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Using a laptop and a desktop with TMG - Best Practices?

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Hello, I frequently travel with a laptop, collect data and return home transfer the data to my desktop and then work on it.

I'd like to be able to work on my data live, in TMG on my laptop, and then when I get home "sync" up the desktop with the laptop, so both have the most current version of my data.

 

Anyone else have a work flow like this, if so, what is your method to accomplish this "sync"?

Is there an official Wholly Genes best practice?

 

I can think of a bunch of ways to do this, but I'm not sure which is the best.

My concern is version control. I am afraid that of losing data because of all the files that TMG uses to store data.

 

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Dan

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The recommended method for syncing TMG on two computers is to make a backup of the current project on one of them, then restoring that backup on the other. The real challenge with this is to be sure you only make entries on one copy, then transfer that copy to the other machine before doing any data entry there.

 

Some users have reported success with using various file sync systems, but I've not paid enough attention, nor have any experience with them, to suggest any.

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See Dick Eastman's article on Dropbox here. Dropbox is free for up to 2GB of storage. I use it for storage and backups and would not be without it now.

 

Note I have not had occasion to use Dropbox specifically for syncing TMG projects.

 

Virginia

Edited by Virginia Blakelock

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I use a portable external drive for my TMG Project, exhibits etc and simply plug it into whichever machine I am using. This also allows me to back it up to the hard drive of the respective computer.

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Virginia,

 

I successfully copied my project to a folder in the Dropbox folder (which resides in the My Documents folder). I have been using the project in my Dropbox folder since the end of January. I used TMG's Copy Project function, after creating a separate project folder in my dropbox - Dropbox - Genealogy - Projects - ProjectName. All my customizations came over apparently without a hitch. However, I had previously copied button icons and report configurations into that project folder. Only problem is that it cannot sync with the copy of your folder which resides on the internet until you actually close the TMG project and you cannot backup directly to your dropbox with the program open. I backup to my regular backup location and then copy it to my Dropbox - Genealogy - Backups folder.

 

I work on my database on the Netbook and changes I made to my project show up when I open TMG on the other computer, after it syncs the dropbox folders! and vic-versa... I have never tried using TMG on both computer at once, but why would I and I think the license only lets you use it on one computer at a time.

 

Copies of the contents of my dropbox folder reside on both computers, the dropbox site and my iphone via the Dropbox App, of course, so you end up with multiple backups in multiple locations!

 

So far so good... :D

 

Janis Parkison Rodriguez

VP Arlington (VA) RUG

 

P.S. It looks like it might be a good way for multiple folks to collaborate on one project. Not quite sure how well it can work for this as you do not know when the other person might be using the file(s)... Plus, since some of my project settings point to files on my computers outside the dropbox, there could be issues there but someone with more technical knowledge would need to address that!

Edited by JanisR

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I tried using Dropbox in this manner for a brief period of time. It caused all kinds of problems with my data, which took a long to recover from. I was very careful to only use one computer at a time on the Dropbox data files and always gave enough time for changes made on one computer to "sync" through the Dropbox system before usnig TMG on the other computer. Nonetheless, corruption of my dataset occurred. One of the strangest, just by way of example, is that my father's death date was assigned to me, my wife, our children and my siblings. Therefore, I highly recommend NOT using this procedure. What I've been doing more recently, that seems to be successful, is to place my TMG data files on a removable flash drive. Then I make sure that each computer has this drive assigned to the same letter (I chose "Y:"). I also make backups on a regular basis to a NAS and to the cloud. Dropbox is OK for this purpose. I know that this is an old thread, but I wanted to let anyone who reads it know about my experience before they trash some of their data. A word to the wise should be sufficient.

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