SyncING Files Between Computers Without Storing in the Cloud

How to Sync Files Between Computers Without Storing Them in the Cloud

So you have multiple computers and you want to keep your files in sync, but you don’t want to store them on someone else’s servers. You’ll want a service that synchronizes files directly between your computers.

With such a service, you can synchronize an unlimited amount of files and people can’t gain access to your files just by gaining access to an account on a server and viewing the files via the web interface.

We’re focused on syncing files over the network here — either over a local network or the Internet. We’re looking for Dropbox-style solutions that don’t store files on a central server like Dropbox does.

BitTorrent Sync

BitTorrent Sync uses BitTorrent to transfer files — in private and in encrypted form, so no one can snoop on them. Just install it, select a folder, and generate a secret. Provide that secret to anyone — either another computer you own or a friend you would like to sync files with — and your folder will be automatically kept in sync across all configured PCs. This happens directly — either over a local network or over the Internet — using the powerful and fast BitTorrent technology.

BitTorrent Sync offers clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux, so you can use it to sync your files with computers running any popular operating system. Unlike many other services, its features are completely free and it doesn’t require you run a separate server.

AeroFS

AeroFS is free, assuming you don’t need its more advanced features. It creates a Dropbox-like folder on your computer and files sync automatically between the computers you set up. You can share each folder with one additional person, but you’ll need the paid version to share with additional people after that. It doesn’t use BitTorrent and relies on a user account system — there’s a central server that manages user accounts and sharing, but files aren’t hosted on AeroFS’s servers. They’re only stored on your computers. AeroFS promises that it “can’t even see your file names.”

Its interface is very similar to Dropbox’s, even down to the tour that appears when you install it. It’s a very Dropbox-like solution, but it skips the cloud so you can sync unlimited files. Like Dropbox, it supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Cubby

LogMeIn’s Cubby offers cloud storage, but it also offers a “DirectSync” feature. DirectSync allows you to synchronize an unlimited number of files directly between computers, skipping the cloud. Microsoft’s Windows Live Mesh used to do this, but Live Mesh has been discontinued. Cubby is available for both Windows and Mac OS X; there’s no Linux support.

You will have to create an account, and cloud storage is enabled by default in Cubby. While DirectSync was previously free when we recommended it as an alternative to Windows Live Mesh, DirectSync is now a paid feature. Unless you really love Cubby, you’re probably better off with another solution.

Roll Your Own Server

These are the two biggest options. However, these aren’t the only ways to sync files directly between your own computers. There are other options you have, although those solutions aren’t as easy to use and will require more manual configuration:

• SparkleShare: SparkleShare is an open-source Dropbox-like file syncing solution. The only difference is that you host it yourself. You could host Sparkleshare on one of your computers or on a server you have access to and get Dropbox-like syncing that’s entirely under your control.
• rsync: rync isn’t an instant syncing solution, but it can be used to run automatic incremental backups to a server. You could run a nightly rsync job and sync your files to an FTP server.

There are many other options you can use. Anything with a self-hosted server component or any sort of solution that automatically creates incremental backups and uploads to a remote server will do, but you’ll have to host your own server software in both cases. Solutions like BitTorrent Sync and AeroFS are the most convenient because they’re not made to require a separate server — they just run on your existing computers.

Disadvantages

Of course, there are a number of disadvantages to doing it this way. You’ll have to ensure you have backup copies of your files, as there’s no central backup copy in the cloud on someone else’s servers. There’s also no way to access these files from your phone or tablet with a mobile app, as you can with the Dropbox, Google Drive, or SkyDrive mobile apps. They’re not stored on a central server the apps can pull from; they’re just automatically synced between your computers.

And, of course, your computers must be powered on at the same time or they won’t be able to sync directly with each other.

In return, you get the ability to sync an unlimited number of files and keep them entirely under your control. It’s up to you which tradeoffs you want to make.

How to Sync Files Between Computers Without Storing Them in the Cloud

Wi-Fi is about to get a lot faster and more reliable

Wi-Fi is about to get a lot faster and more reliable

Next-generation Wi-Fi routers, using 802.11ac technology, will be able to accommodate more devices and provide better coverage in a home or office space.

By Paresh Dave, Los Angeles Times

June 22, 2013

YouTube videos stopping and starting? Spreadsheets taking an eternity to upload? Connections suddenly dropping?

Many of those Wi-Fi woes could soon come to an end.

An industry group this week began certifying products capable of running on a faster and more reliable wireless network technology. It marked the unofficial beginning of the next generation of Wi-Fi.

Contrary to popular belief, many of the connection problems that home users encounter are often not related to their broadband service but rather to the Wi-Fi routers.

The new technology — 802.11ac — has the potential to be up to four times as fast as the current standard 802.11n technology. Smartphones, computers and routers with the new technology are already hitting store shelves, though industry experts don't expect average consumers to start picking up the devices until the holiday shopping season or early next year.

The technical improvements bring Wi-Fi up to par with the sweeping changes in the home entertainment industry. The number of Wi-Fi-connected devices in U.S. households has doubled during the last five years, according to Wakefield Research.

Smartphones, tablets and even appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines now compete with televisions, gaming consoles and laptops for a share of a finite network bandwidth. Increasingly, many of those devices are also displaying hours of video a day, putting incredible demand on the network.

The fifth generation of Wi-Fi tackles those problems by increasing speed limits and moving to a new highway, from the congested lanes of the 2.4-gigahertz frequency band to a more open 5-gigahertz spectrum.

The changes should mean that routers will be able to accommodate more devices at one time and provide better coverage throughout a home or office space. In apartments or areas crowded with other electronics, the new "highway" offers the promise of less interference, meaning connections shouldn't randomly drop, particularly if the consumer is using a 2.4-gigahertz cordless phone.

"We expect that the users will see a significant increase in the performance of their applications," said Greg Ennis, technical director of the Wi-Fi Alliance.

The trade association owns the Wi-Fi trademark, and it must say that a product works correctly with other Wi-Fi certified products before a device can carry the official Wi-Fi seal. Ennis said the start of the alliance's certification process would unleash a flood of products onto the market capable of running 802.11ac.

But the improvements won't come cheap, at least initially. Some uncertified routers that support the new technology are already available. Most of the 802.11ac routers cost more than $150, compared with $50 for an older device.

A second wave of "ac" routers should reach stores by early 2014, bringing the price of the earlier ones down. But the best time to buy might be the middle of next year when prices for the second batch are expected to drop to about $100. One of the key metrics consumers should look at is the number of simultaneous users a router can handle. Known by the acronym MU-MIMO, the technology allows a router to send data to multiple devices more efficiently.

Last week, Apple announced that its newest MacBook Air laptop would include the new Wi-Fi technology. The company's AirPort Extreme Base Station and AirPort Time Capsule will also notch higher speeds. The base station comes with a new feature known as "beamforming," which is an optional part of 802.11ac. Beamforming automatically optimizes a Wi-Fi signal's path to deliver faster speeds to a particular device.

Everything that's certified as 802.11ac will work with older gadgets. But to take advantage of the faster speeds and wider bandwidth, both ends of a transmission must have the new technology. Older computers can be upgraded using an 802.11ac USB adapter.

The last major Wi-Fi upgrade began in 2007, with the launch of the 802.11n technology. "N" was the successor to "a," "b" and "g." By the end of the year, the Wi-Fi Alliance expects to start certifying the more niche "ad" technology. Its optimal use is limited to small areas with dozens of devices connecting to a network, such as classrooms or a small, public hot spot.

Why are letters being doubled up now? The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which oversees wireless standards, used "o" through "z" to denote minor technical changes since the launch of "n."

Wi-Fi is about to get a lot faster and more reliable - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

SharING DAta & Files Between Android & PC

How to Share Data and Files Between Your Android Phone and PC

Android doesn’t have an iTunes-like desktop program, so the process of syncing your data may not be as obvious as it is with an iPhone.  However, you don’t need a desktop syncing app — even iPhone users are leaving iTunes behind.

While you can move files back and forth with a USB cable or wireless network connection, the ideal way to keep data in sync between your devices is by relying on online services that do the work for you.

Transfer Files Manually to Your Phone

If you do want to transfer files the old-fashioned way, you can copy files directly to your Android device. This is ideal if you want to copy music, videos, or other media files to your Android phone or tablet. After copying the files over, they should be automatically appear in your Android media player app. You can also use a file manager app to view them.

• USB Cables: Connect your Android phone directly to your computer using the USB cable you use to charge it. It will appear as a new drive in the Computer window, where you can copy files back and forth like you would from a USB flash drive. Older Android devices may require you to pull down the notification bar on your phone and tap the Turn on USB storage option to make the Android’s storage accessible on the PC after plugging it in.

• Wireless File Transfers: If you want to transfer files wirelessly, you have a wide variety of options. AirDroid is one of the most convenient. Install the AirDroid app and you’ll be able to access your phone from a web browser, giving you the ability to copy files back and forth. You can also set up Windows networking or create an FTP server to allow your phone to access your PC’s storage.

• Cloud Storage: Copying files the old-fashioned way is best if they are very large — for example, if you want to copy a video file to your Android phone. However, transferring small files and keeping files in sync is easier if you use cloud storage. Whether you use Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, or another cloud storage service, you can drop the file into the cloud storage folder on your computer and open the associated app on your phone. This will give you access to the file without having to transfer it to your phone manually or take up any of your phone’s internal storage.

There are third-party syncing apps that try to replicate that iTunes experience with an Android phone, but you don’t need them.

Sync Your Browser Data

Want all your browser bookmarks, open tabs, history settings, and other data to follow you between your phone and computer? Just enable the sync option in your web browser, install the appropriate browser on your Android phone, and activate the sync option there, too.

• Google Chrome: Log into Chrome on your PC with your Google account and use the Google Chrome browser on Android.
• Mozilla Firefox: Enable Firefox Sync on your PC and use Firefox for Android.
• Opera: If you’re an Opera user, you can enable Opera Link and use Opera for Android.

Users of Internet Explorer or Safari don’t have an official syncing solution. There are unofficial sync apps available, but we haven’t tested them.

Get Music On Your Phone

You could connect a USB cable and copy all your music files to your phone, but that won’t be ideal if you have too much music to fit on your phone. Instead, try using Google Music Manager, which will upload a copy of your music files to Google’s servers for free. You can then use Google’s Play Music app on your phone to listen to your entire music collection if you have an Internet connection, or to cache music on your device to make it accessible offline.

You may also want to try using a third-party music apps, instead. Read more about ways to get music on your Android without iTunes here.

Use Online Services

In the old days, people synchronized their palm pilots and old smartphones with their computers to keep their contacts, calendar events, and other data in sync between their PC and their handheld device. This isn’t the way things are done anymore — in fact, you would have trouble finding a software solution that let you sync your data in this way.

Instead, data is synced by relying on online (“cloud”) services, and Android does this by default. Your Android’s contacts and calendar events are automatically synchronized with Gmail’s Contacts and Google Calendar, where you can access them from a web browser by logging in with the same Google account. Any changes you make to the Contacts or Calendar from your browser will replicate themselves on your phone.

Instead of worrying about synchronizing data back and forth, look for services that have solid Android apps and useful websites or desktop apps and use them to keep your data in sync across your devices. For example, it’s much easier to use the popular Evernote (or another note-taking app, such as Google’s own Google Keep) to keep your notes in sync across your devices than it is to take text notes on your Android and copy them back and forth using a USB connection.

Assuming you use the same services on your PC and your phone, keeping their data in sync should be a snap. This part should happen automatically.

How to Share Data and Files Between Your Android Phone and PC

What is NFC and What Can I Use It For?

HTG Explains: What is NFC and What Can I Use It For?

NFC hardware is being included in more and more devices – particularly smartphones, but also some laptops. NFC could be the future of payments, security keys, and boarding passes. NFC is also an upgrade over clunky QR codes.

Many new phones have the hardware to do all of the things here today. However, many people with NFC-equipped smartphones haven’t used their NFC capabilities.

Image Credit: Tupalo.com on Flickr

What is NFC?

NFC stands for Near Field Communication. NFC is a set of standards that allow smartphones and other devices to communicate via radio signals when they are held in close proximity. NFC works similarly to RFID, although NFC has a much shorter range than RFID. NFC’s range is about 4 inches, making it harder to eavesdrop on.

Devices with NFC hardware can establish communications with other NFC-equipped devices as well as NFC “tags.” NFC tags are unpowered NFC chips that draw power from a nearby smartphone or other powered NFC device. They don’t need their own battery or source of power. At their most basic, NFC tags could be used as a more convenient replacement for QR codes.

To establish an NFC connection, all you need to do is touch two NFC-equipped devices together. For example, if you had two NFC-equipped smartphones, you would touch them together back-to-back. If you had an NFC tag, you would touch the back of your NFC-equipped smartphone to the NFC tag.

NFC is included in a wide variety of devices, including Android devices like the Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, Galaxy S III and HTC One X. Android isn’t the only platform that supports NFC – Windows Phone devices like Nokia’s Lumia series and HTC Windows Phone 8X include NFC, as do many BlackBerry devices. However, none of Apple’s iPhones include NFC hardware.

Image Credit: Jason Tester Guerrilla Futures on Flickr

Mobile Payments

NFC payments work similarly to tap-to-pay contactless payment features like MasterCard’s PayPass, included on MasterCard credit cards. An NFC-equipped smartphone could be touched to (or waved over) an NFC-enabled payment terminal to pay for something, replacing the need for a credit card. This is exactly how Google Wallet works.

San Francisco has NFC parking meters, which allow people to pay for parking by tapping an NFC-equipped phone against the parking meter.

Image Credit: Sergio Uceda on Flickr

Wirelessly Transferring Data

Data can be transferred wirelessly between two NFC-equipped smartphone. Android phones have Android Beam, a feature that allows two smartphones to quickly share a web page, contact, photo, video, or other type of information. Touch two phones back-to-back and the content being viewed on one device will be sent to the other. File transfers are handled via Bluetooth once they’re initiated, but there’s no complex Bluetooth pairing process – just tap and the rest will happen automatically.

Similar sharing features are also found in BlackBerry and Windows Phone.

Image Credit: LAI Ryanne on Flickr

NFC Tags

Anyone can purchase NFC tags, which are fairly cheap. You can configure the action that occurs when your smartphone comes in contact with the NFC tag.

For example, let’s say you always put your smartphone into silent mode when you go to sleep. Instead of doing this manually each night, you could put an NFC tag on your bedside table. When you go to bed, you can place your smartphone onto the NFC tag and your smartphone will perform an action you can configure, such as automatically enabling silent mode.

You could also create an NFC tag that contains your Wi-Fi network’s SSID and passphrase. When people visit your home, they could touch their phones to the NFC tag and log on rather than keying in the Wi-Fi network’s details manually.

These are just a few examples – you can perform any action an app on your smartphone can execute.

Image Credit: Nathanael Burton on Flickr

More Possible Uses

NFC has a wide variety of other possible uses, including:

• Quickly Downloading Information: Many businesses, advertisements, and products have QR codes, which have to be scanned with a smartphone’s camera. NFC could function as a much-improved QR code – just tap or wave the smartphone over an NFC chip where the QR code would be to access the information.
• Transit & Boarding Passes: NFC-equipped smartphones could also replace transit passes on transit systems or boarding passes at the airport.
• Security Passes: An NFC-equipped smartphone could be tapped against a reader to access secure areas. Car manufacturers are even working on NFC-equipped car keys.

Image Credit: mac morrison on Flickr

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This is just a snapshot of what NFC is currently being used for. It’s a standard for near-field communication, and many more things could be built on top of this standard.

HTG Explains: What is NFC and What Can I Use It For?

How to Use Google Chrome to Remotely Access Your Computer

How to Use Google Chrome to Remotely Access Your Computer

We have looked at some of the various ways in which remote access of your computer can be achieved, including using TeamViewer and VNC, but if you have Chrome installed you can do the same with nothing more than a browser extension.

It does not matter whether you’re using Windows or OS X (sadly, Linux users are left out in the cold), all you need is the Chrome Remote Desktop extension.

Grab yourself a copy of the add-on from the Chrome Web Store – click the Add To Chrome button followed by Add.

You’ll need to install the extension on both the computer you want to be able to used remotely and any machines you want to be able to use to dial in. Start with the machine you want to be able to control.

This is actually a surprisingly large extension, weighing in at some 22.6MB, but it will install very quickly nonetheless. Once installed, click New Tab and you can access the remote access tool from the list of installed apps.

The first time you launch Chrome Remote Desktop, you’ll need to grant it permission to access your computer. Click Continue, make sure that you are signed into your Google account, and then click ‘Allow access’.

Chrome Remote Desktop can be used in one of two ways – to offer remote assistance to someone or to take remote control of another computer of your own. Click the ‘Get started’ button in the My Computers section. Click the ‘Enable remote connections’ button

As a security measure, you will need to choose a PIN to protect your computer, so enter and confirm a code that is at least six digits in length and then click OK.

You will also need to click Yes in the User Account Control dialog that appears to permit the changes. Once this is done, re-enter your PIN and click Confirm, followed by OK.

Now turn your attention to the machine you’d like to use to take control of your first computer. Run through the same steps to install the necessary extension in Chrome. Make sure that you are signed into the same Google account and then authorize the extension to access it.

Click the Get Started button in the lower portion of the page and you should see an entry for your other computer. By default, this is labeled using the name of the machine, but you can change it by clicking the pencil icon to the right and entering a new name.

To start a remote session, click the name of the computer you would like to connect to, enter the PIN you set up, and hit Connect.

You get to jump in and take control of your remote computer just as if you were sitting in front of it. At the top of the screen, you’ll find a slide-down drawer where there are a limited number of options.

The Disconnect button is self-explanatory, while the ‘Send keys’ menu makes it possible to send keyboard combinations to the remote machine without them being intercepted by the local computer.

From the ‘Screen options’ menu, you can toggle full screen mode on and off as well as choose between viewing the remote desktop at its native resolution or scaled to fit the size of your browser window.

How to Use Google Chrome to Remotely Access Your Computer