VMWare or not?

[Boris]

So we tried DropBox and..... if its for your own personal use maybe its OK but using it with others shows its not secure. " You can't share a folder within a folder " Oh yes you can and when confronted with the facts AND that the invited guest can see UP the directory as well as across it ..... admin just folded and admitted that its a bug. Not good if you don't want people poking around in your files.

We found Tonido and its really good. Perfect for what we need and sticks it to every other "Home Server" "sync'd files " type product out there AND ITS FREE.

In common with all IT start ups ( even if they are a few years old ) the documentation is rubbish, the wiki not adequately supported and the forum full of geeks trying to write code or trying do do stuff outside its scope.

Having worked on it a few nights now when the baby is sleeping, so I can concentrate, it has come together nicely and the Workspace feature is a dream if your running teams on projects all around the place as we are. Just remember to set Sync to manual ( 0 ) in Files or you can wait for ages until it activates.

I would happily pay for this product ... if they had a full and meaningful manual.

[Rob2020]

cool.. may I add that google docs is also great, especially for collaborating on the same word/excel/powerpoint at the same time

[MovingIn07]

We use dropbox for our company. Interesting to hear it's not secure. Not a huge deal for us because it's only for all our staff within the company and we don't keep secrets within the firm, but would be if we gave any clients access for any reason. So good to know.

[shri]

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[Boris]

We use dropbox for our company. Interesting to hear it's not secure. Not a huge deal for us because it's only for all our staff within the company and we don't keep secrets within the firm, but would be if we gave any clients access for any reason. So good to know.

There where two things that disturbed me
Make a folder + subfolders
Share the folder
Make a collaboration on a subfolder - you would assume share and collaboration are different - Nope !
So -1) The collaborator, whom you assume has limited privileges in that subfolder - hasn't. Its undocumented also

Also 2) Documented - The share initiator controls who else will share because they give invites . A collaborator can invite by themselves. So you have zero control.
A disgruntled employee gives an invite to a prospective new employer and competitor - " Look what I know" . Not good and I really don't see the point in having it do that.

Tonido though is proving to be really cool if you have time to work out how to make it work to its potential because of dire documentation. However fairs fair, the forum admins are good and quick to respond.

[Boris]

Actually - like for like GD doesn't compare. Then again they are built for different purposes.
Tonido is not in the cloud and for us that is a plus when it mimics it by the use of synced files in Workspace and sharing through URLs.

They are starting a cloud version soon so maybe that will bring in more features.

[tcb]

I'm still not 100% sure what you're looking for but can say a few things. Google docs is actually pretty good for small numbers of people collaborating. And obviously it's available anywhere. Sharepoint is spawn of Satan, stay away at all costs. It's exactly the kind of thing that looks great to a manager and is a value subtract when put in place.

If you're looking for a free solution, take a look at Nuxeo. All web based for the user, very granular access for rights and permissions, and it's PostGre/Apache/PHP so pretty standard kit. I've used it with good results, but always behind a PIX so we didn't have to worry too much about security.

[Fenix2]

Why not have a Windows server with RAS/VPN enabled on it. Just connect and share files over Microsofts standard SMB/microsft file serving?

If you are moving big files put it in a colo, if you need good throghput.

You could be up tonight, 90 day trial on Winserver 2010

Or you can do all the above in Linux too. It will take you longer.

Or you could setup a Linux server and enable ssh on it and run SSH-Drive or the like on the workstations.

Or you could setup a modem pool 33.6Kbit, get multiple phone lines, a terminal server, a switch then forward the tty connections from the terminal server over to the Linux box's tty's and then they could use Kermit to download and upload files.

Or you could run ppptp tunnel and then use rsync... or rsync over ssh.

or you could.....