Synchronisation

[PokeParadox]

Just putting the idea out there, but it would be really really awesome if emulators/address books and such could sync with your desktop computer.

I basically want to use my Pand as an organiser and a games machine (although I'm thinking I might actually use it as my media player too...) so if it was able to sync with my home PC it would be most useful.

From the emulator perspective, if you could tell (just for example) Picrodrive where your megadrive SRM saves are on your PC for Gens+ it could check the folder and update the older file once you are connected to your home wifi... Play Sonic3 on your Pandora when you are on the go/bog and play on your big screen PC when you are in the house... that's the basic idea.

Yes I know I'm a coder... yes I should probably do some research and try and code something myself... but the point is I have no clue how to implement this at all. I guess I'm trying to drum up opinions, information on how to do something like this and maybe interested coders...

any thoughts?

 

[bce23w]

Play Sonic3 on your Pandora when you are on the go/bog and play on your big screen PC when you are in the house... that's the basic idea.

If that's it, then can't you just connect the Pandora to the large screen with the Tv-Out cable?

You could make a pair of scripts for your desktop and Pandora, one that uploaded any .sav files from a given directory to some online drop-box service with a useful API (I assume there are such things...does DropBox do this?) and another that downloaded same. You could even combine them into a program that wrapped around the emulator. Then it would work anywhere you had internet service, on any number of computers on which you had installed and configured the program.

 

[juniorm33]

Play Sonic3 on your Pandora when you are on the go/bog and play on your big screen PC when you are in the house... that's the basic idea.

If that's it, then can't you just connect the Pandora to the large screen with the Tv-Out cable?

As he said, big screen PC, most PC displays don't have the required input. Well I know all of the ones I have doesn't.
Only display I have that takes the input is my pj, and it wouldn't be feasible to connect it to it.
Can think of couple more reasons why syncing would be nice.

Maybe it could be integrated into a PND manager also.

 

[grasshoppir]

then wont you just have a bunch of people trying to sync their whole roms folder to their small sd? or trying to copy roms to their sd by syncing? what is this sync thing you talk about?

 

[juniorm33]

In terms of syncing,
you'd be syncing based on what is on the SD card, not the main PC, and it would be syncing the save states.

If it was also in the PND manager you could sync PND's based on newest version if it was set to do it.

Also a PND manager could sync roms folder if you wanted to. Any new roms gets copied to either main pc or to sd card depending on where it is.

 

[PokeParadox]

Yeah general sync would do it. But I was thinking along the terms so you could progress in your games on your Pand and then when you are at home play the same games with the same save files on the PC emulators with the nice pixel smoothing filters and such.

I think something like dropbox could do it, if it lets you watch specific folder and, more importantly, if there is an ARM client for it.

 

[juniorm33]

Yeah general sync would do it. But I was thinking along the terms so you could progress in your games on your Pand and then when you are at home play the same games with the same save files on the PC emulators with the nice pixel smoothing filters and such.

I think something like dropbox could do it, if it lets you watch specific folder and, more importantly, if there is an ARM client for it.

Yep, sorry I tried to avoid hijacking thread with expanding it with ideas with what could be incorporated into a PND manager.

Simple save state files I could see being useful.

 

[Mqark]

i would rather have an update notifier.

 

[Bosbeetle]

i would rather have an update notifier.

I would rather have a pandora

 

[juniorm33]

i would rather have an update notifier.

Which could be in the PND manager, maybe should have started a new thread asking what sort of features people would like to have in one.

This thread was about save states until I hijacked it a bit.

 

[PokeParadox]

Well saves, save states and address books
I want to use my Pand as an organiser too, you see?

 

[juniorm33]

Well saves, save states and address books
I want to use my Pand as an organiser too, you see?

Doesn't organisers have inbuilt synchronisers?
Anyway as gaming is secondary for me, I'm with you regarding organiser stuff.
I've not used it but does google have an organiser, one that could be used whilst off-line?

 

[senorgomez]

http://fak3r.com/2009/09/14/howto-build-your-own-open-source-dropbox-clone/

Make a rsync'ed share on your pc that your pandora posts to.

 

[laurencevde]

Well, having a linux-box that's reachable from anywhere on the net does make things a bit easier...

FS-cache should help a lot...
rsync can be used.
If you can get libopensync to work, that'll help.

 

[Dead1nside]

I'd think rsync and opensync. For the calendar, I know it's not going to be a problem. Rsync can be used for the rest no? The wonders of a fully fledged Linux system.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Doesn't organisers have inbuilt synchronisers?
Anyway as gaming is secondary for me, I'm with you regarding organiser stuff.
I've not used it but does google have an organiser, one that could be used whilst off-line?

I have used the google calendar, and it's available offline in your browser, but not syncable with anything (outlook for instance). So not really the answer.

Curious what comes out of this, been wondering myself. Just thinking easy, sounds like we could have a small gui on the pandora, where you select files or folders to share on the pandora, and select the files or folders on the pc to sync with. Then a small program running in the background on pandora, checking folder content and file modification dates when usb connects. (more in-depth, the would probably have to be a file containing file modification dates on both machines, to prevent overwriting changes if a file has been edited on both, but that's for later)

Edit: talking about (save) files in the last bit, not the organiser

 

[PokeParadox]

Thanks for the collective brain-storming guys, at least I can see if rsync will help with the saved games
Calanders and contacts... I'm sure there will be some way to achieve that...

 

[Dead1nside]

Thanks for the collective brain-storming guys, at least I can see if rsync will help with the saved games
Calanders and contacts... I'm sure there will be some way to achieve that...

What calendar and contact applications do you want to sync?

 

[PokeParadox]

Thanks for the collective brain-storming guys, at least I can see if rsync will help with the saved games
Calanders and contacts... I'm sure there will be some way to achieve that...

What calendar and contact applications do you want to sync?

I'm using Evolution on my Desktop
If there is something similar that has easy sync and a Pandora equivalent I'd consider swithcing