A few years ago, I was working in a company that used a shared drive on a local Windows network. Several analysts and people from other departments would use th

A few years ago, I was working in a company that used a shared drive on a local Windows network. Several analysts and people from other departments would use the drive to store shared price lists, tables, and other documentation. Part of my job was to keep these data files updated with info on a daily basis. The problem with trying to edit these files was that everyone logged in on the network had access to them and could change them arbitrarily. Or they could even just inadvertently lock the files if they left them open on their PCs. There was no control or change management. I decided to keep the 'canonical' versions of the files on my PC at work and use Unison to sync them over to the shared network versions of the files once a day. Unison would instantly tell me if anyone other than me had changed the files, and I could investigate further. It was a huge relief knowing that I had proper control over those files.