Do you work in IT?

john3347 said:

Now if I could only figure how to keep them all syncronized so if I make a change to a drawing in the shop, it will automatically make the same change to the same drawing at all locations when I exit the file without additional input from me. Prior to that, I had to take a stack of punch cards to the university computer lab and go back after a couple of days to see if my program even ran.

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Get some kind of network storage, or dedicate a PC to share storage on. That way you're always pulling the data from the same place and if you make any changes it'll be in one centralized location. It's easy to do with Homegroups in Win 7, or you could buy/build a NAS.

stueycaster said:

I have no IT experience at all. However I would like to learn. I'm getting tired of beating my poor old arthritic body up working in the Lumber Industry for peanuts.

The problem is working for peanuts. I can't afford to go to school. I was wondering if any of you IT Professionals could suggest a few books that I might get that would give me a good start on educating myself. I keep thinking I would like to get into working in Cyber Security or Networking.

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My personal recommendation is to either go buy a book on a good entry level test (Network + or something similar) and study or check your local college for a course. My brother in law is getting into networking and is taking the Cisco Academy class at a local college. It's pretty inexpensive and he'll get to take the exam for free.

Have Windows Home Server

Camride, I have a Windows Home Server and I keep - no, I attempt to keep - everything synchronized through that device. I use SyncToy software to perform this operation, but it involves a lot of mousing around (mouse clicks) and I have to set up a separate "pair" for each individual file if I don't want to wait for the whole directory to back up to make one small revision to one small file. I have tried a couple of other Microsoft synchronizing software, but none of them seem to work like I need. Would a NAS device perform the task that I describe, or does the WHS do the same job that a NAS would? Would a NAS work just as a drive letter on every attached computer without hassles?




Stueycaster, HP Learning Center has some very basic classes of interest to both the home user and professional as well. These classes are, of course better suited to laying a basic understanding of the subject rather that preparing for competency tests, but they are well worth the free price. Chect them out at the link below.

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john3347 said:

Now if I could only figure how to keep them all syncronized so if I make a change to a drawing in the shop, it will automatically make the same change to the same drawing at all locations when I exit the file without additional input from me.

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Dropbox - Home - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.

Watch this video:


If you are using less than 2GB worth of data Dropbox is free and will synchronize everything, placing it on the Amazon Elastic Cloud so that you will never lose the data. Plus, you can upgrade for a fee to the 50GB or 100GB plans. The software synchronizes on every system instantaneously, even Mac.

If you were to sign up use me as a referral so I can get extra space! https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTU0MTcxMTk

The alternative is to create a Windows Server 2008 Folder Redirection Group Policy to create a roaming profile for a domain account... attach all of the computers to a domain and you will be accessing the same profile from every computer. This is recommended by MS, but I'm going to say avoid it. There are too many applications that are incompatible.

Thank you so much, Mike. That looks hopeful. I've downloaded it onto two computers and I will be giving it a trial over the next few days. I have tried Windows Mesh and Windows Live Sync previously (in fact, still have them installed) and they just do not do what I need.

John - I'm talking about keeping all the data in one spot and accessing it that way. You can do this easily with a PC, just share the folder out (that you will keep all the data in) and map a drive to that resource from the other computers. Or you can do it through the Homegroup feature in Win 7. This way you will have one copy of the data that you actively use. If you want to talk about backing that data up, that's another conversation.

If you want a cloud based setup (where your data will still be there if every one of your systems died) I'd also recommend Windows Mesh. It's still in Beta but they offer 5GB for free. I'm currently using it to backup my critical work data (client documentation) off my laptop. As a side bonus, I can get to it from anywhere so if I want to work on some of that data on another machine I can just login to my Mesh site and grab stuff from there.

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I've been fortunate enough to work for two great companies and one not so great company.

I worked in the IT dept. at our local public Library. It was part of local government and the benefits and pension were great.

During that time I was asked to be a consultant for PC Tools and support there Internet Security related products via the Internet, so I was working 12 hours a day there for a while. I was then contacted by the USA manager and told they were restructuring the company and all tech support was being moved to their Melbourne, Australia location. Being the only USA representative, I was not asked to go along

My present job is for a startup computer sales and services company, however, during the interview they never informed me they had no customer base and that it was my job to do the marketing as well. I didn't even want a job until summer was over. This job sucks.

I have two Associate Specialized Business Degrees, one in Computer Information Systems and the other is Security and Computer Forensics. I am A+ certified as well.

My real passion is Computer Forensics and my goal is to pass the Certified Computer Forensic Examiner test.

And, of course, I love playing with the registry on a daily basis

Camride said:

John - I'm talking about keeping all the data in one spot and accessing it that way. You can do this easily with a PC, just share the folder out (that you will keep all the data in) and map a drive to that resource from the other computers. Or you can do it through the Homegroup feature in Win 7. This way you will have one copy of the data that you actively use. If you want to talk about backing that data up, that's another conversation.

If you want a cloud based setup (where your data will still be there if every one of your systems died) I'd also recommend Windows Mesh. It's still in Beta but they offer 5GB for free. I'm currently using it to backup my critical work data (client documentation) off my laptop. As a side bonus, I can get to it from anywhere so if I want to work on some of that data on another machine I can just login to my Mesh site and grab stuff from there.

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I am currently attempting to use Windows Live Mesh, Windows Live Sync, Skydrive, and Office online, in addition to WHS/SyncToy and perhaps - even probably - the problem is me not really understanding HOW to utilize the potential of one or more of these "synching solutions"; but none of them seems to be working for me. (I also accepted an "invitation" to join Microsoft Vine, but I saw that it was just another myspace or facebook and uninstalled it. I suppose education is my biggest problem here rather than software. I just ain't ejukated enuff.

john3347 said:

Thank you so much, Mike. That looks hopeful. I've downloaded it onto two computers and I will be giving it a trial over the next few days. I have tried Windows Mesh and Windows Live Sync previously (in fact, still have them installed) and they just do not do what I need.

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Live Mesh is a nice concept but its not as good as Dropbox

Thanks for the info guys. You guys are really the greatest. I'll start work on all this Friday.

Dropbox doesn't seem to be constantly "in your face" as Live Mesh is. With only a couple of hours familiarity with it, dropbox does also appear to be at least close to what I need.........except for the 2 GB limit on the free version. I have not determined yet if it will automatically sync among "member" computers without having to save to cloud. Haven't determined either if my Windows Home Server can join this group.