outliner/pim files and dropbox and similar programs

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Posted by jimspoon
Aug 8, 2012 at 02:48 AM

I am wondering if any of you are keeping your outliner/pim/notetaker data files in sync across multiple computers/devices using Dropbox or a similar program. If so, how is it working for you? What outliner/pim are you doing this with?

I am concerned that changes might not get synced on a timely basis or not at all, that changes made on one machine might be lost, or that I might often end up with multiple versions of the same data file with “conflicted copy” in the filename, so that I would have to locate the differences manually and reconcile the files.

Just as an aside - it seems that Dropbox would work much better with programs that store the data in many different files rather than just one big file - less chance of a conflict that way.

thanks for any input.

jim

Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 8, 2012 at 10:20 AM

Have to say, after a couple of years of exchanging notes/data between my Android mobile, iPad and Windows 7 desktop PC using that simplest of expedients, the text editor, I find myself increasingly using OneNote on all three platforms. Microsoft has developed perfectly satisfactory clients for all three of them, but the iPad has recently also benefited from a lovely editor known as Outline+ (mentioned recently in this forum) that is a positive pleasure to work with. Generally speaking I’ve found synchronisation works pretty well, with occasional errors resulting in extra “Sections” (as OneNote terms them) with the same name plus an additional number. It doesn’t happen often, but does at least mean that all data is retained!

I use CSV export to exchange data between various faves on my desktop PC (e.g. ListPro) and the iPad and Android phone. For both the latter there exists a perfectly competent ListPro-like database manager known as ListManager (actually there are two Android apps called ListMaster, so it’s important to get the right one!), but my favourite database manager on the iPad is actually - yes, I blush - Apple’s own Bento 4, which is turning into a very pleasant little app. It would be even more useful if there were a Windows desktop client (as there is for Mac), but hey, I don’t mind doing CSV imports…

Finally, I now manage my tasks using Remember The Milk (RTM), which has good clients for all platforms (although the web client could do with improvement), and syncs very reliably across all of them.

Cheers,
Bill

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Aug 8, 2012 at 01:47 PM

I’m using Dropbox to synch MyInfo, and it seems to work well.

Similarly with Surfulator.

Daly

jimspoon wrote:
>I am wondering if any of you are keeping your outliner/pim/notetaker data files in
>sync across multiple computers/devices using Dropbox or a similar program. If so,
>how is it working for you? What outliner/pim are you doing this with?

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Aug 8, 2012 at 03:28 PM

I use Dropbox for a very broad range of files and have had no real trouble with it, as long as I don’t edit the same file concurrently from several PCs (being a typical male, incapable of multitasking, has mostly protected me from such errors). In fact, I have only had such issues when sharing with others—and as you can imagine, it has always been the others’ fault ;-)

In fact, if anything, Dropbox has on a number of occasions saved the day, thanks to its maintaining recent versions of files.

For me the only issue is security, and for this reason I use Nomadesk for sensitive material. I believe that Wuala offers similar encryption.

jimspoon wrote:
>Just as an aside - it seems that
>Dropbox would work much better with programs that store the data in many different
>files rather than just one big file - less chance of a conflict that way.

You are right. And here is the only example I can give of a minor issue, or rather, inconvenience: I have an 80Mb UltraRecall database, whose file will be only slightly altered very often. So often, in fact, that when UR is open, Dropbox will never be able to sync the file in time and will maintain a very large number of temporary copies of it locally. This is a nuisance, and was even more so when I was on the free 2 Gb plan. My solution: while I have UR open, I pause Dropbox’s sync. Admittedly this can be an issue if you want to keep UR or a similar program open all the time.

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