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I'm using Netbeans for code development of a personal project. Often times the computer I'm working on isn't mine or I may not be on it always (for example it's a library computer or one I'm using at work). Is there a way I can have my source code synced to a personal account of mine?

I was thinking of somehow using google drive. For example, I could set the project folder to be the location of google drive installed on the computer. Would there be a way to have the source code synced to a specific location on google drive, for example I wouldn't want a bunch of temp files and source code to go to the root of my google drive and clutter things and make a mess.

I'm looking for a solution for both Mac and Windows.

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Google Drive does provide an automatic sync option for both Mac and Windows, but the Google Drive app needs to be installed on both Operating Systems.

You can download the app from the main Google Drive page: http://drive.google.com/. The link to download the app is on the left hand side under the options listed in that panel (it says "Install Drive for your computer").

Follow the directions to get Drive set up on your machine. Then there will be a folder on your machine named Google Drive. Anything put in this folder will be synced to Google Drive and anything on Google Drive will be synced to this folder.

As for not having all of the files being located in the root of the Drive, the same directory structure that you use in the Google Drive folder on your local machine will be synced to the Drive. So if you place all of your source code and temp files in a folder of their own and then place that folder in the Google Drive folder, that same directory structure will be found in Drive online.

These instructions can be found here as well.

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That's one of the reasons VCS exist:

Revision control, also known as version control and source control (and an aspect of software configuration management), is the management of changes to documents, computer programs, large web sites, and other collections of information. Changes are usually identified by a number or letter code, termed the "revision number", "revision level", or simply "revision". ~ Wikipedia

So, you can make changes in your office pc, then retrieve them at home, make some more changes, then retrieve them in the library, etc...

Now, if you are authorized to install those programs in computers other than yours that's another history. Maybe, some usb-key / no-install versions exist, but I'm not sure.

You can see a list of VCS in Wikipedia. Personally, I recommend CVS, SVN, Mercurial, and Git.

Take into consideration that you are working with source code here, so it should not be as simple as copying your full project and then paste it somewhere else - that's the idea you gave mentioning Google Drive. Personally, I would use a VCS :)

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  • I've used Mercurial before and found it too complicated for my needs. How would it be used to sync anything with an online account? Why would you say it should not be as simple as copying full project?
    – Celeritas
    Jun 19, 2014 at 20:47
  • You can create a free account on [Bitbucket][bitbucket.org/], and follow the instructions in there to sync with that account using Mercurial or Git. By "is not that easy" I meant that, as you code more stuff into your project, you may want to preserve some changes but not all of them - you have two options when copy-pasting code: (1) you end up making one copy per change, or (2) you end up always overwritten your project. Both are impractical and can make your head hurts if you made a lot of changes... IMO - for small codes and scripts, that's ok, but for projects, you need VCS.
    – jimm-cl
    Jun 19, 2014 at 21:16
  • Can you elaborate? What free account should I make and what does it do?
    – Celeritas
    Jun 19, 2014 at 21:27

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