I don't have much time right now, but I do want to get these ideas down quick and I can edit and add later.
I have been trying to figure out ways to synchronize my locally stored Guild Wars files such as screenshots and skill templates across all computers that I run the game on. In the process, I discovered a few programs that have some interesting properties.
Drop Box was the first program I downloaded. It had potential because so many people were talking about it. The service is great in the sense that it synchronizes all files in your drop box on any computer, including Mac and Linux. It also stores copies on a remote server so that if you somehow lost the file while on a road trip and didn't leave your computers on at home to sync too, chances are that the files are available on the server. This all occurs behind the scenes once you have it set up. Now for the downside. I am an organization junkie when it comes to computers. I want things very specifically classified and I prefer to keep my directory structure instead of dragging files that I want to sync to a single drop box. That is reminiscent of the days of the old windows briefcase and I never liked that. I wanted the files to sync from their respective homes in my directory, not from one folder.
This is when I downloaded FolderShare, a microsoft program that is also free of charge. The only limitation here is that it does not run on Linux. It does exactly what I want, it automatically syncs folders no matter where they are in my directory with another computer. This allowed me to sync Guild Wars on one computer where the program is on a separate drive with the other two computers that have Guild Wars under C:/ . The only downside is that the computers have to be on to see the updates because they are not stored on a server. But that is minor because this is the exact functionality I wanted.
The two programs combined is a powerful set indeed and quite capable of handling your synchronization needs. The only thing that could be better is a program where you could choose which folders you want to just sync and which ones you want to store online as well. With such a service, you could also say which folders or even individual files you want to share with what other users of the service to allow for collaboration. Unfortunately, you can't use symbolic links as Drop Box sees it as a file not as a link. However, I imagine that soon Drop Box will allow for synchronization to other folders in any directory, and when that happens FolderShare will die out. But for now, I'll use both, especially since FolderShare was a breeze to set up.
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