working from different locations, how to?

[stef25]

i routinely work on my websites from different computers and different locations, while on the road.

id like to hear from other people what they do in cases like this: up and download your files via ftp as needed, or something like contribute?

my concern is that i might upload a new version of a file, and then start working on it again on another pc without downloading the latest version first, over writing previous changes

thanks for any tips

[bill]

Having a CMS of some sort really simplifies things in that regard. Saving your stuff online to a central source certainly does have its benefits.

On sites where I don't have a CMS to work with I find myself working via VPN a lot. Even on dial-up if I can reach my home PC via VPN I can do things a lot faster.

Another tool I've played with is the Synchronize Utility on WS_FTP. The latest version is pretty good and it will reliably synchronize your files via FTP. You can then do your work on the road and then resynchronize your main machine off the web when you've returned.

[henry0]

without downloading the latest version first, over writing previous changes

Unless I misunderstod the question/problem
in similar case I always from FTP first rename the old file with an extension of " _OLD "
so you can always reverse the situation.
regards

Henry

[mincklerstraat]

People working on big projects with multiple contributors often use 'Concurrent Versioning System' (CVS for short) clients and servers. Overkill for just you, but you should remember that your files are really concurrent versions of the same program, and you should try to keep track of them mentally that way. Give them version numbers in comments, and in comments add a rudimentary, quick changelog. Keeping them in one central repository that is considered 'the main one', where you put all major revisions, helps - you can save various versions under various names, and delete the old ones regularly when you don't need them. So you download the central repository version, work on it, debug, etc., and if it's really worth keeping, then upload it back to the central repository as a new version. Download that then on all other workstations. If you forget, you just check your comments to see if you're up-to-date.

Project managing IDE's like Quanta Plus can do a lot of the 'current version' organization for you - downloading, synchronizing your projects. Quanta+ at this time only available on unix platforms.

[BwanaZulia]

I use a TTYW CMS solution (zope.org) which allows me to do 90% of all edits, content, etc through the web.

I use webmail while I am on the road and have webmin for anything I need to do on the server.

Add in that .Mac with auto-syncing of documents and I am good to go.

BZ