[The Wolf]

I've been running my office for a few years and have one assistant. My assistant does most of her work away from the office, so I set up 50 or so Project Folders (with numerous subfolders) in my "Public" Folder of my iDisk and gave her access to my .Mac account.

So, when she creates documents on her computer from home, she then saves them to my Public Folder and syncs, and voila I have her work. It's basically a one way document sharing thing. She doesn't need access to documents that I create on my comp. One of the reasons I did it this way is b/c I am super paranoid and I worry that if she has access to the work I do on my comp, that she could accidentally or intentionally trash my entire office in just a few minutes.

It's been working pretty well so far. But, in the past I have used applications like slingshot to take all of the work she does off of my iDisk and copy it into its respective folders in my Home > Documents folder (that way I get both of our work in one place instead of two).

But, the problems that I am having are:

(1) I haven't copied her work to my Documents folder in a very long time. The last time I attempted it was over a year ago. I kept running into a problem where it wanted to copy all 50 iDisk project folders into only one folder on my HD. So basically, I gave up. Now if I want a file that I created have to look in my Documents Folder, but if I want a file she created I have to look in my local iDisk. Not ideal, but tolerable.

(2) I am adding another employee in the next few days. If I keep my same setup, I will just give the new employee access to my Public Folder of my iDisk and then have both assistants save their work to my .Mac account.

What I would like to know Is whether or not there is a better way? I have asked a number of Apple Geniuses and they just kind of glaze over, so I'm not sure if the 'keep the status quo' response they give me is the best advice. Thoughts?


Current Setup:
Me: MacBook
Assistant #1 (remote): PowerBook
Assistant #2 (in office): iMac
Time Capsule (assistant #2 and I have access)
iDisk Account (all of us have access to password protected Public Folder)

[turtle777]

I think you should have a look at Dropbox.

The good thing is: it keeps copies of all versions of a document, so even if it's deleted from the current folder, you can always restore any previous version, just like TimeMachine.

You wouldn't have to worry about keeping different folders in sync. You all work off of the Dropbox folder, and all computers get synced in the background.

Plus, all is encrypted, so only you and whoever has the passwords can access it.

-t

[larkost]

I am going to also recommend DropBox. It does a good job of working through the sync details in a way that is usually what you want (syncing gets odd around the corners) without constantly asking you questions.

There is the caution about having your data on someone else's servers, but you have already demonstrated willingness on that front by using .Mac.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by larkost 

There is the caution about having your data on someone else's servers, but you have already demonstrated willingness on that front by using .Mac.

You assign your own encryption key, and the client sends only encrypted data to the servers.

Yes, in theory, it's possible that the client does something that breaches that safeguard, but still. It's better than most other online storage things.

-t

[The Wolf]

Thanks for the responses. I'll check it out a little more. My initial reaction is that it makes me very nervous because it requires that I physically "move" (not just copy) all of my work to the Dropbox, and I am left feeling like I don't have a local copy. The whole alias/symbolic link thing doesn't seem to work as well as I would like (because deleting a file from either my local HD or from the Dropbox folder deletes it from both locations).

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by The Wolf 

Thanks for the responses. I'll check it out a little more. My initial reaction is that it makes me very nervous because it requires that I physically "move" (not just copy) all of my work to the Dropbox, and I am left feeling like I don't have a local copy.

No, you *DO* have a local copy.

With Dropbox, you are not working on a remote server like with .Mac.
The data is on your local HD, and is then synchronized (copied) to all other connected computers local HD, as well as the internet.

Really, it's much safer than what you have been doing so far, in terms of redundancy and backups.

Originally Posted by The Wolf 

The whole alias/symbolic link thing doesn't seem to work as well as I would like (because deleting a file from either my local HD or from the Dropbox folder deletes it from both locations).

Please explain.

-t

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

No, you *DO* have a local copy.
With Dropbox, you are not working on a remote server like with .Mac.
The data is on your local HD, and is then synchronized (copied) to all other connected computers local HD, as well as the internet.

Really, it's much safer than what you have been doing so far, in terms of redundancy and backups.

I get what you're saying, but with my current setup all the work that *I* personally create is protected from the outside world. Nobody can delete or edit, or even "see" these files bc the are only on my HD and not iDisk.

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Please explain.

-t

I just created a symbolic link of a Folder on my desktop (I will refer to the new folder as the "alias"). I placed the alias in another folder inside my documents folder (as if it were my Dropbox folder). Now, regardless of whether I delete a file from the original folder on my desktop or the *alias* folder in my documents folder, the file is gone from BOTH. That's the problem. If my assistant accidentally deletes some folders in Dropbox, they will apparently vanish from both my Dropbox AND my Desktop, or Documents Folder, or wherever they originated - even if I do that symbolic link.

[mduell]

I love Dropbox (100G subscriber), but I'm not convinced it sounds right for the OP. I think he needs something with more content management sophistication.