In our office, we synced over 31,000 files, comprising about 1.5 Gigs of disk space. By and large, the process is painless, behind the scenes and effective. However, I have noticed that there are some folders that do not fully sync. I wrote about this problem before, and said:

Regarding limitations or problems:  I have had a couple of issues.  As I said in my post, we sync over 30,000 files.  The initial upload from my computer of all of the office files went without a hitch.  However, when I did a full sync to the two other Macs, we noticed that some files were missing from the local synched folder on the two other Macs.  The files could be forced to downloaded by going into the SugarSync application interface and navigating to the files in question and clicking restore or download.  This has to be done one at a time, as I recall.  I know that there’s no way to verify that all files have been synched and/or downloaded, and, therefore, no way to force the undownloaded files to be downloaded. So, it’s a bit of a PITA, but the files are available: provided they have internet access when they discover the files are not there. The missing files can also be accessed via the web interface.  In my experience, this has only happened with a very small minority of files, and SS is aware of the problem.  They state as a known issue that syncing more than 25,000 files can be problematic, and they’re working on it.

So far, this problem has not been fixed, and one day a couple of months ago, I had enough. The particular straw that broke the camel’s back was a bizarre one. One of our assistants was creating files on her computer – printing, saving, etc. Then, the files would disappear from her computer, but show up on the other computers. This was just too much to deal with for me. I had the office cease to add anything to the synced folders and save all new work to their desktops in a temporary folder. To be fair to the good folks at Sharpcast, I did not seek their support and they may well have been able to assuage my woes.

Meanwhile, Dropbox finally went official. I had beta access for many months by that point, but never really used it to any significant extent. I transferred all of the firm’s files to Dropbox and synced the other two computers within a day. The process was pretty much painless.

We added another attorney to our firm and synced up his computer and the files he brought with him with no problems.  The files he brought along put us over the 2GB limit for the free Dropbox account, so we upgraded to the 50GB $10/month plan.  We are presently using 2.7% of our storage.

So far, so good with Dropbox. What I like about Dropbox over SugarSync is that it feels lighter. There’s no icon sitting in the dock taking up space. There’s no clunky java interface like SugarSync. Also, I like the fact that I can instantly tell which files are or are not in sync by the “check” or “syncing” badges on each item’s icon.

We have been using Dropbox for about 2 months now with no issues at all.  ”It just works.”

Recently, I have become a convert, and, although I have never read David Allen’s book, I have become convinced by some of the most rudimentary elements of his methodology (capture tasks, assign them to a context, assign them to a project, and move on)

One day, several weeks ago, I inexplicably became obsessed with finding a solid to do application that would be attractive, powerful, and easy enough to use that I’d actually use it.

To me, the most important element to any GTD application is the ability to dump a thought as soon as it comes to you. You think of something, capture it, and move on with whatever you were doing.

In order to manage my tasks in the past, I’ve used the Sticky-Notes application on my Mac, I’ve used TextEdit files, I’ve tried to use Mail.app’s built-in to do functionality, and I’ve used scraps of paper laying around as well as the palm of my hand. I know, chaos. But, I kind of reveled in my ability to be chaotic.

So, I don’t know what came over me a few weeks ago, but I have found what I think is a great solution for me.

I know a lot of folks are big fans of OmniFocus. I tried it out extensively, and I just couldn’t get into it. The interface felt a little wonky to me. I really didn’t like how the “items” didn’t have any sort of UI that made them feel like “items.” They are just kind of text fields, and you can’t really just click on the item itself without entering into a text field. This is a small complaint, but to me it is significant, and it made the app just feel not right. The other big pain I found about OmniFocus was the inspector window that always hangs around. That does not make for a clutter-free desktop environment. [rant warning] I know you can get rid of it, but so much of your necessary and mundane functionality is in the inspector window that you can hardly do anything without it open. To me, the inspector window is like using footnotes in legal writing: Sometimes they’re great to use, but for the most part, you should say what you need to say in the body of your work. If it’s important, don’t bury it in a footnote. OmniFocus, to me, feels like a brief that is written with 30% of the text in the main body and 70% in the footnotes. A very capable brief can be written that way, but it’s a pain in the ass to read [end of rant]. OmniFocus is plenty competent in terms of functionality, however, and it allows you to manage contexts and projects like any good GTD app. I just couldn’t get down with the feel of it.

Anyway, this post isn’t supposed to be about how much I don’t like OmniFocus, it’s supposed to be about why I have a thing for Things.

Things is a beautiful application from Cultured Code. Currently, Things is in beta, with version 0.9.4 being the latest release. The app is free while in beta, and will cost $49 when it is released “Summer 2008.” If you sign up for their newsletter at their website before its release, however, you can purchase it for $39.

In Things, you can set up a system-wide hot key that will bring up a window that allows you to enter a new to do with as much or as little information as you want. This is awesome for me, because I don’t want to leave whatever application I’m in just to make a silly to do. What is really nice, for me, is the fact that you can drag files into the notes section of the to do item, and it will create a link to that document. That works with emails as well, which is a huge help to me.

If you have been following me on Twitter lately (@esquiremac), you may have noticed me commenting on the zero-ness of my inbox. Now, when I get an email that I need to act on, but can’t or don’t want to right now, I hit command-shift-space and drag that email into my new to do window, make a quick note of what to do, set a due date and click save. Then, I file the email away from my inbox, and the inbox goes back to zero. Now, everything I have to do is in my Things app, and not lingering around haphazardly in my inbox.

The next best thing about Things, and the thing that actually sold me on Things, is the iPhone app and the ability to do two-way sync of your to do’s.  Cultured Code introduced Things for the iPhone and iPod Touch several weeks ago, but it did not allow for syncing. I was definitely not willing to shell out ten bucks for a stand alone to do app on my iPod Touch – especially after I had become proficient familiar with the desktop app. But, then Cultured Code announced that sync for the iPhone app had become their top priority and that it would be included in the next update to the iPhone app.

They delivered. The day they announced that the Things iPhone app would be updated with sync I plunked down my ten bucks and bought it. And, the day Things was updated, I downloaded the update.

The sync interface is actually quite clever. It operates over the local wifi network and requires your desktop app and your iPhone app to be running at the same time. This may be a pain to some, but it’s beautiful to me. I don’t have an iPhone, so I’m not used to ubiquitous internet, and therefore cannot demand that the app be synced whenever the heck I feel like it. I also applaud Cultured Code for not requiring me to sync my iPod through iTunes to sync my to dos. That would have been a huge buzzkill, and they are wise for avoiding that method. I don’t know whether they’re working on cloud-based sync, but I suspect they are.

Once you link your desktop app and your iPhone or iPod Touch through the preference pane of your desktop app, all you have to do to sync your to dos is to open your iPhone app any time your desktop app is running and on the same network. Instantly, the two apps sync.

I will admit that there are some bugs and limitations. For instance, there are no “Areas” in the iPhone app, and I have seen duplication once or twice. That said, it’s still very useful, and I have a ton of confidence in Cultured Code, and I know they are working on these issues as I type.

To put things in perspective for Things, they have been pushing towards a 1.0 release for many months, and then this iPhone thing came up, so they diverted their attention to build a great iPhone app. Now that they have gotten the basics of sync down, they are reshifting their focus to rolling out the 1.0 release. I cannot wait, and I wish them the best.

For more about Things from another Macs in the law office kind of guy, check out Jeffrey Kabbe’s fantastic write-up about Things here at Apple Briefs.

Now, I get to check off the “blog about Things” item on my to do list.

Last night, Spanning Sync announced a new initiative to recruit new users. It is in the nature of a referral incentive program, and it’s called “Save 5 + Make 5.” The idea is simple enough: If I (as a paid Spanning Sync user) refer you (a new customer), then you get $5 off your purchase and I get $5.

It’s an interesting idea. I’m going to go ahead and throw a link up here for my referral code in case anybody is interested in signing up for Spanning Sync. You might as well save 5 bucks while you’re at it and make me 5 bucks as well, because despite the fact that I’m supposed to be a rich lawyer, there’s a good chance I’ll be paying back my student loans well into my 50′s.

What’s the reason for this? Spanning Sync says:

Why are you doing this?
Since we launched Spanning Sync in March 2007, we’ve never done any paid marketing: no ads, no conference sponsorships, no press releases, no laptop stickers, nada. Just a two-page website and a blog. But in spite of that, Spanning Sync has seen great success, due mostly to the fact that our customers recommend Spanning Sync to their friends and colleagues. So in addition to saying “thank you” we’ve decided to actively invest our customer community with “Save 5+Make 5″.

My guess is that, in light of the fact that Calgoo has gone free and Google is beginning support of CalDAV, they are feeling some pressure.

I might give Calgoo a try before I paid for Spanning Sync, since it’s free. I’ve never tried Calgoo, so I can’t vouch for it. I’m definitely a believer in Spanning Sync, and have been using it effortlessly and flawlessly for the last 8 months. Google’s free CalDAV support could be the killer gCal/iCal sync solution, but for now it’s way too buggy to depend upon for a law practice, IMHO.

Spanning Sync 2.0 (presently in beta) does offer Address Book/Google Contacts sync, though, which I don’t believe Calgoo offers. At present, however, I’m not sure how much better it is than Address Book’s built-in ability to sync with Google Contacts. The killer feature, for me anyway, will be the ability to sync specific groups of contacts from Address Book to specific groups of contacts in Google Contacts. Charlie Wood, from Spanning Sync, says they’re looking into that feature, but it’s not planned for the 2.0 release. No word on exactly when it will be coming. For me, that may well be enough to keep me on as a paid subscriber in 4 months when my subscription runs out.

Hit the banner above or in the sidebar, or: Click here to save $5 on Spanning Sync!

Well, today I read that Calgoo is changing its business model to be ad supported, meaning that, as of July 22, 2008, it is free. Calgoo will sync not only sync iCal and Google Calendar, but also a whole host of other calendars – Mac, PC and Linux.

In even more exciting news this afternoon, I read on Cnet’s Webware that Google Calendar now supports CalDAV. According to Cnet:

Mac users who use Google Calendar and iCal to manage their on and offline calendaring have had to use a myriad of third-party products to keep the two in sync. That’s changed now that Google is including CalDAV support as part of Google Calendar’s built-in functionality. This means you’ll be able to make changes in iCal and have them instantly reflected in iCal and vice-versa. Previously that data swap was a one-way affair, with users simply subscribing to their Google Calendar feeds in iCal.

CalDAV is a standardized sharing protocol, allowing you to access the same set of data with others to edit and sync data changes between multiple users. On a workflow level, this means people with access to edit your Google Calendar will be able to make changes in both iCal and Google Calendar that will sync up with both.

Cnet does warn, however, that the CalDAV for iCal is not officially supported by Google at this very moment, and that there is a long list of known issues. So, you may want to hold off just a bit while they work out the kinks.

I haven’t tried out Calgoo or Google Calendar’s CalDAV yet. Given that I still have until the beginning of 2009 before my paid Spanning Sync subscription runs out, I think I’ll stick with that until then. But, I am super excited to try out Google’s CalDAV solution.

Gratuitous, barely related, but funny, clip of the day: DAV’s not here, man (yet).

As I stated in Part I: Sharing Files, when I started my job at my present small firm, the technology in place was decidedly low, substantially old and disturbingly Windows. In Part I, I chronicled our transition from all PC’s to mostly Macs in light of the particular problem of sharing files between multiple computers and platforms. This time, I am focusing on the transition in light of calendars.

Until I started my job with this firm, I never really used a calendar very well to organize my tasks, deadlines, etc. Organization wasn’t really my schtick. For my first 1.5 to 2 years out of law school, when I wasn’t temping with Special Counsel (I highly recommend them, btw), I was in business for myself. When I was temping, I generally just used whatever calendaring system was in place wherever I was – usually Outlook. When I was working for myself, I was much less busy. I only had a couple of clients at a time, and the events and deadlines were not unmanageable solely from within my head (shiny as it may be).

When I started at my present firm, I was stepping into a fairly busy office, and taking on a significant caseload. The office did not have any type of computerized calendar system. The boss had a spiral-bound yearly calendar he carried around with him everywhere (and still does to this day). His paralegal had a similar calendar in which she calendared events. Hers served as a sort of backup for his.

It was obvious I needed a calendaring system, but there was no way I would carry around a physical calendar with me. I began using iCal. I created a calendar for my personal life, and a calendar for my work life. Out of sheer necessity, I began calendaring everything, personal, work, whatever. Almost overnight, I had become a calendar person. I never thought I would be one of those people! A great friend of mine once told me in reply to a compliment I gave to him: “I didn’t get this way because I saw the light, but because I felt the heat!” I often experience personal growth in the same way…Anywho…

Two or three days each week, the boss would call me down from my office and say, “Bring your calendar.” Well, crap. I either have to unplug and lug my Powerbook downstairs (which had a poor, aging battery that would only last 15 minutes or so by that point – my awesome wife eventually swapped batteries with me so I could have an hour and a half), or, I had to print out my calendar. I usually just printed out my calendar. iCal, if you have never had the occasion to do so, prints out some really beautiful calendars. They are clean and easy to read.

At the time, I was also dabbling a bit with Google Calendars. Google’s calendar seemed to have about the same functionality as iCal, but it didn’t print out as nicely as iCal’s, so I more or less stuck with iCal. Plus, iCal was not web-based, so I could access my events without an internet connection.

Anyway, the boss would call me down, and I would have to decide how many months ahead I should print out. I usually printed out 4 or 5 months worth. I’d sit in his office and he’d give me new things to put on my calendar. I’d write them in, then go upstairs and add them to iCal. I hated printing off a 4 or 5 page calendar every couple of days, though, as it was a significant waste of paper. And, when I reused old print-outs, I’d get confused about which events I’d already added to iCal and feared I’d forget to add something.

Using iCal, I could also sync calendar events through iTunes to my iPod Photo (the short-lived color display version of the 4th generation iPod with clickwheel that preceded the iPod Video). This was great for me to be able to see my events on the go, but I could not add events until I got to my computer.

Nonetheless, this arrangement worked fairly well.

Google Calendar became more appealing to me, however, because it resided in my browser and I didn’t have to open a separate application to slow down my aging Powerbook. Also, I liked the idea of being able to access my calendar from anywhere there’s an internet connection. I still couldn’t let go of having my calendar accessible offline, though.

For a while, I put all of my calendars on Google Calendars and then subscribed to them in iCal. This was not a bad setup. I would just open iCal once or twice per day, refresh my calendars, and close it. Of course, this meant I could only add events through Google, as the calendars were subscribed only – not writeable.

The manual sync eventually became a pain in the butt, and I thought of ways to make it more automated. For a bit, I used neat little applications like MarcoPolo and Home Zone to detect when I got to work or when I got home and had it automatically open iCal which would automatically refresh upon opening. This solution eventually bugged me too much, though, because I didn’t always want to be bothered by iCal as soon as I got home or to work.

I decided that I needed both iCal and Google Calendar, and I needed to be able to add calendar events if I was offline. My only choice was to get a 2-way syncing program, that is, one that would allow me to add events to Google and have them sync to my iCal and allow me to add events to iCal and have them sync to Google. I scoured the interwebs for a free solution and found GCALDaemon. I swear to you I tried to get this thing to work, but I couldn’t. I do not doubt that it can be done, but, at the time I was trying to use it, it was very clearly a hacked solution that was beyond my comfort zone. I’m no leet hax0r, but I’m less squeamish than most folks.

My only choice was to pay for a solution. By the way, if I buy software, you can be assured of four things:

1. it does what I need it to do,
2. it does it well,
3. there’s no other free solution that even comes close to doing what I need it to do, and
4. I really need to do what I need to do.

I ended up buying Spanning Sync for, I think, $25 per year. It works great. It is actually a preference pane, so you access it through System Preferences. SpanningSync is really lightweight. I never even notice it’s running. I have it set to sync every 10 minutes, though you can change the frequency to suit your needs.

There’s not much else to say about SpanningSync, for now, except that its impending v2.0 (currently in beta) is going to support Address Book sync with Google Contacts, which promises to be a great feature. I will be writing about Address Book syncing in the near future.

My life got even better when I got my iPod Touch. I can sync my iPod Touch through iTunes with iCal, just as before with my oldPod, but the iPod Touch eventually allowed me to add events right through it (this functionality did not ship with original iPhones and iPod Touches, it was later added with a firmware update). This means I did not have to print out my calendars anymore!

I mean, the solution was pretty good before the iPod Touch, but still, to quote Mitch Hedberg (R.I.P.) in regards to buying a donut: “We do not need to bring ink and paper into this.”

There was one remaining problem with the situation. Unless I manually entered in my boss’s calendar events, I had no idea what his schedule looked like. In a firm with two lawyers, I’ve found it’s a good idea to know what the other lawyer is up to and what his availability is! I sure didn’t feel like scouring his calendar and entering all of his appointments. About a year ago, though, we hired on a very ambitions administrative assistant. She’s great. She’s the kind of employee that runs out of work and goes looking for stuff to do (instead of surfing the interhighway, like me!). She was bored one day and asked for stuff to do. I told her it would really help me out a lot if she could take the boss’s calendar at least once per week and add any new events to a calendar on Google that I created for him. She also adds new events I create for him online to his physical calendar.

So, there ya go. We have gone from two paper calendars with all their limitations to having all of our calendars on any computer with instantaneous updates throughout the Google Calendars and syncing every 10 minutes through iCal. Within seconds, I can tell you what our office is or isn’t doing on any particular day, or, I can add an event and know everybody else will be up to speed without any further effort. Good times, indeed.

I answered his email this morning with a fairly lengthy response. I figured that his questions were probably similar to questions that most people thinking about SugarSync might have, so I decided to post my answers to the blog as well for the benefit of everybody else. I know I’m heavy on the SugarSync posts lately, so, sorry if that’s not your thing. I’ve got plenty other stuff to write about. I have posted about SugarSync here and here.

******************************************

Question: “We will have multiple employees accessing the shared files day in and day out.  As such, I’m thinking that we should keep all of our shared firm files within the Magic Briefcase.  Is this how you set it up?”

Answer: Regarding Magic Briefcase: I never really understood what Magic Briefcase was (because I never really looked into it) until just now.  We have 3 computers syncing, and I manually set up a full sync for each computer, identifying one main folder to sync that contains all our law office files.

Having now reviewed Magic Briefcase, it seems it would have been simpler from a setup standpoint to just have used Magic Briefcase.  That said, it looks like, once set up the way I have it set up, there is no functional difference.  Magic Briefcase is just more automatic from the get-go.  Here’s what a developer said about it in the support forums:

Magic Briefcase is technically a Full Sync folder that is available on all computers on which SugarSync is installed.

The key here is _all_ computers. Let’s suppose that you have a folder to sync among 10 computers. You may do so by configuring a Full Sync on 10 computers or simply have the folder resides in your Magic Briefcase folder. The real use of this clearly depends on your specific needs. For example, if you really need to sync files and for some reasons you would prefer the files to reside in a specific folder (not in the Magic Briefcase folder), then Magic Briefcase might not be the perfect solution.

Hope this helps.

Source: http://support.sugarsync.com/ics/forum/Client/Common/ContentView.aspx?contentID=74837 [link apparently not valid after session expired - best I can do is give you a link to the support forum]

Question: “I’m worried that an employee will “forget” to open the Sugar Sync application, and accordingly, they will begin accessing files offline.  Has this happened in your experience?”

Answer: Regarding forgetting to open SS application:  This was/is a worry of mine, as well.  I addressed this by setting up SugarSync to open automatically at login.  If you go to System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items and just drag the SS application icon into the window, it will force SS to start automatically when the computer is booted or logged into (I will note that this extends the boot process by about 30 seconds, which is a small PITA, but it’s not that bad).

Question: “Let’s say I’m working “offline,” as I sometimes do.  I’m under the impression that I will have access to my folders that are synced with Sugar Sync.   If I make a change to ten things while offline….when I sign offline, I anticipate that Sugar Sync will sync the changes.  Is this correct?   What if two people make changes to the same file while both are offline?   What file takes the lead, or have you had this happen?”

Answer: Regarding offline access to files: If you forget to turn on SS, or, for whatever reason, have quit the application, and continue to add/change files, it is smart enough to sync those files when you open SS again.  Regarding what happens when offline changes are made to the same file by multiple computers, I don’t know how it handles that.  I’ve looked around the support forums and knowledge base and haven’t found an answer. I don’t think I’ve run into that problem (by luck).  Here is what they have to say about a related situation:

Full syncing a file that is open on more than one computers does not work well with some applications.  Some programs cannot handle a file being updated (ie synced from another computer) while they have the file open.  For example, if you have a Word document open on two computers and save the file on one computer, it cannot be saved on the other computer since Word has the file open.  In this case, the best thing to do is to close a document when you are done editing it and everything will work properly.

Source: https://supportcenteronline.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=361 [link apparently not valid after session expired]

I am supposed to be having a call with the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Sharpcast in the near future.  I will ask him about this and let you know what he says.

Question: “Finally, in your experience with Sugar Sync being used by a law firm, what limitations or problems have you encountered?”

Answer: Regarding limitations or problems:  I have had a couple of issues.  As I said in my post, we sync over 30,000 files.  The initial upload from my computer of all of the office files went without a hitch.  However, when I did a full sync to the two other Macs, we noticed that some files were missing from the local synched folder on the two other Macs.  The files could be forced to downloaded by going into the SugarSync application interface and navigating to the files in question and clicking restore or download.  This has to be done one at a time, as I recall.  I know that there’s no way to verify that all files have been synched and/or downloaded, and, therefore, no way to force the undownloaded files to be downloaded. So, it’s a bit of a PITA, but the files are available: provided they have internet access when they discover the files are not there. The missing files can also be accessed via the web interface.  In my experience, this has only happened with a very small minority of files, and SS is aware of the problem.  They state as a known issue that syncing more than 25,000 files can be problematic, and they’re working on it.

Also, SS does not currently support versioning of files, which would be a nice benefit.  Dropbox currently does support versioning.  By versioning, I mean that it will save past versions of a file that has been edited multiple times.  So, you could revert to a prior saved version of the file if you ever needed to.  SugarSync is aware of this feature request and has stated in the support forums that this is a feature they are considering.

Finally, there seems to be an issue with iWork files (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) being unable to sync properly to the recipient computer. We use mostly Word/Excel, so I haven’t had much personal experience with this.  The developers say that they know how to handle this problem and are working on a fix.

This email post has focused on some of my concerns with SS, but, I have to say that, by and large, SS has been a life saver.  I am interested to try out Dropbox for all of our firm’s files to see how it handles the load.  However, Dropbox does not have as nice a web interface, which is important when you have tens of thousands of files inside of hundreds or thousands of client folders.  Also, Dropbox is currently limited to 2GB of space with no ability to buy more space – for now.  I know they plan on offering more space in the future, but we don’t know when or how much it will cost.

Basically, SS is transparent, and it just works. Syncing usually happens within seconds – basically instantaneously.  I highly recommend it.  But, I wouldn’t discourage you from trying out Dropbox.

Today, I was contacted by Allen Bush, the director of Marketing and Business Development for Sharpcast, who runs SugarSync. He read my post from earlier this week, and he was nice enough to share some news about a couple of exciting and useful features they expect to roll out in the near future, but asked me to keep them under wraps. He did share with me that tomorrow they will be announcing a great new feature that will allow you to share any file you have with anybody by giving them a temporary link to that file. This will be a great way to share files with family and friends that are too large to email.  Actually, he said they just rolled out the functionality, so, the ability may already be available, but they weren’t announcing it until tomorrow (July 15, 2008). I’m looking forward to what these guys have in store. Thanks, Allen!