Networking Actinic

[Simon Williams]

Hi all,

I have an office network setup in my erm ... office, and I would like to network at least of two of them to run Actinic so I can work on the same site(s) from different locations.

Is anyone doing this currently, and if so, how have you managed it.

I understand the need to share folders etc., but where do I point Actinic to to read and register these files so they appear on each work station?

Thanks in advance,
Simon

[wfl]

Simon

What you need is Actinic MultiUser - db on server and up to several users.

AFAIK V8 was due for release with 8.0.2 but is now scheduled for release soon with 8.0.3.

Alistair

[Simon Williams]

Thanks Alistair - I'll keep my eye out!

[completerookie]

if you just want to run actinic from different locations and NOT as a multi user scenario (more than one user playing at a time) then consider the remote desktop or UltraVNC - a simple utility that installs on all the PC's and then you set up the "server" on the main actinic PC. after that, just "view" the "server" from any other PC on the network, treat the screen, keyboard and mouse as though you were sitting in front of the "server"
We use it all the time and I remotely control half a dozen PC's over the internet (its only some firewall security settings)
UltraVNC is free 0 search google, easy to find, quick to install, and very very good.

kev

[Simon Williams]

I already run VNC Viewer; however I only really use it for administration (system) type work. I find the speed to difficult to use it over a long period and especially for design work.

Thanks though.

[wfl]

Simon

If all you want is a simple remote access to the same desktop then any one of several remote tools will do the job. If you want design and manage Actinic from more than one seat at a time then you must look at the bigger product.

This is where we are at;

We started out with a single user ver 5 some years ago when I did develop and download on one PC. That was fine as far as it went.

Then, as we grew, we used dev on my PC and download on another. With a copy of designer (or even basic) (and you ought perhaps to use manager on the download) you can do this but ner the twain shall meet.

Now we have several users, me designing, 2 of us maintaining and downloading in one of two locations, i.e 4 users. I have the MU client ver on my PC as well as a separate Developer (now to be Designer) copy to work on stuff away from the production location.

Access is not the fastest db on the planet when working across a network but once the client is in touch with the db it works fine. Don't be fooled by the MS Server bit as we run it across Novell 6.5 SB and, AFAIK, it would work just as well on a Linux server across a Samba share.

Of course there is an expense but in this life you get exactly what you pay for. IMHO (having managed corporate IT and enterprise apps for several years before getting into this) Actinic MU represents reasonable value for money where it sits in the market place. Anyhow if you are going forward then you have to buy in to the going forward tools.

Perhaps our next step is when Actinic come up with a SQL db version........

Alistair

[orcharduk]

Hi Simon,

We currently use MultiUser v7 on 3 pc's and have a LOT of product in the db. We upgraded the network to gigabit ethernet, added gigbit cards to all pcs and gave them at least 2mb of ram. The results of the upgrade very noticible with a marked increase in performace compared with the previous 10/100 network v7 is running as quick as it ever will (I think).

We are curenty writing our new store which currently contains 86,000 products with another 5,000 to come! we are currently testing across the same network with 2 users and have seen a slight decrease in performance but the program is still usable. I'm not sure what will happen when the third is added.

If anyone has any tips for getting this lot to go faster I'd much appreciate it.