While looking around for a way to better manage the way I’ve been jockeying files between development machines, I found this Allway Sync, http://allwaysync.com/. Attracted initially to its small file size (only 3.8 megabytes), I was also happy to see that it was free software as well. It has an option for a license, but I was also shocked to see that the price tag is only $20 bucks. Before I had downloaded Allway, I found it satisfying two out of three of my ideas of what good software should be: easy on your system in terms of processing and file size, reasonable about licensing fees, and does-what-it-claims functionality. So, all I had left to do was to download and run the application to see if Allway was 3 for 3.

To my surprise and delight, the app installed quickly, quietly, and in less than 10 seconds. Though I do have a fairly fast workstation, this was still much faster than a lot of the crap I have downloaded recently.

So now what? A long lengthy configuration? Lots of preference settings and setting up a synchronization repository or something equally invasive? Nope. In fact, within about a minute of running Allway Sync for the first time I was able to set up two Jobs–their term for folders and files you want to sync up–and synchronize all my project files to my jump drive (see here). I got a little tripped up in how to create/save jobs, but in doing so I found another cool feature of this application–multiple receiving folder synchronization.

Allway supports synchronizing your files across drives and even into multiple folders. So, for me, I can backup my files at the same time as synchronizing them since Allway also allows you to set up different preferences for each synchronizing folder. Allway indeed.

Needless to say, I’m very excited to have Allway in my arsenal of cool, free apps that help me do what I do. Visually, Allway is a little bit lacking. In fact, it could almost pass for a 16-bit app from years gone by. But who cares? The app has works so flawlessly it could be all ASCII and I would still use it. The other upside is that the light-weight interface means it’s really light on the processor.

I hate to shamelessly plug something without at least needling it’s flaws a little, but there’s really not much I can say about Allways except that its menus could be a little more intuitively laid out. The functionality is there and is good.