Patent attributes
When the user works at home on his home computer, a work monitor logs his file activities on all the drives of his home computer in a work monitor log, which can be displayed in a work monitor window. The user can choose to update from the work monitor window. When update is selected, the files in the work monitor log are selected for file synchronization. When file synchronization is performed, files on the user's home computer are synchronized with corresponding files on the user's office computer. Preferably, the date and time of a file on the home computer selected for file synchronization are compared to the corresponding date and time of the corresponding file on the office computer to determine the direction of file synchronization. The newer version of the file overwrites the older version of the file on either the home or office computer. The file activities which qualify for logging in the work monitor log are selectable by the user as either accesses to the file, for example, reading a file without necessarily writing over it, or as file modification, which requires that the user writes the file. The generation of the work monitor log involves logging each file activity when the work monitor is enabled by the user. The user may wish to disable the work monitor for periods of time for various reasons. The user may select a variable time period for which log entries are maintained in the work monitor log, for example one week. Work monitor log entries are deleted from the work monitor after they have been in the work monitor log for more than the variable time period.
