Upgrade StorageProblem Viewing Items in My Library
Hi there,
I apologise in advance as this will probably fall under the category of "stupid newbie question", however I haven't been able to find an answer looking through the quickstart/support areas nor a search of the forums.
My understanding of one of the key strengths of Zotero is the ability to access your saved items from any computer. As such, I created a profile on my main computer and happily started adding items, which showed up in the Zotero pane. I did find it rather odd that the items were not showing up in the "My Library" feature in my browser window, despite being logged in.
A short while later I had to switch to my laptop. I dutifully logged on using it, having previously logged off of the other computer. My items did not show up in either the Zotero pane or in My Library on the browser page.
So I have to ask, what am I missing? I thought that your data was stored on a server to be accessed anywhere. I certainly hope I don't have to store the data on a flashdrive or some similar annoyance and carry it around with me in order to access my items.
While I'm on the accessibility topic, I am a little bit concerned that you have to download software onto your local machine to use it. I can't imagine a) having to do that at every single computer I use at the university and b) I'm pretty sure they are fussy about people installing software on their machines.
Any enlightenment that you could provide on these subjects would be greatly appreciated!
I apologise in advance as this will probably fall under the category of "stupid newbie question", however I haven't been able to find an answer looking through the quickstart/support areas nor a search of the forums.
My understanding of one of the key strengths of Zotero is the ability to access your saved items from any computer. As such, I created a profile on my main computer and happily started adding items, which showed up in the Zotero pane. I did find it rather odd that the items were not showing up in the "My Library" feature in my browser window, despite being logged in.
A short while later I had to switch to my laptop. I dutifully logged on using it, having previously logged off of the other computer. My items did not show up in either the Zotero pane or in My Library on the browser page.
So I have to ask, what am I missing? I thought that your data was stored on a server to be accessed anywhere. I certainly hope I don't have to store the data on a flashdrive or some similar annoyance and carry it around with me in order to access my items.
While I'm on the accessibility topic, I am a little bit concerned that you have to download software onto your local machine to use it. I can't imagine a) having to do that at every single computer I use at the university and b) I'm pretty sure they are fussy about people installing software on their machines.
Any enlightenment that you could provide on these subjects would be greatly appreciated!
Well, documentation that led me to believe otherwise would be, for starters, that right on the home page in the Features list it states "Access your library from anywhere". It doesn't say, "Access your library from anywhere, as long as you download software and transfer the data yourself." Please keep in mind that I have just started playing with Zotero and am trying to get a handle on what it does and doesn't do. I'm trying to determine whether the issue is a limitation of the software or the user. :-) I am not trying to insult Zotero!
As to "how else would it work?". I am simultaneously trying out Zotero and Connotea, which only requires the addition of a bookmark, the data appears to be entirely web-based, as far as I can tell so far, at least. I am already discovering that I can do some things in one, but not the other and vice versa.
I find it difficult to believe that I am not the only one attending a university where they limit what is installed on their computers. I considered myself lucky that they even had Firefox installed on them! If I used only a couple of computers I could conceivably ask them if I could install Zotero. However, my question partially stems from the fact that the most likely scenario I would encounter is one where I am not using my laptop but rather am accessing random computers in the library to do book and article searches and want to save the pertinent results.
I am really hoping that I will find that one service will handle at least most of my needs. I am very interested in some of the features Zotero offers, such as saving sites and taking images of them though, on the other hand, so far I haven't been able to have it auto-detect a single journal article, even using the DOI.
Getting back to the original question. Am I to understand, then, that if I were to install 1.5b2, it would sync my data on a server so that I could access it anywhere? If so, does this happen automatically?
Thank you for your help!
http://www.zotero.org/support/which_version
http://www.zotero.org/support/1.5_beta After you go to preferences, add your user/pass & click "sync automatically:"
http://www.zotero.org/support/sync
I'm a little unclear on what you are saying about a web-based Zotero. Is there an official version forthcoming, or are you saying that users might be creating one on their own? I'm thinking the former, but I thought I had better check!
Classes are officially over for the semester, so I will have to wait until my next visit to the campus to see what I can do with Zotero there.
However, it sounds as though simply upgrading to the latest version will solve the issue. I am not so concerned with transporting the files themselves; keeping a record of them and where to find them would serve my purposes for the times I'm on campus and not using my laptop. My computers are networked at home.
The journal articles were not readable by Zotero (i.e., there was no icon at the right side of the tool bar). I access them through my university's proxy server and while my university is on your "approved" list, I am not sure whether this means for the server or only for items in the library catalogue. After that I got a little creative so I'm not surprised that my method was not clear to you. :-)
First, I tried clicking the Add button and selecting the Journal Article option. (Unfortunately I didn't make note of the various publishers, though I can say that the last one I tried (still open in another tab) was Sage and the journal was New Media & Society. I will make note from now on.) Then, in the right pane, I pasted in the DOI in the appropriate field and clicked on locate. I thought there was a *remote* chance that Zotero might keep an index of DOIs. When that didn't work, I simply put the DOI in the search box to see if Zotero could locate it using some other mysterious function. After that, I gave up. If you have any other suggestions I would really appreciate hearing them because I have many hundreds of articles on my drives that I would like to add.
In the meantime, I have to logoff now. I will download the latest and greatest tonight and try it again. Thank you very much for all your help!