Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

I wanted to use Unison to sync over my local network, but Unison for Ubuntu doesn’t like Samba, so here’s what I did.

1. Make sure you have Samba installed.
2. Create a folder on your linux machine called something like /mnt/stufftosync.  This folder will represent your remote folder of files.
3. In the terminal type,

“mount -t smbfs -o username=name,password=password //machinename/sharename /mnt/smbshare” without the quotes, where name is your username, password is your password, and smbshare is your stufftosync. You can pick whatever name you want for stufftosync, provided it corresponds with the folder you created in the /mnt folder.

Perform your sync, using Unison using the location of the files on your Linux machine as the first folder and using /mnt/smbshare, where smbshare is your stufftosync, as the second.

Worked like a charm.

Looks like you have to do type the mount command each time you boot.

For several years I have been keeping my current files on an SD card synchronized with files on two different computers. Early on I tried to keep track of what I’d changed and copy the files using Windows Explorer. Wow — that got old, not to mention confusing, in a hurry.

I began to look for an application that would let me sync a folder without giving it a lot of thought. Initially I used something called Allway Sync, as it was presented as a free file sync via USB. Well, the free version only permitted you to do a few syncs each week. I did many syncs each week — sometimes several each day, so either I had to pay for the application or find something else.

That is when I found Unison, “a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other.” (from The Unison Page)

(more…)

I bought a Dell bluetooth card for my Inspiron 6400 so I could sync my PDA with my Laptop. The card seemed to work well with Vista. However, my ipaq HX-4700 would not agree to perform a bluetooth sync, so I figured I wasted my money. When I upgraded the hard drive on the laptop, I noted the bluetooth did not work, but I really didn’t care — until I replaced my HX-4700 with a Samsung SCH-i760. Bluetooth sync was looking attractive again, but I couldn’t get that bluetooth card in my Inspiron to work. Although it was activated in the bios, it didn’t exist in the system configuration. And the blue light was out.

(more…)