We recently moved to our new office and in just a few hours, all members of my team were settled down and busy going about their chores. This should no longer come as a surprise to anyone given the technologies we now have available. But let us just do a quick run down of what was involved in the 'move':
- Since the new office is fully furnished, we just had to move some tables around a bit.
- Our IT guy went about his task of installing the Linksys Wireless N router while everyone was busy plugging-in their external desktop monitors and keyboard. He also setup our only desktop PC (an XP) to hook up with the ever reliable CANON Dr-2580c scanner.
- Since all my team members are used to working with only a laptop (mostly ASUS Eee 1000H PC), they are done with the 'move' just as soon as they hook-up their external monitor and are able to connect to the wifi.
- Printing is a cinch since we all use the very dependable Canon iP90v printer with optional Bluetooth.
And that's that. No messy wires, no back-breaking transfer of heavy equipment. We completed the transfer to the new office in less than half a day. Well, almost. If only the dang ACU is working.
The most time consuming aspect of the 'move' was introducing my team to a crude workgroup filing system using SUGARSYNC. We had to download and install SUGARSYNC in every laptop and then create individual folders inside the Magic Briefcase folder that was automatically created. A few of us just could not believe the fact that after saving a file inside the Magic briefcase on their PC, the same file is almost instantly available in all our other computers.
Since we downloaded only a trial version of SUGARSYNC which is good for 10 gigs in 45 days, we will be upgrading soon. I think the 60 gig storage (around $100, only need to sign up for 1 account) should suffice given our workflow for the next 6 months or so.
I have been a satisfied customer of Sharpcast for the past 3 months. I have written this blog a few months back to describe how I manage to sync all my files across the 4 computers that I own.
RAFE NEEDLEMAN of Cnet has this to say about sugarsync:
SugarSync is a unique product. Properly configured, it can give its users access to all their data from anywhere -- any computer they own or any Web-connected device. It can completely free users from caring where their data is stored, and that's a powerful thing. And while it's a great "hard drive in the sky," it doesn't force you to change your work habits and rely solely on online storage.
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