Let me begin by saying that I have a fairly complicated computer setup. First I have a Desktop, with a nice, large, high definition 20″ monitor! For practical reasons it doesn’t make much sense to carry this around with me all of them time. I also have the Livescribe Pro Charging Cradle which sits on my desk and is connected to my Desktop, allowing me to dock my pen any time to complete a download without having the pull out the mobile cradle. Next I have a 15″ Compaq Presario Laptop that is slowly aging (but still going strong)! I travel with that laptop sometimes and use it around the house when I am not at my desk. For that reason, it also needs my Livescribe data as well. Then just to complicate things more, I also have a 10″ netbook which goes with me everywhere and because it’s with me most of the time, I need to be able to access my Livescribe data on it as well. There is always the way of manually copying the Livescribe folder from one computer to another via USB flash drive. However, that takes a significant amount of time because my Livescribe data is 1GB (approximately) and it’s only going to get larger as time goes by. Also, another flaw with this method is that it requires me to remember to copy over the data folder twice. Once when I arrive at the computer and once when I leave adding a 5 minute job twice every time I want to move computers.

For reference the Livescribe Folder is located at “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Livescribe\Desktop” (on Windows XP). For Windows Vista or Windows 7, the folder is located at “C:\Users\Username\Appdata\Local\Livescribe\Desktop”. It’s not as long but since I use both Windows XP and Windows 7 between computers, it’s another path to remember. At first I thought I would create a network share (on my Desktop) and then use Offline Files to synchronize the Livescribe folder with the network share. The only problem being that I’m often switching between multiple computers very quickly and it takes time for Offline Files to synchronize because it doesn’t sync on the fly.

I started looking at various other services that allow synchronizing and was tempted to try out Windows Live Sync Beta. Thing is, I had used it several times before and one major gripe with it is that the data isn’t in the cloud so I have to have all of my computers on all the time to make sure they get the updates. This led me to dropbox.

For those of you who don’t know, Dropbox is a file synchronization software that has a huge back-end within the cloud. It uses Amazon’s popular S3 service for data and allows each free user 2GB of space. Also, if you haven’t signed up for Dropbox yet and would like to, if you sign up using my link, we will both get and additional 250 MB free. This is plenty of room for syncing the Livescribe data at least for now. So what Dropbox does is sync any files within your Dropbox folder with all of your computers and devices. I know what you’re thinking. The problem here is that Livescribe Desktop expects it’s folder to be at a specific location and that location isn’t your Dropbox folder. Of course, Dropbox can only sync files that are within your Dropbox Folder and the Livescribe Data folder certainly isn’t there…

So then here’s the solution! It’s called symlinks. Symlink is short for Symbolic Link. Now what does Symbolic Link mean?

In computing, a symbolic link (also symlink or soft link) is a special type of file that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an absolute or relative path and that affects pathname resolution. Symbolic links were already present by 1978 in mini-computer operating systems from DEC and Data General’s RDOS. Today they are supported by the POSIX operating-system standard, most Unix-like operating systems such as Mac OS X, and also Windows operating systems such as Windows Vista, Windows 7 and to some degree in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Symbolic links operate transparently for most operations: programs which read or write to files named by a symbolic link will behave as if operating directly on the target file. However, programs that need to handle symbolic links specially (e.g., backup utilities) may identify and manipulate them directly.

— From: Wikipedia contributors. “Symbolic link.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Aug. 2010. Web. 1 Sep. 2010.

Basically that means that a Symbolic Link will allow us to store data somewhere and make it appear seamlessly to be somewhere else. This is the solution to using Dropbox with Livescribe Desktop. All we have to do is move the Livescribe Desktop folder to the Dropbox folder and then Symlink it to it’s normal location!

In addition to Dropbox and Livescribe Desktop you will need the free Junction Utility from Microsoft Sysinternals. Go ahead and download that now. I’ll wait!

Before we begin, I should add that all commands that must be entered in the command prompt are surrounded by “”. You don’t need to the enter those ones but any of them within the code itself is imperative to enter.

All right! Let’s go!

First you need to decide if you are on Windows XP or on Windows Vista/Windows 7. While the directions are very similar, there are several key differences between them. Windows XP directions will come first, followed by Windows Vista/Windows 7. Please remember that in all of the directions you have to replace Username with your own username.

Transfer your Livescribe Data to Dropbox if it is on a Windows XP Computer

1. Remember that download I had you make? Well it was a zip file. Unzip the zip file and move the junction.exe file to “C:\Windows\System32\”.
2. Open Windows Explorer to your Livescribe Data Folder: “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Livescribe”. Move the folder “Desktop” from the Livescribe Folder to your Desktop.
3. Exit Livescribe Desktop
4. In another Windows Explorer window, open your Dropbox folder, usually: “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Dropbox”.
5. Now make a new folder named “Livescribe” in the “My Dropbox” folder.
6. Move the “Desktop” folder to the “Livescribe” folder in your “My Dropbox” folder. Dropbox will now start indexing and uploading your data. Depending on your connection speed and amount of data, this may take several hours.
7. Open command prompt. This is done by clicking the start button, clicking run, typing in cmd and pressing enter.
8. In the command prompt type in “junction” and press enter. You may see a license agreement. Click “I agree” to continue.
9. In the command prompt now type in “junction “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Livescribe\Desktop” “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Dropbox\Livescribe\Desktop””. This will symlink your Livescribe Desktop folder back where it belongs.
10. You can delete the backup of the Desktop folder on your Desktop at this point, if you so choose.
11. At this point you just successfully transferred your Livescribe Desktop folder to your Dropbox account. Just remember to only have Livescribe Desktop running on one computer at a time and your data should remain intact. However, there is no way I can guarantee that and you should always keep backups. I am not liable if you lose your data.

Use Your Livescribe Data in Dropbox with Another Install of Livescribe Desktop on Windows XP

1. If this computer doesn’t already have Junction on it, download it and then unzip the zip file and move the junction.exe file to “C:\Windows\System32\”.
2. Set up Dropbox on the computer. Your data may take some time to download especially if you have a very full Dropbox.
3. Exit Livescribe Desktop.
4. Open Windows Explorer to your Livescribe Data Folder: “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Livescribe”.
5. Delete the folder “Desktop” that is within.
6. Open command prompt. This is done by clicking the start button, clicking run, typing in cmd and pressing enter.
7. In the command prompt type in “junction” and press enter. You may see a license agreement. Click “I agree” to continue.
8. In the command prompt now type in “junction “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Livescribe\Desktop” “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Dropbox\Livescribe\Desktop””. This will symlink your Livescribe Desktop folder back where it belongs.
9. At this point you have successfully setup Livescribe Desktop on another computer to access your Livescribe data stored in Dropbox. Just remember that Dropbox can’t sync that data while Livescribe Desktop is open so after exiting it, give it a few minutes to finish syncing.

Transfer your Livescribe Data to Dropbox if it is on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 Computer

1. Remember that download I had you make? Well it was a zip file. Unzip the zip file and move the junction.exe file to “C:\Windows\System32\”. User Account Control may ask for permission. You have to give it that.
2. Open Windows Explorer to your Livescribe Data Folder: “C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Livescribe”. Move the folder “Desktop” from the Livescribe Folder to your Desktop.
3. Exit Livescribe Desktop
4. In another Windows Explorer window, open your Dropbox folder, usually: “C:\Users\Username\My Documents\My Dropbox”.
5. Now make a new folder named “Livescribe” in the “My Dropbox” folder.
6. Move the “Desktop” folder to the “Livescribe” folder in your “My Dropbox” folder. Dropbox will now start indexing and uploading your data. Depending on your connection speed and amount of data, this may take several hours.
7. Open command prompt. This is done by clicking the start button, clicking run, typing in cmd and pressing enter.
8. In the command prompt type in “junction” and press enter. You may see a license agreement. Click “I agree” to continue.
9. In the command prompt now type in “junction “C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Livescribe\Desktop” “C:\Users\Username\My Documents\My Dropbox\Livescribe\Desktop””. This will symlink your Livescribe Desktop folder back where it belongs.
10. You can delete the backup of the Desktop folder on your Desktop at this point, if you so choose.
11. At this point you just successfully transferred your Livescribe Desktop folder to your Dropbox account. Just remember to only have Livescribe Desktop running on one computer at a time and your data should remain intact. However, there is no way I can guarantee that and you should always keep backups. Once again, let me remind you that I am not liable if you lose your data.

Use Your Livescribe Data in Dropbox with Another Install of Livescribe Desktop on Windows Vista or Windows 7

1. If this computer doesn’t already have Junction on it, download it and then unzip the zip file and move the junction.exe file to “C:\Windows\System32\”. Once again, User Account Control may ask for permission. You have to give it that.
2. Set up Dropbox on the computer. Your data may take some time to download especially if you have a very full Dropbox.
3. Exit Livescribe Desktop.
4. Open Windows Explorer to your Livescribe Data Folder: “C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Livescribe”.
5. Delete the folder “Desktop” that is within.
6. Open command prompt. This is done by clicking the start button, clicking run, typing in cmd and pressing enter.
7. In the command prompt type in “junction” and press enter. You may see a license agreement. Click “I agree” to continue.
8. In the command prompt now type in “junction “C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Livescribe\Desktop” “C:\Users\Username\My Documents\My Dropbox\Livescribe\Desktop””. This will symlink your Livescribe Desktop folder back where it belongs.
9. At this point you have successfully setup Livescribe Desktop on another computer to access your Livescribe data stored in Dropbox. Just remember that Dropbox can’t sync that data while Livescribe Desktop is open so after exiting it, give it a few minutes to finish syncing.

Congratulations! If you followed these directions correctly your Livescribe Desktop data should now be happily syncing through Dropbox and accessible on all of your computers. I must caution you one more time however, never to have Livescribe Desktop running on multiple computers simultaneously. Dropbox will not be sync the data and you will most likely end up losing a significant portion of it. Once again, I must remind you that I take no liability if you do lose your data. However, I do believe that the likelihood of that happening is very slim, especially if you read all of the directions listed above before you begin. If you have any problems with this, please post a comment and I will try to help you.

As far as I know, a similar technique will work with Dropbox and Livescribe Desktop on a Mac. According to Livescribe however, it is not possible to currently transfer data between the Mac and Windows versions of Livescribe Desktop. Supposedly, it is incompatible. However, I personally have no way of finding it out because I have zero Macs to try it with. If anyone wants to try it, please remember to back up before trying and do let me know so that I can update this post. And yes, even though there is a Dropbox for Linux, the lack of a Livescribe Desktop application for it, makes syncing your data there a moot point.