Every now and then Microsoft quietly releases a VERY cool piece of software for free. Several months back they released Photo Story 3 - a very cool little tool for sharing photos.
Last week they did it again with SyncToy Beta 1 which is a very nice little tool for synchronizing the contents of two directories. The tool allows you to define a "Folder Pair" and specifiy how the contents should be synchronized. There is a nice review that goes into some detail of how the tool works here. It is a Beta release, but I have not had any problems with the tool in the limited testing I did. I assume baesd on the name that this will ultimately become an addition to the XP Power Toys 'suite' of free tools.
Here are some scenarios where I find it useful:
- Media: Makes it simple to keep the latest pictures and songs in sync between my laptop, desktop, and server.
- MyDocuments: Syncing the contents of MyDocuments between my laptop and desktop makes it simple for me to work on my desktop and know that I will have hte latest copy of all files on my laptop the next day.
One big thing that I have not seen in the tool is support for scheduled or continuous syncing. The only option to kick off a sync is to open the tool and click the 'Run' button. Not sure if there is support for passing command line parms - that would allow you do setup a scheudled sync via scheduled tasks...
Anyway, very nice simple little tool that solves a need for me. Not as complete as some third-party solutions (specifically the Save-n-Sync products from PeerSoftware), but a GREAT tool for the price.
I installed Windows Vista Beta 1 (64 Bit) on my desktop at home last week. I was able to spend quite a bit of time working with it late last week and over the weekend.
My initial thoughts fall into two categories:
- It's Really Stable: For a first beta of a product that isn't scheduled to ship until this time next year it is very stable/usable. I haven't had a single 'crash' since installing it and everything I have done with it worked fine. Even the install process was fairly painless - install detected all of my hardware except the sound card. I was able to get the sound card working by installing the driver nVidia shipped for 64 Bit Windows Server 2003...worked fine. Performance isn't bad either - a few things have been sluggish, but overall it feels fast.
- Doesn't Seem THAT Different: It looks and feels very much like XP...with some nice shell enhancements. The build of IE7 that is included does have some nice improvements (tabbed browsing is built-in...), but in general there aren't that many enhancements that will jump out at you.
One annoyance is that Outlook 2003 seems to run REALLY slow under Vista. When I launch Outlook there is a good 1-2 minute delay before it connects to the Exchange server. Never seen that before on XP, so I assume this is somehow related to Vista.
I know the full 'Aero' shell isn't included in Beta 1, so my disappointment with the lack of eye candy shouldn't come as a surprise...but I was hoping for more stuff like this!