How I use 2 computers without ever syncing.

When I bought a laptop last year, I found myself having anxiety about how I was going to keep everything in sync. This is the solution I came up with.

What I use.

Desktop computer.

Laptop computer.

8 Gig Micro SD chip.
- You can use a thumb drive.

TrueCrypt encryption software.
- World class encryption.
- Free.
- Available for PCs, Macs, Linux, etc.

How I use it.

Create a 2 gig (or however big you need it) encrypted 'file' on the SD micro chip. This encrypted file is mounted as drive J: on whichever computer I'm using at the time. Your computer will treat this as just another drive while it is mounted.

All important files go on drive J:! All important work happens on drive J:!

Backups - Un-mount drive J:. Copy the contents of the SD drive (or thumb drive) to a backup folder on the computer. I have backups on both computers. I use the date in the folder name for backups. If I backup more than once a day, I just add a letter to the folder name. This keeps them in order.

SD-120105
SD-120106
SD-120106a
SD-120106b

The reasoning behind this is should I lose a computer (theft, damage, whatever) I would be aggravated but I would not be out of business. The most I would lose is about 1 day of work. In addition the files are unavailable to anyone else as they have been encrypted by Truecrypt.

Please share any ideas, thoughts, or tips of your own. Be aware, if I like your ideas I probably will borrow them.

Joe Mobley