Briefcase

     With more and more people using "jump" drives to transport files from a computer at work or school to a computer at home or a library, the Briefcase can be a great help to keeping files synchronized and up to date.

     Rather than just copying a Microsoft Word or Excel document from its original source to your portable drive, taking it home and working on it, then bringing it back to work and forgetting to replace the old document with the new one, the addition of a briefcase will help you synchronize documents from various sources, rather than having to remember where the original files were originally filed.

     If you right click "My Computer" and choose "Explore," you'll be able to double-click your portable drive to open it.  Right click anywhere in the white area of the window that opens to reveal the contents of the drive, and a drop-down menu will appear.  Click "New" and then click "Briefcase," and a "New Briefcase" will be added to your drive.  You can rename this file anything you want to, but many users simply call it "Briefcase."

     When you want to transport a file to another computer, double click the briefcase to open it and then copy and paste the file that you want to take with you in it.  Then you can take the portable drive home and connect it to your computer there.  Double-click the Briefcase to open it, then double-click the file you've placed inside it.  You can edit the document, and then save it.

     When you return to work and reconnect your portable drive to your work computer, you can double click the briefcase to open it, then click the icon which looks like four squares with two arrows between the top and bottom squares.  When you mouse over this, you'll see a little popup that says, "update all."  If you click this icon, a popup window appears which says "Checking Briefcase."  When the computer is finished "checking," an "Update Briefcase" dialogue box will appear to show what synchronization actions will take place.  Click "Update" at the bottom of the dialogue box, and the file you've changed will automatically synchronize with the original. 

     This may seem a lot of work if you're only transporting one or two files, but if you're taking whole folders of documents with you to work on a major project, or several folders of documents to work on an imperative presentation, then it can be considered a life-saver.

© Michael V. Ziemski, Instrumediatech, 2008 (Original Publication Date: 20080128)

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