Windows live mesh

In a previous post I mentioned how I thought the ideal filestore for a Chromebook style device would be something like dropbox.

You don't of course have to use dropbox, you could of course use Windows Live Mesh that does much the same thing, syncing files between (windows) computers and also between these computers and Skydrive.

And it's now multi platform - or more accurately you can now use it to integrate Mac devices, which probably gives them about 98% of the desktop and laptop computers on the planet. Linux doesn't really count, sorry, but that's the truth.

Crucially of course you can't yet access them natively via Android or from an iPad. Native access is one of the advantages of multi platform sync - having all the documents right there on a highly portable device. No more ruffling through folders at meetings, or discovering too late that you havn't printed a crucial spreadsheet. Hunting through folders with a browser window isn't a substitute.

Compare dropbox's ability to display pdf files on an iPhone or iPad out of the box - or Evernote's (sorry to bang on about it) true multiplatform access.

But it does mean that online/offline/online working is now possible on a 'normal' computer. Sync your documents, work on them on the plane, sync them again when you get where you're going. Couple this with folder sharing, and you've got a pretty effective content creation mechanism...