Using On Disconnected Computers

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If you want to use Quick Estimator™ 2005 on two computers that are not connected (your office computer and your home computer) you will find that it difficult to share your data file between the two. The simplest way is to use one of the new USB hard drives or Smart Drives as they are called. They simply plug into the USB port on your computer and become another hard drive where you can store files.


Example USB Smart Drives. These are available in sizes ranging from 16 MB to 1 GB.

All you have to do is copy your data file to the Smart Drive and leave it there. Make sure you have the Smart Drive plugged in before starting Quick Estimator™ 2005. The first time you do this you must click Open Different Data File. Browse to the Smart Drive and select the data file. After the first time you can just click Open Most Recent Data File. You will notice that it takes a bit longer to open the data file, but once it is open everything works as normal (in our tests).

When you are finished working on one computer simply unplug the Smart Drive and take it to the other computer and repeat the above.

Very Important. You must always backup your data file to the computers hard drive or other storage device when closing Quick Estimator™ 2005. That way if you lose the Smart Drive or it becomes damaged you will not lose any data.

This is a very convenient way to share your data file between two or more computers and you will never have to worry about the data on the two computers getting out of sync. However it is only suitable if there is only one person using the program. If your computers are connected on a network we suggest sharing your data file over the network. See the Network topic for more information. If you have more than one user using laptop computers, we suggest using Replication. See the Replication topic for more information.

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