Picnic file synchronizer released

We last mentioned Picnic when the beta was released in June; now Objectpark software is shipping version 1. Picnic is a utility designed to allow you to synchronize folders you specify between two Macs on the same local network. By using Bonjour it requires little or no setup.

Unfortunately, I see two major downsides to Picnic. First, it seems rather expensive. Each machine/user requires a license which are $29.95 each (though there are discounts when ordering multiple licenses, e.g. $55 for two). Compare this to the similar Martian Slingshot at $29.99 for use on all your personal computers. Second, it only works over a local network and not the Internet (though I suspect you could hack it together with Hamachi or another VPN solution).

A demo of Picnic is available for download.

[via MacNN]

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Source: http://www.objectpark.net/picnic.html

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We last mentioned Picnic when the beta was released in June; now Objectpark software is shipping version 1. Picnic is a utility designed to...

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uros

Has anyone else noticed how Leopard-like that icon looks? Read: isn't pirouetting in the Leopard dock, as most other pre-Leopard icons do.

September 05 2007 at 10:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Harzack86

I'm using foldershare to sync folders between computers over the LAN or internet, including both Mac and PC: it works very well and it's free...
Therefore, I don't get the value added by Picnic :-)

September 05 2007 at 11:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stephen Waits

Brian posted it, and you all ignored it. Forget rsync and its pretty friends.. this is a job Unison.

September 05 2007 at 10:32 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

FYI, I guess RsyncX does do scheduled jobs. So, um, that works for me!

Since rsync is available on all Macs (and therefore RsyncX) you could set it to sync two folders. Or you could sync anything you mount, for example a MacFUSE mount or a Windows or Linux share.

Much more functionality and much cheaper (free).

September 05 2007 at 9:39 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jordan Merrick

I used the demo and whilst it was really simple to use, all the syncing was done using the user's Public folder. I was using it for some work files between laptop and desktop, so it could be a potential security risk as anyone can access the users public folder. Hopefully this changed but it was enough to put me off slightly...

September 05 2007 at 3:35 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

rsync is ok, but it's not very friendly. rsyncX helps a bit, but it's still not that elegant for regular backups. Folks like us, computer geeks, can and do use it just fine. For the general public it's not a great solution.

Now, someone could and should write a little utility that combines rsync with cron and makes a tidy little schedule. Seems relatively simple, but I'm not a programmer.

Combine it with MacFUSE and symlinks and you could have some creative backup scenarios to local and remote hosts.

September 04 2007 at 11:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

andrew

music sync would be cool, but I honestly don't see how it's practical with iTunes....

I'm a Linux geek by day, so I'm no stranger to the command line :-)

September 04 2007 at 10:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

starwxrwx

Seems very pricey when rsync is free

September 04 2007 at 10:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Adam Randall

So, what's different with this and rsync, which is built into OS X?

rsync -avu --delete /Source /Destination

Works over SSH:

rsync -avu --delete /Source user@10.0.1.1:/Destination

I use it for both backups and synchronizing music across machines.

September 04 2007 at 8:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brian

Er, unison? http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

September 04 2007 at 7:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply