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Dropbox/OneDrive

Cloud service is an online data storage service provided by many companies. Some of the best known are Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, pCloud and many others. These services offer software that allows you to benefit from a storage space on the Internet, which will be seen by all your computers (Mac or PC) and smartphones linked to your account as an additional drive. The files in your cloud space will always be accessible, no matter what computer you use. The synchronization of files between your different computers is done automatically.

Even if you don't use multiple computers, these services provide a reliable and transparent backup solution

Requirements

Gmail users may prefer to turn to Google Drive. With Google Drive, a My Drive folder will be created. In the following explanations, replace the name Dropbox by My Drive. The explanations will be based on the Dropbox service but the principle is strictly the same for all the other services mentioned above.

You have opened a Dropbox account. On each of your computers, you install the software that will allow you to have a Dropbox folder created on your computer(s). You have the possibility to create subfolders in this Dropbox folder.

As a reminder, the first time you launch Logfly after a standard installation, it installs the logbook in a Logfly subfolder of the Documents folder (Mac) or the My Documents folder (Windows). This default logbook is named logfly.db. If you have created another logbook, the extension is always .db.

We will move the flight log to a subfolder of the Dropbox folder.

How to proceed ?

You have registered for the Dropbox service and installed the Dropbox management utility on both machines. You now have a folder named Dropbox on your computers which may be running on different systems: Windows and Mac for example.

Etape 1 : Moving the logbook on the computer 1

Open the settings window. On first tab called Logbook, click on Move logbook(s) to a different folder button.

A folder selector appears. Browse and select the desired folder. In our example, we have created a sub-folder Logfly_db in the Dropbox folder.

All flight logs in the original file will be moved to the Dropbox subfolder.

The logbook that was in use is automatically selected.

Etape 2 : Synchronization of computer 2

The icon shows that the Dropbox folder has been synchronized. The Logfly_db folder that was created on computer 1 is automatically replicated on the other computers.

After installing Logfly, you will find the default settings mentioned above. You have to change the folder for the logbooks in the Logfly configuration window. Click on the Choose a new logbook folder button. Select the Dropbox sub-folder. Select the logbook to be activated by selecting the logbook in the dropdown list.

Warning

If you use two computers alternately to download gps tracks, this will work correctly as long as you follow a strict sequence. For example:

  • You update the logbook on the desktop computer
  • Dropbox synchronizes from the desktop computer
  • You will use the laptop
  • You make sure that the laptop's flight log folder is synchronized (pictogram)
  • You can make changes on the laptop
  • Dropbox synchronizes from the laptop
  • You come back to the desktop computer
  • You make sure that the desktop computer's logbook folder is synchronized
  • You can make new changes on the desktop computer

Dropbox is perfect for this kind of sequence. Problems can arise if you make successive interventions on the laptop and the desktop computer in the absence of an internet connection or if there are simultaneous modifications on both machines (anything is possible!!!). Dropbox does not merge/consolidate from both machines. If you have made changes on the laptop without an internet connection, you should not perform any operations on the desktop computer until the laptop has been synchronized.

Dropbox offers a free 2 GB option. This option is more than enough to synchronize the logbook. If you don't have a Dropbox account, you can go to the site with the link sponsored by Logfly :

http://db.tt/HEudz2dC


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