Ask DACS
April 2008

by Richard Corzo

We welcome questions from the floor at the start of our General Meetings. In addition, members who are not able to attend the General Meeting may submit questions to askdacs@dacs.org. We will ask the question for you and post the reply in DACS.ORG. Please provide as much information as possible since we can’t probe during the session.

Q. What software do you recommend using if you want to run a PC operating system on a Mac computer?

A. On an Intel Mac you can use Boot Camp that comes with Leopard, if you don't mind leaving the Mac OS to boot temporarily into Windows. It creates a Windows partition and supplies all the drivers for running your Mac hardware under Windows. Otherwise you need some virtual machine software that lets you run Windows at the same time as the Mac OS. Parallels Desktop (http://www.parallels.com/) is a popular option, but Jeff Setaro prefers VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/). It is more versatile in that it allows you to run 64-bit versions of Windows, and he feels they are better about fixing bugs promptly. In all cases you will need to buy a copy of Windows, or obtain a copy of Linux.

Q. I use three different computers, a notebook computer at work and a second notebook computer and desktop computer at home. I often work on the same files between all three computers. Are there any tools available to help me synchronize specific files between all three computers?

A. Windows still has the Briefcase feature (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307885). You create a briefcase in a folder and drag any desired files into the briefcase. Drag the briefcase to a USB drive. On the other computers start the briefcase directly from the USB drive. Make any desired changes there. When you return to the primary computer, start Briefcase on the USB drive and select Update All or Update Selection from the menu.

One audience member suggested using SyncBack (http://www.2brightsparks.com/). There is both a free and a paid version.

My own research turned up the free Allway Sync (http://allwaysync.com/) and Microsoft's new beta Windows Live service called FolderShare (http://www.foldershare.com/). FolderShare, currently free, allows you to define a Library folder which contains any desired files and is accessible from any of your Windows or Mac computers on which you install the FolderShare desktop application.

Another member mentioned that both David Pogue in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html) and Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal (http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080403/sugarsync-offers-the-best-method-yet-for-replicating-files/) have written articles on SugarSync, which is a paid online backup service.

Q. I have two computers one is running the Windows XP operating system the other is running Windows NT. How can I back up the applications and the data on both of these computers to another computer with a larger hard drive and then access all the applications and the data from either computer?

A. You can certainly use a network drive to store or back up your data, but trying to use the network drive as a single location for your installed applications won't be feasible. Most Windows applications use the registry as well as application data in the user's profile (for example, in the Documents and Settings folder on XP) which are located on the separate C: drives of the two computers.

For data you can buy network attached storage such as that from LaCie (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10007). This makes a drive accessible from any computer on your network.

For a backup solution Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/) is recommended. You can set it up so that it automatically backs up your drives. After an initial full backup it can do incremental backups up to a specified limit. Then it will do another full backup when that limit is reached. It requires at least Windows 2000 so you will need to set it up from the Windows XP machine.

Q. I am using Excel 2003 on Windows XP and I used to be able to run a macro that exists in one spreadsheet in a different spreadsheet. Does anyone know why I am no longer able to do this?

A. It's likely that an Office service pack has tightened up security on running Excel macros. You should be able to go into Excel options and enable the running of unsigned macros. Here's the Office Online explanation: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP011195791033.aspx .

Q. Is there software available that will let me back up an image from one computer and then restore that image to another computer with different hardware?

A. Instead of Acronis True Image, which is good for backing up and restoring individual computers, you will need a solution like Symantec's Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost14), which allows you to restore the same image to multiple computers. Note that there are some limitations on how different the computers can be. For instance the same image can't be used for both an IDE-drive based computer and one with SCSI drives.

Virtual machine software may also help meet your requirements. You can create one virtual machine image and then copy it to other machines where you want to run it.

Submit any question to: askdacs@dacs.org.