Efficient sharing of documents

There are many ways of sharing documents with Labstory - this chapter is meant to help you select the method that fits you best

The easy way - For enterprise and cloud users

If you have signed up to use the enterprise or cloud solution then the simplest default method is to always store copies of your documents on the server. If you wish to synchronize two devices (e.g. PC and tablet), upload the document to the server, and then download the document on the other device. The rest of the information in this guide is only interesting to share documents with others at other universities

Local storage - If you use the free software alone

If you do not have a server for storing your documents then we strongly encourage you to think through and set up some routines for document management - or things can end up pretty messy. First, we recommend that you decide on one computer where you always store the final documents. If you also share documents within your research group then this computer will also act as the sharing point (see above for server users).

On the selected computer, just set up the Labstory client with sharing enabled. Keep it in the background minimized if you wish for users to be able to share at any time point. Optionally, talk with your helpdesk and ask them if you can obtain a static IP address (and maybe a computer DNS name). This will help users find your computer even after a reboot, which otherwise might change the IP if dynamic.

Accessing the server from hotels and other public networks

Most public networks have the annoying habit of blocking outgoing traffic to most network ports. This makes no sense and we think you should complain - but until this changes you have to learn to cope with it. In practice, all networks have port 80 open or surfing the web would not work. The solution, unless you have a VPN setup, is to also open up port 80 on the Labstory server. Thus no network can block the server. The reason we do not use port 80 by default is that it might interfere with other software on the server, but most likely it won't. Note that you need to do this setup before you go on your conference trip!

Local networks vs The Internet

Many internal networks deploy a technique called NAT (Network Address Translation). It saves money for the organization, but also causes a tremendous number of problems. A computer outside the network is not able to connect to a computer inside the network, but the opposite is possible. You can see if your computer is subject to NAT by looking at the IP - If it starts with 10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x (sometimes 172.x.x), then your computer is inside such a network.

If you are in this situation, and wish to share a document with someone else, then you can not act as the server. If both of you are on private networks then you can not use the sharing server. Instead, send the documents using Export files.

Using the tablet as a sharing server

It's possible to set up the tablet as a server as well - but we mainly recommend this for use at conferences, as a regular computer is a safer central sharepoint. Besides having less memory, a regular computer is also much faster.