The Back Room

One of the strategies we are employing at the National Museum of the Pacific War is a server/client content synchronization method.  The battle kiosks have so much information that it is unrealistic should we, or the institution need to update them; to perform the updates on each individual machine.

In order to remedy this, we are using Microsoft SyncToy along with scheduled tasks on each kiosk machine to synchronize their content.  Due to the fact that each time a page is loaded on the exhibit, it is parsed from HTML, you can update the html templates in the background and changes are seen instantly on the kiosks on the museum floor.  It is really a neat solution that works well by simply having each client machine able to see the master network folder on the server.

Around the office we have also been using Microsoft SyncToy to backup our development machines to a Drobo that we have on our office network.  Sync Toy is a free utility for people using Windows XP and higher.  You need at least the .NET 2.0 framework in order to use Microsoft Sync Toy.

The drobo that we use with SyncToy for archival and backup