Confessions of a Café Writer

“I like to get out of the house sometimes,” says Vernon Brooks, a commercial freelance writer. “Working from cafés or libraries helps me focus on the job before me, without the allure of a sink full of dirty dishes.”

Brooks began working remotely even before becoming a full-time freelance writer. “When my old company reduced the number of their employees, they moved into a smaller space and they no longer had an office for me. They told me I would have to work from home. At that time, broadband was not available in my neighbourhood, and in my job I had to routinely VPN into the company network to retrieve and store very large files. Often, my dial-up connection would time out before the transfer was done. I began going to a local café and using their wireless service to make transfers less difficult. In the end, I found it a practical place to work and ended up visiting quite often.”

Asked about the biggest challenges of his mobile lifestyle, Brooks said, “There are two issues I face all the time—keeping my laptop and desktop files synchronised and having mobile access to the files I left behind. The worst thing is arriving at a café or a client’s site, ready to work, and realising you left an important file or two at home.”

There are now a number of viable solutions to the challenge of 24 x 7 access to all your important data.

Keeping it all synchronised

One means of gaining access to your data at any time is by synchronising the files between your home, business and mobile computing devices so you have access to your files no matter which computing device you are using. Software solutions, such as Offline Folders and Files in Microsoft Windows, make it possible to select folders and individual files to synchronise across computers. Some hardware solutions, such as personal servers, also allow you to synchronise your files between computers.

Cloud Cover

Another means of gaining 24 x 7 access to your content is to use an online storage service or FTP site. Most online storage services offer a gigabyte or two of free storage and charge a subscription fee for additional space. Among the benefits of using an online service:

• Permits access to your data from any computer
• Provides a secure, off-site backup
• Frees up your hard drive
• Allows you to easily share files with other users—no need to e-mail large files
• Streams music and video from your online storage area to your computing device

Online storage services are particularly handy when you are using a small device like a UMPC or PDA with limited storage.

Personal Servers

A personal server combines the benefits of an online storage service, network file sync and remote access. Personal servers can provide automatic backup for multiple computers and can synchronise folders among those computers. They give you remote access to the content on your desktop or network and automatically back up your business files, music collection, photographs and other data. With secure remote access, you can log on to your personal server and retrieve your digital content wherever you are, locally or through the Internet. You can also grant secure remote access to friends, family and colleagues and share whatever files you want over the Internet.