Synchronise multiple computers

With the falling cost of laptops, many PCW readers are turning away from running multiple desktop PCs to using a laptop as a secondary machine. The desktop computer often becomes the primary home PC; perhaps the kids may use it as a homework or gaming PC, while your laptop may be used in the conservatory, garden, or even when working away from home.

Most software applications include a licence to install your application on both a desktop and laptop PC, and assuming you’ll never be using them at the same time there’s no reason you couldn’t install the same office suite on both desktop and laptop.

Download an audio track on your laptop and you’ll want that same track on your home PC. Update a presentation at home and you may need the same document on your laptop when you’re called to a last-minute meeting. Work on a file for another user and you may want to share the updated version.

Simple solutions
The most obvious solution would be to move the files between each computer manually. You could do this by setting up your computers on a home network, then dragging the files across to the relevant location.

However, that won’t do if you’re working away from the office and have forgotten to copy important documents from your desktop PC to your laptop. It also may not work if you try to copy files between a Mac and PC on your home network. You may spend more time trying to configure your network than keeping files updated.

The other solution would be to use a remote server. Almost everyone gets free web space when they sign up with an internet service provider, but few of us realise that this free web space is, in effect, virtual hard drive space on the internet.

You could simply use an FTP client to create a folder on the home page and then drag the files to the remote server. When you’re back in the office or away on business with your laptop, simply grab an FTP client, log in to your home page and drag those files to your PC.

Lastly, you could back up content to an external hard disk or USB flash drive and then connect the device to the other PC. Indeed, this is still one of the easiest methods of moving files across different operating systems as each will recognise the USB flash drive.

Mac OSX will read the content from a Fat32 or NTFS-formatted Windows drive. Simply work on the files required, move them across to the Windows-formatted drive and open the files on multiple machines.