We currently have Groove Network installed in our office to link up the office computer (server) and the household computer (laptop). This doesn’t seem to be “grooving” the files together and I’m not sure if it is a product issue or a set-up issue as the tech support from Groove is lacking. What I am looking for is a product that will do exactly as I stated above – simply share files wirelessly from server to laptop. Do you have any suggestions? — Tracy Eide
It sounds like you may have several different issues here. The first is access to the files. If the laptop is in the office, setting up a wireless access point would be the best way to go and get the files directly off of the server. If you are looking to access the files remotely, we have several different options to examine. I will, for the sake of argument, assume that the system you refer to as the office computer is actually running Windows XP Home or Professional. If it is actually running Windows 2000/2003, what I will suggest still applies, I would just do it from a workstation instead of directly at the server.
VPN connections will allow you remote access to your network. The trade off is that you will want to have the applications you use to edit the files installed locally on the remote computer, going across the VPN connection only for the data (files you are editing). VPNs can be a little tricky to set up and can require some time to troubleshoot when problems arise. You can look at a managed VPN service that takes this hassle away from you but you’ll pay for the convenience. A simpler option if you have just one or two people that need to get to files remotely is a service like GotoMyPc.com. This essentially allows you to take remote control of a designated computer at your office. The plus here is that the files stay on your computer at the office and you dont have to worry about multiple copies of a document existing and remembering which is the correct copy to use.
If more than one person needs this type of access, you will have to think about how to handle situations where more than one person may need to get to the same file at the same time. This can make keeping documents from getting damaged due to multiple persons accessing them at the same type very important.
What I am talking about here is also known as Document Management where you can keep track of multiple revisions of a document by multiple people. When I have dealt with these type of systems in the past, they were targeted mostly at law firms or those companies where having an audit trail of document changes was critical in knowing how a document changed over time and being able to account for that. You may not need to implement a document management system but do think about how to potentially handle multiple changes to the same document by different people who may not be in the office at the same time. A poor man’s way of doing this is for different editors of a document to use different document extensions or put their initials in the document name and then work on resolving differences when you can sit down together or have one person responsible for final consolidation.
