[The Mailman]

As a second set of eyes/hands on this review these are my thoughts and comments on the application: -

Thanks go out to Sharpcast for providing us with a review copy


To begin with I would like to say that this is a great product and extremely efficient at what is does. As a synchronisation tool it would be hard to find something else that works so well and quickly and with so little user intervention and configuration. Upon installation the system automatically sets up your "My Documents" (and the subsequent "Pictures", "Videos", "Music" and "Desktop") folders. The only Preferences in Tools are, do you want SugarSync to start automatically when you start up windows and do you use a proxy server..

The Three Phases of Implementation

However, it is the area of user intervention and configuration that some issues can be encountered. I would advise that upon first installation you select the Add/Sync Folders option and then remove the "X" from every folder that has been automatically selected. Once that has been performed then from the Tools/Preferences untick the Automatic start option. You now have full control of the system and it will not be synchronising anything.

The second phase of the implementation is PLANNING. I personally cannot stress how important this phase is as otherwise you can find subsequent use of the system rather out of control. There are two parts of this phase:
1. Read the Manual. I know as a techie this is almost blasphemy but it isn't very big and it will help you later. SugarSync only has a few features ultimately but they way they can be used is only limited by your imagination and requirements. To begin with make sure you are familiar with the Synchronisation, Magic Folder and Web Archive features and then move on to the next part of this phase.
2. Planning. The best way of looking at this is like your finances. The Magic Briefcase is your wallet with the money you want with you where ever you go. The Synchronised Folders are your current account and contains the funds you want ready access to you but are prepared to go to an ATM to get them - these folders are in constant flux depending upon adds and deletes. The Web Archive is more like your savings account. These folders are static and any changes have to be made manually.

The third phase is to set up the folders you want to synchronise and import your Web Archive folders.Then let SugarSync do its stuff. One of the features is the status bar and at the bottom right it will show you how many files, how much data and roughly how long it will take to finish. It is definitely a good idea to check this especially after making any changes to ensure it is not higher than you would have expected.

Tips and pointers.
These are only my personal thoughts and the way I eventually set the system up.

1. Remove all the "X" selections from the default supplied "My Documents" folders. This will keep the Magic Briefcase but the system will no longer display or attempt to sync the other folders within this folder structure. With SugarSync if you want to synchronise a lot of folders, within a selected directory structure, you have to select the lowest common level. If you decide you do not want to actually synchronise all the subfolders (either not required or to allow the upload to be phased) you can then deselect those folders you do not wish to synchronise. However, if you subsequently add further subfolders within this directory structure these are automatically selected to be synchronised. This can become a problem with the "My Documents" directory as a number of applications add their own personal folders to this directory and some can contain substantial amounts of data some of which you may not want to ever synchronise. This unexpected synchronisation can also occur if you start moving or renaming folders within a synchronised directory.

2. Create your own synchronised directory structure and only allow SugarSync to synchronise folders from here. One of the positive features of this is it will give you the excuse and reason to finally clear up all that rubbish that has been sitting in your old document folders and get it all organised again.

3. When you have your new Synchronised Folder structure organised then make a copy of it and call it something meaningful like Archived Folder. Place all the files that you really haven't looked at for a while (and seriously won't ever again - but just in case.....) and then store these in the Web Archive.

4. Be careful in the "Add/Edit" option as I could not find a way to select an existing entry, which was not already selected to be synchronised, in order to edit it without it automatically ticking the "X" and setting it to fully synchronise the entire folder first.

5. Unless you are on an unlimited bandwidth contract for your internet access, ensure you keep some form of track of the amount of data being synchronised, especially when starting using the product and performing the initial data upload. Also remember that data upload speeds for most broadband products are a fraction of the download speeds so the initial take on of data may take some time.

General Comments.
You might think I am going "over the top" with all the planning and setup. However, I set my system up originally to sync my music library as although it does not change it does grow and I thought it would be good to allow the system to automatically sync any new CD's. I initially set it up to monitor the root of the music library and then only selected a few subfolders at a time in order to manage the bandwidth it was using. Unfortunately, I also set about a major cleanup of the library and made some major changes to the structure of the library. A result of this was that a substantial amount of data was automatically added to the sync list and my broadband connection suffered a fairly severe hammering (not helped by it subsequently downloading all the data again as it attempted to synchronise to my laptop!). I do not regard this as a fault as the system was doing what it is supposed to do - Synchronise.

I believe SugarSync it is a superb product and its synchronisation across multiple devices is not only simplicity itself but remarkably fast. I have no problem in recommending it to anyone else and my only issue is with the inability to edit an existing folder without fully selecting it first.