As all of us move forward in the tech world with Desktops, Laptops, Smartphones, iPods and other devices, we may run into a serious problem. I have run into this problem recently and am looking for ways to solve it. What is the problem? I’ve got half my music on my desktop, half of it on my laptop. I’ve got my pictures on my laptop, and half of them on my desktop. I have my contacts on my desktop Outlook and on my smartphone, but not on my laptop. Oh, the agony! Luckily in my search for solutions, I found Windows Live Mesh which helps solve some of my problems. Here is the information on Windows Live Mesh.
Windows Live Mesh is a new program from Microsoft. When I found out what it did I downloaded it to try it out, liked it, and now I have it running on both my computers.
Windows Live Mesh is a program that will allow you to sync different folders on separate computers. For example, every time I order parts from distribution, I save a copy of the receipt in a folder called “Orders.” Sometimes I place the orders on my laptop, and sometimes I place the orders on my desktop. Sometimes I am on my laptop and want to review an order, and sometimes I am on my desktop and want to review the order. The only problem is keeping the “Orders” folder synced across both my desktop and laptop. Windows Live Mesh takes care of this task for me.
Without Windows Live Mesh, I would have to remember to periodically transfer and sync the Orders folder manually. This is a inefficient and time consuming task, which I would never remember to do. I would inevitably have some orders on my laptop, some on my desktop, and probably some that would get deleted because I would think I had them on both computers when I really didn’t. Its not an efficient way to do accomplish syncing the folders!
Enter Windows Live Mesh. Once you have a Windows Live ID, all you have to do is open the program and sign in. Choose which folders you want to sync, and the program will automatically keep them synced.
You can see in the screen shot above that the I have two folders that I keep synced, the Company Files and the Orders folders.
You can also keep Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office synced. You can see that I have Internet Explorer syncing turned on – this will keep my favorites synced so if I bookmark a web site on my laptop, it will be automatically bookmarked on my desktop. This is a fantastic thing to have happen!
For more advanced users, you may experience problems in your day to day work and travels because most syncing programs, including Windows Live Mesh, can sync your folders but only if both computers are connected to the same network. This works 99% of the time, but when you need to sync two folders and you are not at the office – what do you do?
This is where the SkyDrive comes in. Windows Live Mesh comes with 2 Gigabytes of online storage (which is a generous amount) for free. The Company Files folder I do not need to have synced, that folder can sync when I get back from doing my appointments once I am connected to my network again. However, I need the orders folder to be synced constantly.
You can setup Windows Live Mesh to use the SkyDrive as the sync place. This syncs the Orders folder on the Internet in your cloud SkyDrive storage space, and uses that cloud as the centralized storage space. Basically, your computers are not syncing the Orders folder with each other, they are syncing with the Orders folder on SkyDrive in the cloud. Therefore it is synced through the Internet, and thus you could be in another country and as long as you have access to the Internet your folder on SkyDrive will be synced.
Import your pictures from your camera on your desktop and sometimes on your laptop? You end up with some pictures on your laptop and some on your desktop. If you want to keep them together, you can just set your Pictures folder up to sync and you have all pictures on both computers at all times. This is also safer, because if one of your computers crashes you know you have the photos on the other computer.
Remote Connection
You can also use Windows Live Mesh to connect to your office computer when you are on the road. Just like pay services such as Gotomypc.com, you can now use Windows Live Mesh in place of these pay services. Good or bad, you can do it for free thanks to Microsoft.
Two things have to be done:
1.) The remote computer, your office desktop in this case, must be turned on.
2.) The remote computer and the computer you are working on must be connected to the Internet.
3.) Windows Live Mesh must be running on both computers (easily accomplished because Windows Live Mesh starts automatically when you turn on your computer).
I don’t know if any of you have seen the Microsoft commercials, but there is one that comes to mind here. There are two people, a man an a wife you presume, stuck in the airport. Their flight is delayed – so they go “to the cloud” and watch some of their recorded TV shows on their home computer from their laptop in the airport, apparently using Windows Live Mesh. This is a fine and great idea, the only problem is you would require a very good Internet connection to stream video from your home computer to your laptop over Windows Live Mesh. It could be done, but don’t get too excited until you actually try it the first time!
I am still looking for a program to sync my Outlook between my laptop and desktop. You can’t sync .pst files, which is where all the Outlook e-mails are stored, using Windows Live Mesh. Try it, and you’ll get an error. I am going to be using a pay service to accomplish this task for now.
So in closing, just like families used to have one car and now have three, we are all going to be getting more and more devices to accomplish our daily tasks. We will require ways to sync all information across all our devices, and Windows Live Mesh helps us do this.
When I leave the office, I don’t want to spend 15 minutes syncing everything before I leave. All I want to do is grab my laptop and go. Windows Live Mesh helps me and might help you get a little closer to doing this. If you do forget something and it is on your office computer, Windows Live Mesh will allow you to connect to your computer remotely and retrieve or view what you need.
FMD Network 