syncing two pcs

[Donald Allen]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Mike or Penny Novack
<stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com> wrote:
>
>>On July 6, 2008 09:37:45 pm Paul wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Does anyone know if/how gnucash can be run on two pcs and sync them
>>>together?  I have duplicated both pc's file structures for the
>>>application but only one actually contains data.  Any help would be
>>>appreciated.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I just use rsync on both machines, and copy the file from the office machine
>>to the laptop if it's the last one I updated. If I updated the laptop last, I
>>just rsync in the opposite direction, and copy files from the laptop to the
>>office machine. No muss, no fuss. Available on pretty much any distro.
>>
>>
>>
> I'm not sure how what I am about to say will be taken.
>
> If the data (the files) are on both machines and you depend upon
> synching them by .......
> 1) After using the application on machine A copying the data to portable
> media like a USB drive.
> 2) Before using the application on machine B "synching" the data from
> the USB drive to machine B
> SOONER OR LATER you will forget and be screwed.

In my situation, there's no USB drive, except for backup. When I'm
switch from computer A to computer B, I rsync from A to B.
>
> Far safer to have just ONE copy of the books (not counting backup copies
> of course) left on the USB drive and then neither machine can alter the
> data unless the USB drive is mounted to that machine -- if you forgot to
> mount the UBS drive you'd get a "not found" looking for the files (the
> directory in which they lived wouldn't appear in the "open" menu.

Perhaps safer, but also less convenient. When I'm using my mobile
machine while traveling, I don't want to have to also drag along a USB
drive if I want to work on my finances on, say, a train.

>
> That I have this point of view is because that's the sort of problem
> that used to come to my desk -- when somebody forgot and now an ad hoc
> program had to be written to somehow merge the data (in my work context,
> would be tens of thousands of transactions so one hell of a job to get
> the data merged "by hand"). Best not to have a "system" dependent on
> somebody never forgetting a vital step.

It depends on who the person is, and how the person perceives the
cost/benefit tradeoffs. I've been operating the way I described for
three or four years and have never lost a substantial amount of work
or had to go through the kind of major reconstruction you describe. I
do frequent backups of my home directory (with rsync to a USB drive,
so it generally only takes a few seconds, a nice incentive to do it
often), and always do so after doing a lot of work on something, so I
never leave myself vulnerable to losing a lot of work. Have I ever
forgotten to rsync after moving from computer A to computer B? Of
course I have. But it has happened rarely and I've always been able to
fix it easily, sometimes, but not always, with help from my backups.
It has never been a disaster, and on a cost/benefit basis (or, more to
the point, a convenience/safety basis), this method works well for me.

One other little trick I use that may be helpful to others: when I'm
traveling and do accumulate a lot of work on finances or something
else and don't have my USB backup drive with me, I will encrypt (with
gpg, using my own public key) the files (in a tarball if multiple
files) involved in this work, and attach it to an email to my own
gmail address. So now I've got a backup (actually two -- one in the
sent message, one in the received copy) on the gmail server, which I
later delete when not needed, to avoid wasting my gmail allocation and
also because it's right.

/Don




>
> Michael
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