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alitalfAfter building a new computer, I looked for a free or open source Windows file manager to replace Power Desk, which had worked well, but would require me to purchase a new version to work reliably with Windows 7.
I tried using Windows Explorer, but it is seemingly organised to hide from me the directory structure I am using. Free Commander seems very good so far. It can use two panes, optionally show a tree view, and incorporates a file viewer that shows the content of images and many other types of files, as you highlight them. There is FTP built in, are too many other useful functions to list - but I failed to find the directory synchroniser, in my hurry. (It is under the Folder menu - bet you never saw that coming!)
Luckily I found an open source synchroniser that seems to work at least as well as the one built in to Power Desk (and which I use to make backups), DirSyncPro.
I downloaded it because I needed to update my backup in a hurry. It got me out of trouble, and only updated the files in the existing backup that had changed since yesterday. We were still a bit late leaving for the barbecue, but that is more because Hibernia forgot to put out a saucer of milk for the printer fairy. The backup was intuitive to set up, and worked quickly. The only flaw was that it gave a ridiculously high estimate of the time to backup - it started with about 3 hours, but took just under 10 minutes to write quite a lot to a flash drive.
I tried using Windows Explorer, but it is seemingly organised to hide from me the directory structure I am using. Free Commander seems very good so far. It can use two panes, optionally show a tree view, and incorporates a file viewer that shows the content of images and many other types of files, as you highlight them. There is FTP built in, are too many other useful functions to list - but I failed to find the directory synchroniser, in my hurry. (It is under the Folder menu - bet you never saw that coming!)
Luckily I found an open source synchroniser that seems to work at least as well as the one built in to Power Desk (and which I use to make backups), DirSyncPro.
DirSync Pro is programmed completely in platform independent Java™ so it can be run under nearly every modern operating system including Windows™, Linux™ and Macintosh™.
I downloaded it because I needed to update my backup in a hurry. It got me out of trouble, and only updated the files in the existing backup that had changed since yesterday. We were still a bit late leaving for the barbecue, but that is more because Hibernia forgot to put out a saucer of milk for the printer fairy. The backup was intuitive to set up, and worked quickly. The only flaw was that it gave a ridiculously high estimate of the time to backup - it started with about 3 hours, but took just under 10 minutes to write quite a lot to a flash drive.
