Cloud Folders Increase Productivity

Being a web developer, I usually use several different computers on different operating systems across the lifetime of any project. Personally, I have 5 computers plus one server: Access to a Vista PC, a Windows 7 virtualized installation, my main Mandriva Linux desktop, a Eee 701 PC with Eeebuntu, a Mandriva Linux laptop, and a FreeBSD development server.

Moving files from one computer to the next used to be a time-consuming and ultimately prohibitive process. If I wanted to, say, take a break from working on my PC and work at the Red Brick Cafe for a few hours, I’d have to download my work files to a USB memory card then export the MySQL database and do the same transfer again to the USB memory card.

Or, I could burn a CD. Of course, how does one get the updated files back off the laptop and onto the PC when arriving back at home? This arduous process basically meant that freedom of choice in the work environment was severely hampered and was often more trouble than it was worth. But not any more.

Enter Dropbox.

Dropbox is a free service that is basically a shared folder in the cloud. It makes sharing files amongst any computer, whether it be Mac, Linux, or Windows, easy as drag and drop. And I really mean that. I love things that speed up my work processes because the less time I spend in administration mode the more time I can accomplish tasks in programming mode. Dropbox exemplifies this manifesto.

Any file you put in the Dropbox folder on a computer will instantly be available on any computer that install Dropbox on. Even better, revisions are kept so if you make a mistake with a file and don’t have backups, you can pull the file in question from the archives to restore it. What makes Dropbox different from any other revision or archiving setup is that this is all done without any administration by the user. Literally if you drag a file into the folder, all this stuff is done for you. No committing changes, no crazy hoops to jump through.

Oh, and the 2GB storage starter account is completely free. It’s the one I use daily. I don’t even think I’ve hit 25% capacity yet.

Linux/Unix: Using split and cat to split large files for transfer

I learned about a really handy command-line tool today that you can use in Linux, Unix, or FreeBSD to split any large file to any size that you like. These two commands, split and cat, can work together to split your files for easy transfer or storage. Then, you can concatenate them back together again to make one file.

If you’ve got a small maximum filesize to your E-Mail attachments or your backups take up slightly more than a DVD or CD, then you can definitely use this. And, it’s really, really simple.

First, split the file using the command “split”, specifying how many megabytes you want to split your file into.

# split -b 1024m <filename>

This will split your file into as many parts as needed, in 1024MB chunks, typically with the name starting as xaa, xab, xac, and so on. You can then burn these files to a disc or E-Mail them (though if you’re E-Mailing it might be better to specify a smaller chunk size. For example, you’d use “-b 1m” for 1MB chunks).

Keep in mind that once you’ve split your files, in order to put them back together again you’ll need all of the files. If you’re missing one of the files, this operation will not work. But that makes sense, doesn’t it? :)

Once you’ve split your files you can easily put them back together again using the command “cat”.

This is even simpler.

# cat xa* > <filename>

This command tells cat to concatenate all the files starting with “xa” and put them into one new file.

Many zip, rar, or other archiving tools will allow you to split the file you’re zipping across multiple volumes, but the benefit of this is that you can split any file you like, even MP3 or jpg files. Split to your heart’s content!