About Syncing folders

[capoditutti]

Hi ho!

So, I've been set an interesting task, and i thought i'd find out if it can be done..

The machine is a MBP, with XP on it CO bootcamp.

The user requires

1. The ability to work on data contained in a folder/on a partition accessible from both OSX and XP..
2. The folder/partition to be automatically syncronized MAC-NETWORK-MAC when user connnects to network; whether they've booted into XP or OSX

I was thinking that a FAT32 partition .e.g SHARED_DRIVE with a folder called e.g. DATA, could serve this purpose easily. It would show on both OSX and Windows side, and i know i can easily set up the folder sync permissions on the XP side. How would i ensure that it would sync when the user connects to the Windows network and boots OSX rather than XP...?

Also, what's the deal with the .ds_store, ._.temporaryitems and trashes - is it easy to stop that stuff from being generated?

 

[mkrishnan]

Also, what's the deal with the .ds_store, ._.temporaryitems and trashes - is it easy to stop that stuff from being generated?

Those files are used to simulate Mac filesystem features when they're not available (e.g. on FAT32). Depending on your files, you can disable them. If your files are all typical document files, disabling them has no real disadvantage. This should at least be a start:

http://forevergeek.com/apple/preventing_creation_of_ds_store_files.php

 

[TBi]

Look up Macfuse / NTFS-3G which will give you read/write ntfs support on the mac.

 

[capoditutti]

If user is using OSX, and editing documents stored in a folder on the bootcamp partition (Macfuse / NTFS-3G), are those edits syncronized over the network immediately or when the user logs into XP?

 

[TBi]

Network? What do you mean network?

Macfuse works by mounting the drive as a read/write drive under OSX. Every change you make to the disk happens right away. If you save a file then you are infact saving the file, just like if you save to the mac disk.

There is no networking involved.

 

[capoditutti]

I mean network in the sense that the folder will exist in 2 places - locally and on the company LAN. Hence the need for an ability to auto-sync that folder with the network LAN regardless of OS being used to edit said folder's contents...

 

[TBi]

How do you do this in windows?

The only way i know is to right click on the share and select "make available offline". However this will save the "local" folder somewhere strange (i've no idea where, but probably the offline files folder).

However this is different from having a local folder and a network folder that are "linked".

I could be wrong on this and i'd be interested to find out how you are doing this.

 

[capoditutti]

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...ddocs/en-us/csc_working_offline.mspx?mfr=true

So yes i would mean offline files - i'm trying to find a way to get the offline files folder to syncronize regardless of which OS i've booted into, or find a way of automating a similar system.