Nothing sucks worse than getting to the office in the morning and realizing you left the most recent copy of an important file—whether it’s your to-do list or a PowerPoint presentation—on your home computer. No matter where you are and what computer you’re using, you always want the most updated set of documents and files you’ve got without having to carry ‘em around on a thumb drive. Luckily, several free solutions can automatically sync folders between computers—even over the internet, through office firewalls—no matter what operating system you use. Whether you want work files edited at home to magically appear on your PC at the office, or the family room Mac to have a copy of the latest batch of digital photos downloaded onto the computer in the den, three free applications can help.
Windows Mobile/Pocket PC only: Get access to all of your Windows Mobile or Pocket PC device’s files with Mocha FTP Server, a (newly) free utility. Simply load and run the software on your mobile device, point a browser or FTP client on a networked computer to the address it provides, and you can do what you want with pictures, music, and other files. You can get pretty fancy if you want, setting up multiple users with different rights, time-outs, and more. Mocha FTP Server is a free download for Windows Mobile and Pocket PC devices; once you hit the registration screen, enter “freeware” for a licence name and “111425″ for a code. Mocha FTP Server [via Download Squad]
If you’ve spent hours ripping a DVD or downloading a video just to find—when all’s said and done—that the audio and video aren’t matching up, reader Will suggests using video-Swiss-Army-knife VLC’s desynchronisation feature to sync up the audio.
In the VLC Preferences, click on Audio and then tick the Advanced options checkbox; there is an Audio desynchronization compensation setting that allows you to set a positive or negative time delay between the video and audio tracks in milliseconds. I find unsynchronized video/audio unbearable, and have been known to delete files without watching them for it. It never occurred to me that there would be such a simple solution!
Will points out that you need to stop and start the movie each time you make an adjustment, but if you’ve been banging your head against the wall over poorly synced audio, VLC can make quick work of it. Thanks Will!
Windows and Mac OS X: Free data-syncing utility FolderShare has released an updated Windows client with better Windows Vista support and performance, as well as a redesign of the website where you can easily share and grab files from another computer, whether it’s Mac or PC. As with the first time we mentioned it, FolderShare only limits individual file sizes (up to 2 GB) and the number of files per shared library (10,000)—other than that, it’s whatever you want to share. If you’ve got a different OS at home and work, or you just want an easy synchronisation tool for an always-on box, FolderShare fits the bill, and can help you keep Firefox profiles and Greasemonkey scripts in sync. FolderShare is a free download for Windows and Mac OS X systems (with an updated Mac client in the works, according to developers).
Windows only: Have your calendar available on the desktop as well as in the cloud with the Google Calendar Sync desktop tool, freshly released from the big G. Sync your primary calendar on your vanilla or Google Apps account to Outlook automatically at a refresh rate you define. Syncing can be one or two-way, meaning you can add and edit events in Outlook and have them sync to GCal or vice versa automatically. The only catch is that it only works with your primary calendar, not secondary ones. Google Calendar Sync is a free download for Windows only. (Of course, having Outlook helps.) This coupled with Gmail IMAP really makes Outlook a viable GApps client. Google Calendar Sync [via Lifehacker AU]
Windows only: Freeware application doubleTwist converts your DRM-laden iTunes purchases to DRM-free MP3s that you can play pretty much anywhere. In addition to the DRM-stripping (which really is the marquee feature), doubleTwist is actually a full-fledged tool for sharing music with friends and syncing your iTunes library to any device—currently supporting devices like the PSP and Sony phones, Nokia N-Series phones, Windows Mobile phones, and even the Amazon Kindle. The DRM-stripping isn’t lossless (sound degradation is reportedly about 5%), but at a conversion rate of about 100 songs per half hour, it’s very fast. Brought to you by DVD Jon (the guy famous for cracking DVD encryption), this freeware, Windows-only (for now) app can free you from the shackles of Apple DRM. doubleTwist [via Gizmodo]
The CyberNet blog tackles an annoyance that any (Windows-using) iPhone or iPod touch owner likely noticed within minutes of setting up their new device in iTunes—no support for syncing Firefox bookmarks. The solution, CyberNet suggests, lies in seamlessly coordinating your Internet Explorer bookmarks (built into Windows) with Firefox. Luckily, a few extensions have this covered, including the two-way BooKKit, and SyncMarks, already pointed out by a commenter, which one-way syncs from Firefox to IE favorites. Of course, a browser-neutral solution could likely be worked up with a syncing solution as well. Got a better idea on how to integrate Firefox bookmarks into your Apple device? Share your solutions in the comments. Syncing iPhone Bookmarks with Firefox [CyberNet]
Dual booting Windows and Linux doesn’t mean you have to maintain two separate sets of applications, preferences, and documents. With cross-platform, open-source applications like Firefox, Thunderbird and Pidgin, you can use the same apps with the same configuration automatically no matter what OS you’ve booted. Always access the most recent state of your Firefox browsing history, IM buddy list, Thunderbird address book, and more from Windows or Linux using a single-point-of-contact data partition. Let’s tear down at least part of the wall between Windows and Linux and start sharing files between the two dual-boot desktops. Photo by hsivonen.
You already know how to set up an online “personal nerve center” (PNC), bookmarking, blogging, and scheduling tasks and calendar events from Gmail. But if web-only central storage feels too far away in the cloud for you, PNC user Steve Rubel details how to make a portable, offline version that you can sync to the cloud, take with you and back up as well using IMAP and Gmail. I like the idea of email as the central hub of one’s doings—heck, it already is for most of us—and IMAP in Gmail makes that even more possible.
How to Set Up a Portable Personal Nerve Center [Micro Persuasion]Windows only: Free web site/software combo DocSyncer has just rolled out its public beta, pitching a set-it-and-forget-it way of syncing your computer’s documents with Google Docs. After signing up and installing the software, DocSyncer goes to work uploading all the Microsoft Office and OpenOffice documents it finds in your Documents and Desktop folders. You can then choose which file types will be synced to Google Docs and set DocSyncer to open those files with local software instead of Google Docs, but you’ll likely want to make a few more tweaks before leaving it running.
