Below, you'll find questions that our users and potential users often ask. If you can't find an answer to your question in the list, feel free to drop us a line at support@martian.com.

If you've installed Martian SlingShot on your Mac already, you can check out the SlingShot Help Manual built right into the app. Just pick "SlingShot Help" off the Help menu.

• Why would I use Martian SlingShot?
  Martian SlingShot is designed to make copying data between two Macs (and keeping the data up-to-date) really easy. If you have more than one computer, you know how hard it can be to make sure they all have the latest music files and the latest documents. Plus, it's really neat to set up an old machine in a closet somewhere and use it as a live backup server.

  SlingShot makes it simple to Publish and Subscribe to music from iTunes and files and folders from all your computers (well, your Macs at least. What are you still doing with Windows machines?)

• What are the system requirements?
Martian SlingShot requires Mac OS X version 10.4 ("Tiger"). If your computer can run Tiger, it is more than capable of running SlingShot well. Also, it's compiled as a Universal application, which means it supports the new Intel-based Macs natively (and it works great on all the existing PowerPC Macs too).
• Is SlingShot available for other platforms besides Mac OS X? Not at the moment. We believe that Mac OS presents a superior platform for users and developers. That being said, if you are interested in a Windows version of SlingShot, drop us a line and let us know of your interest.

  It would be nice to use that old Windows box as a live backup storage server, right?

• I have 5 computers in my house. Do I need 5 licenses? Nope! One license is all you need to use SlingShot on all the computers that you personally own. If you're a business, you need one license for each computer that will use SlingShot. Please get in touch with us so that we can give you a discount on multiple licenses.

• Do I have to understand Networking in order to use SlingShot? Nope. When you Publish a Playlist or Folder using SlingShot, we take care of all the networking mumbo-jumbo underneath the covers. Subscribing to a Playlist or Folder brings up a list of everything other computers are Publishing on the network, so you don't need to remember URLs, hostnames, magic incantations, or anything. You can Publish and Subscribe Playlists and Folders in just a few clicks of the mouse.

  (Mad props to our homies at Apple for the Bonjour technology, which helps us make this ease-of-use possible).

• Is using SlingShot secure? Whenever SlingShot writes any of your file data onto the network, it first encrypts it using 256bit AES encryption (that's a pretty strong standard). So no one who's snooping on your network can see your bits while they're flying around.
• What about Mac OS X's firewall? Does it get in the way? If you're Publishing a folder or playlist, you need to allow inbound connections through your Mac's firewall so that Subscribers can connect. Here's how you do this:
  1. Open up the 'Sharing' panel in 'System Preferences'.
  2. Click on the 'Firewall' tab. Click 'New' to add SlingShot as an available inbound service.
     • Select 'Other' for 'Port Name'.
     • Enter 51114 for 'TCP Port Number'.
     • Enter 'Martian SlingShot' under 'Description'.
  3. Click 'Ok' and you're all set. You've opened up port 51114 (SlingShot's port) for communication with outside computers.
  4. Here's a picture to help:
     
• Does SlingShot work over Apple Airport wireless networks? It sure does! If you've got a wireless network at home, you have all you need to start Publishing and Subscribing Playlists and Folders with SlingShot.

  If you're transferring huge amounts (gigabytes) of data, you may find that wired connections are somewhat faster, but wireless works great too.

• Does SlingShot work across the Internet? Not as of yet. SlingShot currently requires that the Publisher and the Subscriber be connected to the same local network. We are currently planning a product for the near future that will allow multiple computers to share data over the internet. If you would be interested in such a product, or might want to help test it, drop us a line.
• How do I change the name of my computer? SlingShot uses your computer's name when it Publishes folders and playlists. Subscribers will see your computer's name when they list the currently available items. Changing the name of your computer is pretty easy:
  1. Open up the 'Sharing' panel in 'System Preferences'.
  2. At the top, you can set the 'Computer Name'.

• How does Publishing a Playlist work? SlingShot communicates with iTunes on your machine to get the list of Playlists you have. You just choose one from the list, and optionally add a password to it.

  Then, when another computer Subscribes to the Playlist, SlingShot will figure out what songs the Subscriber doesn't have in its iTunes library and transfer those files. It will then recreate the playlist in the Subscriber's iTunes. So, if the Subscriber had 50 of the 65 songs already in its Library, SlingShot will only transfer the 15 that it doesn't have, creating or rebuilding the playlist once the transfer has been completed. As you add and remove songs on the Publisher, SlingShot keeps the Subscriber's Playlist in sync.

• Does SlingShot handle music I purchase from the iTunes Music Store? Absolutely. The files will be transferred from the Publisher and added to the playlist just like other songs. Obviously, the Subscriber computer will need to be authorized to play the song in order to actually hear the music.
• Does SlingShot ever remove songs from the Subscriber when the Playlist changes on the Publisher? No. If the Publisher removes songs from the published playlist, the Subscriber will remove the songs from its version of the playlist. The songs themselves will remain in the iTunes Library on the Subscriber.
• Will SlingShot remove the protection from songs I purchase from the iTunes music store? No.
• Does SlingShot work with iTunes 7? Yup, it sure does.

• When I'm Publishing a Folder, what happens to files on the Subscriber that the Publisher doesn't know about? By default, the Subscriber's folder is a perfect mirror of what is in the Published folder. If SlingShot encounters files in the Subscriber's folder that are not on the Publisher, or that are different from their versions on the Publisher, it moves them into a "SlingShot_Deleted" hidden subfolder, so that none of your data can be accidentally lost.

  If you would prefer that SlingShot either ignore the files (leaving them in the SubFolder), or, more drastically, delete them from the Subscriber, you can choose those options as well.

• If a Published Folder accepts updates from Subscribers, what happens if there's a conflict? When there's a conflict, the file with the latest timestamp wins. So if both the Publisher and Subscriber have a file called 'GreatPic.jpg', and the Publisher's copy was last modified on Monday but the Subscriber's copy was last modified last week, the Publisher's version "wins" and is copied to the Subscriber.
• I want to Publish a Folder that has 250mb of document files in it. Is SlingShot fast enough to handle this? It sure is! While the first sync onto the Subscriber may take a little while, all the future synchronization will involve only the changed data. In this way, SlingShot minimizes as much as possible the amount of data it transmits over the network.

• I've lost my license key. Can you help me find it? Sure. Just get in touch with us and let us know your First and Last Name, your email address, and if you know it, the approximate date you bought your license. We'll dig up a copy of your license key and get right back to you.
• How do I update to the latest version of SlingShot? SlingShot automatically checks with us periodically to see if there's a new version available. (You can turn off these checks if you want to, but why would you go and do a thing like that?)
• I want to back up my list of Published and Subscribed folders. How do I do it? You just need to backup the folder "Library/Application Support/Martian SlingShot" in your home directory.
• Can I give SlingShot as a gift? Yup! We have nice gift certificate cards that we can print and send you as well, which you can give to the lucky gift recipient. Just drop us a line and let us know you're interested in one.
• What's your upgrade policy? Will I need to buy a new license the next time a new version comes out? We've released several versions of SlingShot over the past year, including a significant upgrade that added support for iTunes music synchronization. While we might, in the future, charge an upgrade fee for new versions of our products, rest assured that our policy will be to give free upgrades to those who've purchased the application within the previous 12 months. Bug fix versions are always free. If you have questions about this, please feel free to drop us a line and we'll be happy to discuss.

• Is it true you guys donate 6% of your profits every year to charity? Yes. We're grateful for the warm reception we've had here on your pretty blue planet, and we like giving something back in return (besides cool software!)
• Hey, you guys got a blog? Of course! Check it out here.
• So, like two years ago there was this cool Wireless Hard Drive....I think they called it the "Martian NetDrive"....know anything about it? Yeah, that was *cough* some guys we know. If you still have a Martian NetDrive, we'd love to hear from you about how you're using it.