I'm talking about the path you enter in the "To Folder" section of Operations. There's no facility to enter that path manually; it has to be browsed to. In my case, browsing takes *much* longer than manually altering the text that defines the path

Anthony, I have a similar situation where I want the images from the card copied to two different operating systems, plus an external drive and a networked wife's computer.

Simply make a row for each "path", and leave it there. Then you just turn them on or off to be copied to or not as you see fit.
See screen snap
Fred

This works, you can also map the share to a drive letter as well. I'm not sure whether one way or the other has any particular advantage, but I suppose it depends on the environment. I would recommend though that anybody doing such things make an extra copy to the local computer or use a specialized utility to do the transfer aspect, since this type of file sharing isn't terribly reliable or efficient.

Sir, I will have to add a touch more to Terry's comments.
Flashpipe is, above all, more efficient and reliable than the OS itself.
Flashpipe not only transfers the files but in the case of "File already exists" which would be the response from Windows explorer, Flashpipe checks the two files, byte for byte and if identical, will not transfer or overwrite.
In the case of Flashpipe finding that the two files are "almost" identical, that's a non sequitur. Flashpipe will copy that file, but never overwrite the old one. Instead it renames
the incoming copy so you have both!

As for efficient, Flashpipe is transferring files from one source to 4 destinations at one time (in my case). Using XP or Vista, I would have to COPY once and paste 4 times.
The very single fact that Flashpipe sees and decides whether the file transfers are the same files or not, is efficiency to a high degree when compared to XP or even Vista asking what you want to do: I found a duplicate file?

Best of luck with all.
Fred

Jeff,
I use Network Magic Pro. There are the cheaper "Essentials" and free "Basic" versions too.
Web site here http://www.purenetworks.com/
NB. You need to check if your router is supported, look under one of the products and System Requirements for the list.
There is a free trial too.
Terry.

I would not underestimate Mike's ability to foresee problems related to the use of FlashPipe and program accordingly. 
And - you know from experience he will rapidly correct any "glitches" 
Terry.

Point 1.  I think you're missing something significant here Mike.  Several times you've called the FlashPipe way the "better" way.  Some/many people will agree that the FP way is the better way.  Many other people will not.  We just don't all think along the same lines.  Your brain is organized differently than mine.  Since I know my brain better than you know my brain, I know what layout will work best for my images.

To my brain, the FP way is definitely not the "better" way.  Like many of us, I use a DAM product and with that I can find those difficult to find images.  However 99% of the time when I'm looking for an image I remember the camera I took the image with and that automatically gives me a date range.  Usually, I can remember roughly how old that camera was when I took the image which further narrows the search.  Or maybe I can remember that was my second outing with a certain lens and I remember exactly when I bought the lens.  In no time, I'm onto the right image.  I only mention this to show that we all think in different ways.  Please don't assume your way will be a good match for my way of thinking.

Point 2.  I'm comfortable with my way.  It works.  In fact it works very well, for me.  To work some other way would be very uncomfortable, at least for a time, and it's likely I would never get comfortable with something different.  I didn't arrive at my way by accident - I experimented until I found something that worked for me.

Point 3.  It would take a lot of work to redo my structure to fit the FP method.  And I'm just anal enough to where I would have to do that - re-structure everything if I adopted the FP way.  Who needs all that work?

Point 4.  I've been downloading my images into my structure for quite a while and can't recall ever having lost an image(s).  I think you mentioned that as a worry you had - a kind of nightmare support problem, was your thinking.  I guess I just don't buy that a structure like mine hides images in any way.  I think if you have a client that loses images with my directory structure and drops a support request, they're just as likely to do the same with the FP structure.

Point 5.  The original image names work fine for me.  Longer file names are simply harder to work with in my workflow.  When I edit images I add abbreviations to the file name like BW or IR or V2, etc.  Something to give me a clue as to what I've done to the image or where I am in the editing process.  And those abbreviations might stack up.  I might have something like DSC_0010BWV2Sh or DSC_0010BWR900.  Consequently, it's already a battle to keep the names comfortably short.  To my way of working and thinking, starting out with a longer name like D700-2009-10-07 (or something even longer) is not workable at all.

Summary
Before I retired I was a programmer.  Many times I had a hard time understanding why the client couldn't see things the way I did.  I think I understand where you're coming from and how attached you might be to the FP way - how clean and elegant it seems.  But we all process problems differently and the FP way of processing the problem is not for everyone, IMO.

On the other hand, I don't know what you want your FP client to be.  What I mean is you might necessarily not want the largest possible client base.  If that's what you want, maybe for support reasons, then I wouldn't change a thing.  But I think there are many of us out here that could be FP customers if you made FP more flexible.

Leroy

Leroy and Mike:

Thank you for your thoughtful exchange.  Like Leroy, I am currently set in my ways and I like downloading my files to date specific folders and it is not as complicated for some of us as you make it sound Mike.  I use Lightroom as my DAM (always Qimage for printing  ) and I can import the files directly to a folder designated by month and Lightroom places the pictures in date-specific folders.  So, for example, my current directory structure looks like:

2009
   01-Jan
        2009-01-10
        2009-01-15
        etc.




However, Mike you raise an important point which, admittedly, I have not considered.  Given your clearly stated intentions for FlashPipe some files clearly cannot be moved or copied into date specific folders.  It sounds self-evident, but I admit that I had never thought of it before (probably due to my being set in my current ways), but there does not seem to be anything that prevents me from using FlashPipe to download files to an existing folder already specified by month and turn off the Subfolder option.  Am I correct in this understanding?

There are many features that I do like about FlashPipe, especially its ability to upload from multiple cards at one time, its ability to upload videos at the same time, and its ability to copy files to multiple drives.

It would help me to hear from others who are using FlashPipe and Lightroom as their DAM.

Thanks, as always, Mike for your creativity and responsiveness to your customers.

- Chris