A Few Cool uses for Microsoft Live Mesh

I work with several different computers on a daily basis and sometimes it can be a chore to keep up with multiple copies of files and remember which machine has a particular file.  In particular, I have a few applications that are constantly out of sync with one another and manually keeping them in sync is next to impossible.  With the release of Microsoft Live Mesh, I have been able to solve the problem (at least to some extent).  I'll show you how.

Password Managersimage
It's a good idea to use different passwords for each site, but this is not easy to accomplish if you don't have a password database at hand.  My password manager of choice is KeePass.  With this free/open-source application, you can store your secrets in an AES encrypted file.  However, if you need to access your passwords on multiple computers, you are out of luck.  That is, unless you use Live Mesh.  If you store your password database in a Live Mesh folder, it will stay synchronized amongst your various Live Mesh devices. 

Please note that there is one very important thing to be aware of if you decide to do this.  Storing all of your passwords or anything of sensitive nature inside of a product labeled as "TECH PREVIEW" is not safe.  If you are going to do this, it is highly recommended that you take advantage of the two-factor authentication that KeePass provides.  Using this option will require a key file in addition to a master password.  The password database will be useless without these two pieces of information.  The key file will need to be present on each computer that opens the password database.  Oh, and by the way, don't store or even transmit your key file to your other computers using Mesh, that would be defeat the purpose of using two-factor authentication.


 
TODO List
imageMy friend Chris Craft showed me this free application years ago and I have recently started using it again.  It's called ToDoList by AbstractSpoon.  I use this application to keep up with my various tasks.  As I make changes to my task list on one computer, my most recent task list will be waiting for me at my other computers whenever I open the application.  Of course, there are other ways to maintain a centralized task list, but this is just another option.  By the way, it's free.


Conclusion
These are just two simple cases that I have found to be helpful in my daily routine.  I'm certain that there are many other applications that which could benefit from Live Mesh as well.  I'd be interested to hear about any other interesting uses you may have found for this technology!


Feedback

# re: A Few Cool uses for Microsoft Live Mesh

Gravatar I've played with using Live Mesh to sync OneNote notebooks across multiple machines and it works very well (OneNote does have a built-in syncing mechanism, but I'd never used it).

This could be used for ToDos, class notes, or anything else you'd use OneNote for.

As Page notes, Mesh is still a tech preview, so you should not store/share sensitive data without some additional means of protecting it. OneNote does provide the ability to password-protect notebooks.

One of the local Silverlight gurus in my area uses Live Mesh to synchronize his demo project folders, so he can work on the project on his home machine, then just grab his laptop and go give a presentation, knowing it'll be up-to-date with all the latest changes. 7/31/2008 8:26 AM | G. Andrew Duthie

# re: A Few Cool uses for Microsoft Live Mesh

Gravatar I just set up Live Mesh to synchronize my iTunes library across my home machines. Not the actual music files (that is too much data) but just the iTunes library files which keep track of ratings, play counts, etc. It works nicely. 8/2/2008 2:34 AM | Luke Foust

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