Sync Strategies

Whenever working with multiple copies of the same file, ALWAYS check whether or not you are editing the right file!
There is nothing worse than working on a remote copy of any file and then accidently overwriting it with another copy from another location!
On Mac OS, you can Option-Click on the filename in the title bar to reveal the path.

If you own more than one computer you will probably want to edit sib-files on both of them.
As usual, if you only have a small number of files, you can copy them by hand. As an added bonus, this provides for a pretty simple backup solution.

For working at home, a home server is a very good solution. Store your files on a central server and edit them from the clients. This makes backups fairly easy, too because you can just hook up a hard drive to the server and set it up as RAID (see Backup Strategies). However, this way, you will only be able to access the files when in your own network, but not from outside. The good thing is that on whichever client you open a file, it will always be the newest version.

One of the quickest solutions is to copy all necessary files on a portable drive, i.e. a usb flash drive. This has the advantage that you can carry your work with you and have it ready when you need it. Of course it will get difficult when you loose or forget the drive.

If you have an Account at MobileMe or a similar service, you can store copies of all your files on the server, allowing you to access them at all places where there is an internet connection.
The downside is the mostly manual copying of files to and from the server, which people easily tend to forget. Another big issue is the accidental overwriting of files. You can avoid this by renaming the files before uploading/downloading, but this is very time-intensive, so you should only follow that path if you have relatively few files.

The best solution for having your data available on all computers is a “cloud” that synchronizes a given folder on your hardidsk to all computers and stores previous versions on a server. One of those services is Dropbox, which is highly recommended. Because all file revisions are stored on the server, it is not that bad if you accidently overwrite a file - you can just restore it.
The service even provides a web interface allowing you to manage and up/download files whereever you are, thus enabling you to work on files when you forgot to grab that USB-stick when leaving the house :)
Though these services are primarily intended to make working on different machines easier, they have the added benefit of a backup solutions. But never only trust such a service; you should backup files on hard drives etc yourself for optimal security. Do also avoid working with files in the folder to be synchronised directly, since every time you save your changes, the file will be backed up under a new revision on the server, making it difficult to determine which revision of a file to recover when you need it. Besides, some systems can behave erratically when files are used by more than one application at the same time.

To be continued…