Duke,
Here's the deal. Yes, you can back up your files to your laptop, and yes having the data there makes it easy to look up. But, how often do you need that access. There are several forms of being able to remote in with different speeds and security. For me, although I have several options with Remote Desktop, GoToMyPC, LogMeIn and RWW, Remote Desktop with terminal server is extremely secury and blazing fast. I can click on Remote Desktop and be into my computer at work in under three seconds. And, running AmazingCharts given the screen pictures, is very fast. I would think bring home a laptop everyday would be cumbersome, rather than a thumb drive. (which I am not big into). Another topic.
Synchronization is not a website it is part of AC. It is in the Administrative options.
BackupAssist is one of at least 50 backup software programs for servers or workstations. You purchase the software. Of course, if you want to continue getting upgrades and support, you have to pay for those. BackupAssist is probably the easiest and cheapest and BEST backup program out there.
I'm not really sure what you mean by a computer not being able to access or read an external hard drive. Of course it can. Basically, you are backing up from the computer to the hard drive in the first place.
Certainly, if you are using a thumb drive to back up the program to take home, then downloading to any PC there is one more backup and allows you to know if it is working properly.
The only problem with some of the solutions above is that backin up one day's worth of data is sufficient. It is not! That is the single biggest flaw in backing up data today. A good backup strategy backs up at least two weeks worth of data. Backups are for corrupted data, errorneous deletion of files, intentional backups of files, and hard drive crashes or same day data corruption. Same day backups protect you from the last two but do little for the first three. Certainly the most important backup is the one you just made, but if a file were corrupted two weeks ago or deleted two weeks ago, then you will be kicking yourself if you can't retrieve it, because you have been copying over it everyday. Plus, when you go back to restore from last night's backup and you suddenly realize it is no good or even worse, it wasn't done, you will be glad you have a back up from a week ago.
As far as going back on the Syncs, you need to change your search parameters so you are going back six months or so. But, you certainly don't want to be adding notes at home and syncing them back everyday.
