Web-based file sharing - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

Bucks Bodger · Senior Member

Web-based file sharing

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Eunice,

have you tried looking at dropbox? Not used it myself but I know that Sheila (Semsley) has and she has recommended that previously although for a slightly different scenario.

Just a suggestion.

An issue I can see is that there is nothing to stop several people grabbing the same file at the same time and it will only be the last persons updates that get saved.

HTH,

Shaun.

Bucks Bodger · Senior Member

Hi Shaun

Thanks for the reply. As I said, Dropbox is one of the ones I have been looking at, maybe Sheila will reply and let me know
what she thinks of it.

The file sharing which goes on doesn't usually happen at the same time, in fact usually there's only one of us (me)
actually amending the data, but we both need access, so i don't think there will be a problem in sharing, such as
you describe.

sarahleighton · Veteran Member

Have you looked at SpiderOak? I automatically back up to them at the end of each day and can easily access my data remotely. Not sure how it works if more than one person is updating files though.

Sarah

ADAS · Guru

Hi Sarah,

One good thing about dropbox is it will notify you when files has been changed, a message pops up and there's also a drop down menu with an option to select "recently changed files". The downside is I think it actually means recently accessed files but at least it gives some info.

It takes a little co-ordination between you and your client, if they're going to change things. I have a text file, "change-log", in each clients shared folder for each of us to note if we've made changes which works ok.

Tom McClelland · Senior Member

Dropbox is very good. We use it a lot.

But it is worth noting that while it works very well for Office style data (eg spreadsheets and documents) it isn't really designed to work with transactional data such as held in accounting systems or payrolls like 12Pay. For data of that type you can use a dropbox folder to transfer information between users, but you shouldn't open the data directly while it is in the dropbox folder, or you may get unexpected results and the software might hang.

semsley · Guru

I use Dropbox as Shaun has said. What I do with clients is use it as a backup/restore for accounting or payroll programmes. Only two clients actually input anything themselves and for them we always name the backup with the date and time to avoid using incorrect data. I like Tony's idea of a change-log file too. The beauty of Dropbox is it is free.

HTH

Sheila

pDm · Senior Member

GoogleDocs is excellent for this - not sure how secure you'd feel your data was though. For me personally, it's free, it's portable, it's not platform reliant, it's sharable (many people can edit at the same time & in real time) and there's a similar history of changes widget-thingy.

ADAS · Guru

I thought Google Docs is a subscription service for business use and chargeable per user?

pDm · Senior Member

I really hadn't noticed to be honest. Guess I should look into that...

pDm · Senior Member

Yes you're right - £3 a month or there abouts. Bargain.

semsley · Guru

pDm wrote:
Yes you're right - £3 a month or there abouts. Bargain.

Not as much a bargain as Dropbox which if free.

mushroom · Senior Member

I use Livedrive cloud storage as my backup system. Call me paranoid, but I was worried about a break in and someone stealing my PC and external hard-drive!

Livedrive is about £50 or so a year for unlimited storage and as many computers as you need. I have my laptop, PC, my partner's PC, Laptop and netbook all backed up.

I just download the files I need though off the the livedrive backup when I need to use them on another PC, a standard doc only takes a few seconds to download.

It is a great system, instant backup. As soon as you modify a file or document, it automatically scans and uploads it to your online backup facility. I had a hard-drive failure on the 2nd February after all of my SA work was completed, and if I did not have my data backed up it would have been a major disaster. It was a pain having to get a new hard-drive installed, but at least I just had to download my files again to the new one.

It has a briefcase option within it that you could used for transferring files, although this costs extra and I'm not exactly sure what the benefits are, I have never had need for it myself.

Wella · Expert

mushroom wrote:
I use Livedrive cloud storage as my backup system. Call me paranoid, but I was worried about a break in and someone stealing my PC and external hard-drive!

I use Dropbox for some files

I do like belt and braces though (No fashion sense me smile ), and like you am paranoid there will be a break in, or fire when I am not around, so I invested in a portable 1TB USB external hard drive (WD Passport) at about £70. The built in software does almost live backup (at computer idle times). It backs up all data files, and is handy because it is about the size of a smartphone, so it's very portable. If I am out of my office, I take it with me.

In the event of data loss, it can restore the latest backup (it defaults to 5 versions for each file, so you can ckhoose an earlier version) either to a holding file on the PC, or directly back to it's original location.

Bill

ADAS · Guru

Since Bill started the paranoia thing and we're now discussing back-up routines

1. Critical data backup up off-site in dropbox. Updated weekly
2. 1tb "Time Machine" updated at least one a day
3. 1tb monthly clone of HDisk stored off-site at my partners

I wonder how many here actually "test" their back-up data or just "assume" it's ok.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Tony,

good story on that one.

My first job was working in Payroll. We paid over 350,000 staff per week and there were eight backups taken at the end of each run (plus incremental backups during the processing).

One Wednesday night there was a payroll failure and we needed to rewind to the previous run to go forward... Backup (1) failed. (2) failed, (3) failed.... sensing a pattern here! It actually got all the way back to GDG -8 before we had a backup that worked.

The thought of 350k angry unpaid employee's is a mighty big motivator when you're sweating over a computer terminal at 3 in the morning.

Following that we wrote an emergency routine to check the validity of backups at the end of a run before closing off the nights processing.

And yes, when I take backups now I always check that they load. But, if I hadn't had that experience early in my career I would probably have ended up a lot more complacent about it.

On a not linked note, but for the same company we had an emergency backup generator. Whoever the bright spark was that bought that should have been given the long walk as the generator needed to be started from the mains and of course by definition if there was a mains supply there the backup generator wasn't actually needed!

Funny old world init.

Shaun.

ADAS · Guru

Hi Shaun

Ouch!! My bottle would've gone by about number 3. Completely agree with you, Shaun, that often we only learn the hard way... I know I did.

HendyPhilhendy · Guru

Googledocs and Dropbox are two different things

I am pretty sure you can use a free version of Googledocs to do what you want to do. The main thing with GD is that it is on the web live, so two people can have real time access to the same document.

Dropbox does not work this way and you can occasionally end up corrupting files if two people are on the same spreadsheet as the source document is on each local machine.

I use both very effectively and in fact have the paid for version of dropbox.

NickCraggs · Guru

Does any one use microsoft skydrive with windows live mesh? I find it really good, i dont have to take back ups, it does that for me. I can access them from the internet and my phone. You can even link two or more computers together, the only problem is it doesnt work with windows xp.

kjmcculloch83 · Expert

I have started using SugarSync. It's pretty much the same idea. It comes with it's own wee program that uploads files when they change, and can sync files between two or more computers. FREE for a few GB's too.

What I have done is create a client container on my computer using TrueCrypt, then upload the container. That was even if someone were to access my files, all they'd get is an encrypted container.

Kris