Portable Files, Online

February 22 2011 by B-Drive in Uncategorized |No Comments

I’ve had this problem for quite a while.  I use Zim as a personal wiki to keep all my notes for work and my projects (like an Agile book I am working on) and I like to version it.  Also, I need to access the Zim notebooks from several places (like different computers) and on different platforms.  As you can imagine, this has created a problem.  In addition, I don’t want any of this information public — its my private notes.

For a few years I toted around a USB stick.   I tried keeping it on my server space but it got tiresome copying/pasting files.  Usually, what would happen is that a company I was consulting for would have some security arrangement where they wouldn’t allow FTP, or SSH, or any access etc.

Finally, I settled on using True Crypt to store the directory of Zim files.  It works on Mac, Windows, and Unix-Linux.  True Crypt lefts me encrypt the entire directory and mount it as a drive.  So, my security issues solved, I tried different solutions.  One was storing the file in my BitBucket account until it got blocked at my current place.  But . . . they allow DropBox.

DropBox is totally what I was looking for but some places don’t allow it, my current place does.  it auto-syncs my True Crypt file.   I use Darcs for my versioning (super lightweight) and am good to go.  DropBox is also free for the first 2 gigs.   And, since you get local copies, you don’t have to worry about internet lockout in case you are in Northern Ontario writing a manifesto.

Here then are the requirements:

  1. Works on all major OS’s (Mac/Windows/Unix-Linux).
  2. Versionable.
  3. Encrypted.
  4. Accessible from anywhere.
  5. Relative ease of use.
  6. Cheap (or free).

And here’s portable encrypted desktop wiki solution:

  • Wiki: Zim.
  • Encryption: True Crypt.
  • Versioning: Darcs
  • Access from Anywhere: DropBox.

I’ll keep doing this until the next place (or current) chooses to cut me of from DropBox.

Comments are closed.

« »