Synchronizing with Laptop Computers

ZSKSoft Synchronizer is very convenient for synchronizing the desktop computer with the laptop. Let's review a few typical cases:

Suppose you are going on a business trip. You took your office's laptop and copied the project you are going to work with to it. Next, you ran ZSync and asked it to compare the project on the desktop computer with the project on the laptop; it has compared the projects, made sure they are identical, and remembered that state. By the way, you could have copied the project to the laptop using ZSync in the beginning - that's just a matter of taste. If you travel often, the second way appears to be more convenient since the synchronization scheme is already available.

The business trip turned out to be difficult. You had to solve many urgent problems and lots of minor issues, but you have handled them all successfully. You have had so much of workload that the numerous changes made to the project during that time have been forgotten. Though that isn't frightful - ZSync will remember everything.

When you got back, you have found out that another urgent problem was found here at the office, and your colleague had to correct something in your project. He also forgot about that, but when you started synchronizing the project back from the laptop to the desktop computer, ZSync straight off has marked one of the files with red color demonstrating that the file was changed in the both points. Having compared the contents, you have made sure that the colleague has done everything just right, and his changes should certainly be added to your module, for the discovered problem is actually very unpleasant and takes place very rarely; that's why it's difficult to discover it at once. What would have happened if instead of ZSync you used some other synchronizer? It would have only compared the files' date/time; your file (for example) would be found a newer one and would be successfully copied to the desktop computer. The luckily discovered serious error would have been returned back to the project. One day it would definitely reveal itself and, very likely, you would have to spend lots of time on tracking it down and eliminating it.

This example may seem to be far-fetched, but, unfortunately, such cases do really take place, much more frequently than they could be expected of. This example well enough illustrates the reliability reserve built in ZSKSoft Synchronizer. Nevertheless, ZSync makes use of itself even without such an extreme. When you synchronize your project from the laptop to the desktop computer, you can review your changes in the quiet environment and make notes - "this was changed in a rush and needs to be reviewed, so was this, this one is fine", etc. If the project is large, the synchronization will be carried out much faster than the plain file copying would take since only what has changed will be copied. Files that you have decided to delete from the desktop computer will also be deleted. Again, you will know exactly that nobody has changed anything while you were absent.

In the example above the laptop computer was used just once. It was supposed that business trips take place rarely, and the laptop computer belong to the company. What should change if you have to travel quite frequently and you have your own laptop computer (or the company's laptop assigned to you only)? Actually, nothing - just maybe that you won't have to re-create the synchronization scheme that was once created; you can continue using it for as long as you need.

The synchronization process comes down to the following:

1. Click on the appropriate scheme file. ZSync will start, scan the folders, compare and display the plan.
2. Overview the synchronization plan: make sure the gravity filter does not display any conflict or warning indicators, and the synchronization plan contains exactly what you wanted. For instance, if you have been working with the laptop computer lately, the program will plan updating your desktop computer, and the other way around. This may seem to be magic (no need to point out the synchronization direction!), but there is really nothing supernatural in this: whatever was changed, that exactly is going to be broadcasted to the other computer.
3. Click the Synchronize button.

That's it. Two clicks of the mouse and one reviewing look. Not a single redundant, unnecessary thing.

It may occur that one day you will forget to synchronize. Or, for example, you will forget whether or not have you synchronized. Finally, all of us are humans, and sometimes we get tired, and anyway - it's not a king's job to keep every minor thing in mind. Simply run ZSync, and it will figure everything out automatically - what should be copied where, and whether that will be safe enough or you should pay your attention to something. That's what ZSync - the world's best synchronizer - is for.

The previous situation turned out to be too simple, therefore we will try to complicate it a bit. Suppose you have a computer at home, at the office, and in your summer residence (the cottage outside the city limits). You have also got a laptop that fits just well for moving data between these computers and that you work on sometimes.

It appears there is no problem to synchronize in this situation either. Simply create a scheme named "Laptop.zsync" on each of the computers and use that scheme to synchronize all of these computers with the laptop.

Of course, you could have created schemes on the desktop computers instead and then created the "Home.zsync", "Office.zsync", and "Cottage.zsync" schemes on the laptop computer. But this way is worse at least because you can accidentally open a wrong scheme; e.g. run the office synchronization scheme while being at the summer residence. Most likely, in such a case and ZSync will warn you that some files have changed "backwards", but still it's much better to not put yourself to such a risk.

Let's see how the whole thing will work out. Suppose, on your home computer you have created a scheme called "Laptop.zsync" and then synchronized with the laptop. Then you went to the office and have created a scheme called "Laptop.zsync" on the office computer and synchronized now the office computer with the laptop. Having worked at the office for a while, you synchronized the laptop computer with the office one and went back home. You came home, synchronized, worked for a while, and then synchronized. And so on.

When you get to the summer residence, you will have to create the "Laptop.zsync" scheme on the cottage computer and, once done, follow your regular scenario: "Came - synchronized - worked - synchronized". The same way you can synchronize your work, literally speaking, on any number of computers; the main thing is - do not mix up the schemes and, when it is possible, do not forget to synchronize - especially before leaving somewhere.