*This post was originally published on http://labs.dropit.se/blogs. *
I noticed that the activity on this blog has been a bit low lately, probably due to the fact that everyone has been away for the holidays. Instead of nagging on everyone to start writing again, I though I should lead by example and write an entry myself first. :-)
This is on the same theme as my previous entry, Keeping things in sync, where I went on about how happy I am with Dropbox and Evernote to have access to all my important files and notes on all computers. Since then, I have discovered another great way of using Dropbox.
I usually work on a few projects outside of work, and although I do want source control on these (mainly for the versioning), I can’t put these in our TFS. So I did what every responsible developer does; set up a VisualSVN Server on my computer and use that one for the verison control (I use AnkhSVN for the VS integration by the way, works almost flawlessly for me). But now it happens that I have another computer at home, one that is faster (dual core E8400) and has a bigger screen (24”), and when I’m at home I like to use that one for programming instead of the laptop I use at work (Thinkpad X301, lots of name dropping here). One way is to turn on my laptop and connect to the server there. But that seems like a lot of work. You know, turning on the computer, finding out what IP the DHCP has assigned to it today and so on. And what if I left my computer at work?
Enter Dropbox. Again. I simply created a new folder in my dropbox folder, called SVN-repositories. Then I installed VisualSVN Server on both computers, and set it up to use the SVN-repositories folder to store the repositories. Done!
So now I have a local SVN server on both computers, that automagically keep in sync. If I do some work on one computer, the next time I start the other one Dropbox will inform me that it has updated a few obscure SVN-files, and that’s it. Wunderbaum!
A word of warning though. I have no idea what would happen if you were to change data in both repositories at the same time. Probably something bad. Wouldn’t try it.