Like most geeks out there I know I have quite a few machines out there and there are some applications that I use to try and keep my sanity and sync everything. Most recently I have added dropbox and spider oak to a growing web of applications that gradually bring me closer to syncing nirvana. I have been following Conduit quite closely and have been using it for the past few months. While I like conduit it has some significant deficiencies (and bugs) that frustrate me to no end. Before the flame starts, I know its written in python and I know I could scratch my own itch… maybe at some point, to crazy right now.
As far as syncing is concerned I have a few concerns that I’ll lay out below. I’ll try and explain what other programs I’ve found that fit my needs to some degree or another.
- Platform Independent
Conduit right now is not platform independent… unless you only care about UNIX(s) that run
gnome. It does however have the potential. Its written in python and I’ve even seen screenshots
of people who have run it on windows (my guess with little usability still intact), but as it stands
right now… not so much. Here are some applications I have found that are more or less platform,
although they are really only for syncing files with other PC’s, not 3rd party web services- Dropbox
- SpiderOak
- Wua.la
- Just work
Unfortunately conduit is a pretty new program and has quite a few growing pains. I have quite a
few syncs that I have simply not been able to get to work, and when they fail it simply segfaults with
no useful message to determine what went wrong.
For example…Folder -> Evolution Contacts
Folder -> VFS (SSH folder)Also if you try and do a sync which is not valid it simply fails with little useful information in the conflicts section.
For example:- Syncing with flickr, facebook, or other picture service when files are to large (ideally you should be able to set an option to resize or something equally useful.)
- Syncing with flickr, facebook, or other picture service when the files are of an invalid type (ideally these should be converted)
- Syncing from Evolution Contacts to Google Contacts does not bring any information other than email even though Google supports these other fields.
- Sync with web services
This is where conduit really shines. The reason this is so important is that I often work behind a bunch of firewalls. That means I can’t easily have inbound connections. Syncing with web services lets me sidestep this issue pretty easily. If Conduit can solve my other concerns this feature alone makes it worth while. This is why I currently use conduit, as it makes syncing pictures on my machines easy. - Encrypt my data please and thank you very much
Especially if I’m going to be syncing data with web services that may be publicly accessible I really want an option to encrypt all my data. The only software I have found that does this is spider oak. Spider oak will act as an online backup utility and gives you 2GB of space. Thankfully the whole thing is encrypted and spider oak never sees your data. The downside to the software is that it is anything but seemless… but it does work for more sensitive data. - Intuitive interface
I buy into the less is more in interface pretty heavily but there is a balance. Unfortunately there are some things about conduit that are either frustrating or confusing.- Unclear options -
Sometimes its difficult to tell what the groups you are creating will actually do.. for example what does GConf Settings -> Network do? Does it find another machine and sync your settings… if so how? Does it dump them somewhere as a file on a network drive… if so how does it choose it. Does it simply throw the data on the network for and watch it blow away like a fart in the breeze. - Lack of settings -
Ignoring the complete lack of encryption options, most of the sync groups are missing settings. Almost all of these features have a host of other options you are presented with when using the web service but are ignored by conduit. For example tags in flickr, fields in contacts, etc. Also in syncing options you should be able to set how frequently keep up to date polls and set dependencies on syncing rules. For example I should be able to say…
Facebook -> folder; Folder -> backup
- Unclear options -
- Seemless
Basically once I set up my syncing rules I dont’ want to have to think about them. I want to go from my work computer to my laptop, to my home PC and have the same basic setup. Conduit has this down pretty well, when it works. Dropbox is also seemless and so far I haven’t run into any glitches yet. Spider oak and wua.la are not seemless (boo!) - Native Remote Connections
Using gnome vfs is cheating since thats not platform independent, besides it seems to crash on my computer with conduit. If I have the option to connect directly to a server I should be able to connect via SSH, FTP (I know bad no enctyption…), etc. In conduit speak these should all be providers under a heading similar to Network Services.
Okay now that my grumble fest is over, the good news is that we are a lot better off today than we were a year ago. I can now use dropbox to sync up files that aren’t sensitve up to 2gb, spideroak for sensitive files and I’m hoping that conduit will soon get over its growing pains. In the meantime I’m going to keep using it to sync with picture services and the like. My highest hopes rest on conduit since it is closest to what I’m looking for. It has a few quirky behaviors but it has the potential to do everything I want to sync my computers seemlessly.
