Ms Groove 2007

[raro]

I just came across MS Groove 2007.

Had a closer look at it and it seems to be the program I was looking for....synchronizing files over the internet with my colleagues and business partners at a mouse click.

Now what are the pitfalls? Is it safe? Is M$ reading my documents? Does it really work easily or do i need to sign up for IT classes first?

[Crushdepth]

Groove is a great program and easy to use, I use it to synchronise three computers (work, home and laptop), and also have several shares with different groups of colleagues at work I love it - can work off your laptop in another country and come home to find all your files already synchronised as if by magic. I think it uses full-time encryption, so your information isn't being transmitted in the clear, but I don't know how solid it is with respect to cryptography. Haven't heard anything bad.

In terms of potential pitfalls, there are two to be aware of:

* Groove is not a substitute for backing up your computer! If you delete a file in a Groove directory you are deleting it from *all* machines sharing that workspace. You need to maintain a separate backup of your computer (preferably by disk image), and you should backup your Groove workspaces as well (they are called 'archives' for some reason). Groove can help you if one hard disk crashes though - you can probably get the file off another machine.

* Security - because the workspaces are shared across multiple computers, your files are potentially at greater risk from anyone that can access any one of the machines. So make sure you use a good password on your Groove directory (do not be lazy and use the auto login option) and don't share important workspaces with people you don't trust. Make a new workspace to share things with them (or you can also control people's admin rights within the workspace, but I can't be bothered with that).

One other thing is that you can share normal folders on your computer (this is separate from groove workspaces), but this feature doesn't work on 64 bit Vista.

Don't let these things put you off, Groove is well worth the effort. I use it to share a folder containing my OneNote notebooks (another great Office program worth a look), so I have a common notebooks across three computers. And finally, I stopped losing things.

[raro]

Groove is a great program and easy to use, I use it to synchronise three computers (work, home and laptop), and also have several shares with different groups of colleagues at work I love it - can work off your laptop in another country and come home to find all your files already synchronised as if by magic. I think it uses full-time encryption, so your information isn't being transmitted in the clear, but I don't know how solid it is with respect to cryptography. Haven't heard anything bad.

In terms of potential pitfalls, there are two to be aware of:

* Groove is not a substitute for backing up your computer! If you delete a file in a Groove directory you are deleting it from *all* machines sharing that workspace. You need to maintain a separate backup of your computer (preferably by disk image), and you should backup your Groove workspaces as well (they are called 'archives' for some reason). Groove can help you if one hard disk crashes though - you can probably get the file off another machine.

* Security - because the workspaces are shared across multiple computers, your files are potentially at greater risk from anyone that can access any one of the machines. So make sure you use a good password on your Groove directory (do not be lazy and use the auto login option) and don't share important workspaces with people you don't trust. Make a new workspace to share things with them (or you can also control people's admin rights within the workspace, but I can't be bothered with that).

One other thing is that you can share normal folders on your computer (this is separate from groove workspaces), but this feature doesn't work on 64 bit Vista.

Don't let these things put you off, Groove is well worth the effort. I use it to share a folder containing my OneNote notebooks (another great Office program worth a look), so I have a common notebooks across three computers. And finally, I stopped losing things.

thanks a lot for the info! Will try that right now.

OneNote: I also saw that one, what is this all about? Looks nice but I could not find any practical use for it...

[Crushdepth]

It's basically an electronic notebook(s). It keeps things in one place without any effort on your part, so it actually works! Has a notebook/section/page system for organising info, which is a lot more intuitive than the traditional 'folder hierachy'. The other main attraction is being able to search all your notes/notebooks at once. You can drag in or export out screenclippings, email, word documents and nearly anything else. Has one-click text extraction from images (OCR) and supposedly can also search 'voice notes' for things you said, though I haven't tried that yet. Saves changes automatically (there is no 'save' function!). Lots of stuff in there. Have a look through the 'guide notebook'

Trying to organise zillions of word files just never worked for me. Somehow, neither did paper notebooks because I either rip all the pages out or lose them.

Edited July 17, 2008 by Crushdepth

[Sabum]

It's basically an electronic notebook(s). It keeps things in one place without any effort on your part, so it actually works! Has a notebook/section/page system for organising info, which is a lot more intuitive than the traditional 'folder hierachy'. The other main attraction is being able to search all your notes/notebooks at once. You can drag in or export out screenclippings, email, word documents and nearly anything else. Has one-click text extraction from images (OCR) and supposedly can also search 'voice notes' for things you said, though I haven't tried that yet. Saves changes automatically (there is no 'save' function!). Lots of stuff in there. Have a look through the 'guide notebook'

Trying to organise zillions of word files just never worked for me. Somehow, neither did paper notebooks because I either rip all the pages out or lose them.

Grooves good but I LOVE Onenote. The main attraction for me is being able to screen shot anything and it immediately puts it in my current notes. Can screen shot games, webpages, docs, pics etc... excellent way to gather information on a topic or organise things.

[sensei]

There's one that is better than Onenote - Evernote.

It syncs info across multiple computers and its absolutely FREE.

[JSixpack]

There's one that is better than Onenote - Evernote.

It syncs info across multiple computers and its absolutely FREE.

+1. You beat me to mentioning Evernote. Use it all the time, it's great.

[Sabum]

Does Evernote have all the features of Onenote? If so GREAT. Because they have Evernote for the iphone too which would be perfect.

[Crushdepth]

I dunno. But if you make your OneNote notebooks folder a shared Groove folder (right click on it, its in the menu) then your notebooks will sync. Actually there's a built in synchronisation/multiuser function but I haven't played with that.

[raro]

ok..I am trying my first steps in OneNote...

Let's start with the way I work at the moment...all follow-ups with clients are scheduled in Outlook. So when I have to get in contact with them again I get a reminder. This works also great with e-mails I send out, tag important ones with a flag and add a reminder and you will not forget to call the recipient the next day for a follow-up.

All files relevant to a customer or individual job are stored in sub-folders in the "customer" folder. That reads like that:

customers | customername | job nr.

What I love about Outlook (and is not available in the much praised The Bat for instance) is the drag-and drop feature where I can just drop e-mails relevant to certain jobs in the respective folder. Vice versa, I can attach any files by drag and drop to e-mails (doesn't work with The Bat either...you have to click the paper clip and browse through all the folders to attach!).

Ok...so I open a new tab "Customer A" in OneNote and moved files related to a new job in this tab. All pictures are displayed rather large, a thumbnail view for a better overview would be good. What I like is that I can drag and drop the related e-mail as "print-out" and make annotations and comments on it.

But I cannot yet really see the advantage over filing in the folders on the HDD as i used to do....

[Sabum]

Im EXTREMELY dissapointed.... you guys that vouched for Evernote failed to mention one VERY important missing feature: You cannot work offline.... what the <deleted> is the point of that? If I cant get an internet connection then I cant use evernote or even make notes to upload or sync later.... how silly and completely useless. Not to mention it wont even let me log in half the time.... ONENOTE still reigns supreme. Now Ill go set it up to sync through groove. Just wish they had onenote for the iphone like they have it for windows mobile. Im so sad getting all pumped up about Evernote and setting it up on all 4 computers and desperately waiting for the iphone 2.0 unlock to use it on iphone too.... wasted anticipation!