and vice-versa.

I spent ALL of yesterday, starting at 6 a.m., setting up the new notebook, only to give up at 11 p.m.! I finished the day by restoring it to "out of the box" condition. Today, I start over.

In order to avoid this as much as possible, I decided to stick with 32 bit versions of programs wherever possible. That was a mistake. In doing so, I managed to mess things up (*My* mess. I can't blame the computer or any program.) to the point where I had to start over. In a way, I was glad that I had to, because I'd just allowed myself to accept that the right way to go about this is to start with as many 64 bit versions as I can get my hands on. If there are conflicts, I'll do my best to resolve them by *upgrading* rather than *downgrading*. One can hold on for only so long. If I can't yet upgrade my way to a solution, there's always one of my older computers to do the work on!

For the moment, it's back to the drawing board. The 200GB from my current netbook should have finished coping over to the new notebook by now. Time to start over.