Clouding over

The Gorse Fox has come up with a great wheeze for managing the diverse computers that rattle around the house.

What are the basic requirements?

1. Any computer must be able to get to the core data and files that the user may want
   
2. Other computers may be switched on
   
3. Any computer must be able to access the data and files whether the network is working or not
   
4. All data is backed up
   

So how was this achieved?

1. The Gorse Fox signed up for a Live Mesh beta account (from the devils in Redmond).
   
2. Each of the computers was added to the Mesh
   
3. Each of the key data repositories was added to the Mesh
   

When a computer starts it tries to join the Mesh; if it succeeds there is a live channel open to the data in the respective folders in the Mesh and a local cache is synchronized with it. If the network is down, the locally cached folders are used instead. Any changes to any file are replicated through the Mesh to any of the other computers that is connected, or will be replicated next time they are connected.

Finally the local cache of these folders (or the live link if the network is up) is monitored by Allway Sync on the main PC (when it is next switched on), and copied across to a further external 500Gb disk.

Probably not foolproof - but pretty close.