Dropbox (www.getdropbox.com) is a new service that makes it easy to synchronize files across multiple computers. We know that some Sente users have attempted to use Dropbox to synchronize Sente libraries across multiple computers, but we do NOT recommend this.
The problem with Dropbox is that it is primarily designed to synchronize files like word processor documents or spreadsheets, not database files. Using Dropbox to synchronize database files is likely to result in corrupted files.
The problem is certainly not limited to Dropbox. Any system that copies Sente libraries from one computer to another must only be used when Sente is not running on either computer. When Sente is running on the source computer, it is always possible that Sente will modify the file as it is being read by the replication software, resulting in an inconsistent copy. And if you replace a database file on the destination computer while Sente is running, all of the information that Sente has cached in memory will be out of sync with what is in the newly updated file. In either case, the likelihood of damaging the database is very high.
So, please use mechanisms like Dropbox with Sente only with great care.
Obviously, we know that synchronizing your Sente libraries across computers is a very high priority for many users and we are exploring mechanisms to do this. We expect to be able to say more about this in the relatively near future, but until then, please be careful using tools like Dropbox for this purpose.
Michael
