A Review of AJC Directory Synchronizer

Use it for your Laptop Backups

Don't tempt fate! Sync now before its too late!!

In this review I tell you why I purchased, use and highly recommend AJC Directory Synchronizer. Learn how to make a personal backup of your laptop using this unique software to synchronize your Laptop to your Desktop..... and vice versa over your network....... Directory Synchronizer will become an essential part of your laptop backup strategy.

If you have just landed on this page directly from a search engine you may wish to start from the Introduction.

If you are looking for high quality laptop to desktop synchronization software that runs on Windows XP, 98, 2000 or NT - well, this is it!

Customer Testimonial: "When I bought my laptop I was delighted that I could do work on the road. However I discovered quite soon that synchronizing files between my workstation and my laptop was not as trivial as it seemed. After playing with the offline files feature of Windows 2000 I discovered I needed something more powerful. I needed more control on when, what should be synchronised, and in what direction. After some searching on the internet I tried AJC Directory synchroniser. It suited my needs perfectly so I bought the program. Since that time I am using AJC Directory Synchronizer multiple times a week and I am fully satisfied with both its features as its performance." DW

Let's continue with the review......

First we should recap on the 5 basic steps involved (we have already covered Steps 1 and 2 below on the previous page):-

Synchronize your Notebook to Desktop PC the easy way !

1. Select the two folders to be compared in the explorer.
2. Set the options to decide which files get transferred.
3. Press the Prepare List button to create a Synchronize List (nothing is transferred yet).
4. Review the Synchronize List and then press the green "tick" button to do the transfer.
5. Save as a Project for repeat use if required.

So let's push on and continue at......

Step 3 - Prepare the Synchronize List ready for Review

Clicking the Prepare Synchronize List button creates the Synchronize List.

Explorer Screen

Here is a graphic of the main screen (click it to pop-open a full-size screen-shot). Note how the Explorer screen is very compact because it shows both folders being compared in a single window (most other comparison programs I researched show side-by-side lists). With AJC Directory Synchronizer the folders are "overlaid" on each other and use color-coding as well as file details to indicate where folders or files are different.

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Legends for Color-Coding

The picture below is of the Help screen showing the Legend and what the icons mean. Notice that the same easy to remember standard for the color-coding is used throughout the program. Red for the files/folders on the "left-hand" side, Green for the files/folders on the "right-hand" side and Yellow for items on both sides.

The following close-up of the above Explorer screen shows the directory tree and its sub-directories. You can see that the majority of the folders exist in both locations, except for the Home, Holiday and NewOffice folders which have yet to be synchronised.

The next close-up (below) is of the same Explorer screen and shows the individual files listed in a folder called Office. It shows you exactly which folders are being compared, and the dates and sizes of the files. If they are the same an equal sign (=) is shown, but where there is a difference an arrow symbol is shown to indicate which direction the file would be transferred when the synchronization is performed, e.g. a < symbol means the file will be transferred from right to left, while > means left to right. Again, you can see the color-coded icons in use. This representation of the files and folders makes it very easy to understand what will happen when you synchronize.

If the date or size is blank, it means the file does not yet exist in that location.

As you would expect, clicking the column headings will sort the files in that order. Also along the top are various buttons that become active when you select a file, and these allow you to perform the following actions:-

• Open the selected file (also double-click the file)
• Synchronise selected files only
• Compare differences for the file between the two locations. This very important feature uses the free built-in AJC Visual Diff Tool, also written by AJC Software. It will perform a binary or text file comparison of the two files, and show in a new window the differences visually side-by-side. This also works well for example on documents written in Microsoft Word. Click here to learn more about this file compare utility which AJC Software also sell as a seperate product. (In fact if you already have a diff tool there is an option to set AJC DirSync to use your diff program instead.)
• Create a new folder (it asks which side, left, right or both)
• Cut, copy and paste
• Delete
• Rename
• View Archive (if the automatic archiving is turned on - very useful!)
• Move up one folder (view the parent folder)

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Synchronize List

When you click the Prepare Synchronize List button you get the following window which clearly shows the full list of files that will be transferred according to the rules you have set for the project. The arrows show which way the files will be transferred between the two locations. If you are happy with the selections simply click the green "tick" or "Go" button.

Also on this screen you have options to:-

• Open a selected file
• Open the folder containing the files in a normal Windows Explorer window
• Compare differences for a file between the two locations (as explained earlier, using the free built-in version of the AJC Visual Diff Tool)
• Reverse the transfer direction (e.g. to restore an older file from the destination directory)
• Set/unset the Delete action (if you want the file to be deleted after transfer)
• Remove the selected file from the Synchronize list (so you can prevent the transfer for individual files)
• Permanently remove the selected file from the Synchronize list (it remembers this for next time)
• Delete the selected file (so you can cleanup any files on either side you no longer want)
• View the Archive (if the automatic archiving is turned on - very useful!)

Genuine Customer Testimonial: "I make my living as a consultant. I have desktop and laptop PCs. I was looking for a fast, easy to use program to synchronize my projects to a portable drive so that I could keep my work both backed up and consistent between computers. AJC Directory Synchronizer was exactly what I was looking for! I tried several others, but settled on AJC's product. The synchronization speed is nothing short of phenomenal and the ability to easily remove files or directories from the sync process was a big plus. Any support that I needed was quick, concise and courteous. This is a great program and a great developer!" R. Funderburk, Visayan, Inc.

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Synchronize Report

When the Synchronize starts it will clearly display a list of the files being transferred, and a progress bar at the very bottom of the screen so you know how long the transfer will take. The great thing about this Report is that it also shows any errors due to circumstances beyond the control of the program, so that you can retry later. If you remember, I explained that the program will not stop if there are problems (unlike Windows Explorer). Instead it will carry on with the remaining files in the list. This is a major advantage because you know exactly which files were skipped.

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History

The final tab on the window is the History tab which shows details for previous synchronize jobs. The number of jobs it remembers is a user definable option. From this list you can tell when previous synchronizations were performed, and which files were transferred.

Conclusion

No doubt you can see what a versatile program this is. It is simple to use, and yet offers many advanced options for special requirements. There are many more features available in the program that I have not covered, a couple of examples are;

• the ability to write the report to external log files, and
• the program can read command-line options enabling it to be used in batch files, and therefore projects can be started by the Windows Scheduler to automate backup tasks (click here for more info)
• the program can automatically keep record of different versions of files in a compact archive, which allows you to retrieve specific versions, review differences between them, and add comments defining milestones for particular stages in projects.

You have probably also noticed that the customer testimonials give plenty of ideas on the many ways that AJC Directory Synchronizer can be used to synchronize and backup files between different locations, whether they be laptop and desktop, two hard disks on the same machine, over the network to a dedicated backup server, or to writeable media such as CD/DVD Rewriters or even USB devices such as memory sticks.

Whether your needs are for office documents, letters, spreadsheets, presentations, or whether you have a mass of digital photographic images, or whether you are a developer requiring better control of your source code files, I am certain you will discover AJC Directory Synchronizer is an essential and indispensable tool.

Simply click here to download the FREE fully functional 30 day Trial version (the download is ZIP Format approx 2.1Mb, and you only need to download once, because if you decide to purchase after the trial you simply activate the full product using your license key).

Click here to buy AJC Directory Synchronizer now.

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