One way to help keep everything in sync is to reset the system clock on a regular basis. On Linux, add the following line to your root cron file:
47 23 * * * rdate -s time.nist.gov; /usr/sbin/hwclock --systohc
...
If you need to really syncronize the clocks, this won't do it. You need some really heavy-duty mechanism. (See Leslie Lamport's papers on the topic for an explanation....) But for Sync's purposes, it's probably OK.B
I presume there is an equivalent mechanism for Windows, but I don't know what it is.
ntpdate on Linux (and presumably any Unixish system) is a more accurate choice. It'll get you as close as you can reasonably get. There are Windows programs that will do this too. Back when I used Windows I had one, but don't remember what it was called anymore. Check Tucows or some such place. I think MS even stuck an NTP service (or whatever) in one of its recent Windows. (The corresponding story is that they also pointed it to a third party and didn't bother to tell them. A good story if true.) Not that I'm not veering off-topic or anything... --jcc -- "Code generators follow the 80/20 rule. They solve most of the problems, but not all of the problems. There are always features and edge cases that will need hand-coding. Even if code generation could build 100 percent of the application, there will still be an endless supply of boring meetings about feature design." (http://www.devx.com/java/editorial/15511)