Use another finger? :) Although after the 10th fingerprint-password you'll have to start removing your sock to open your computer.

Also readable here.

We don't really do "traditional programming", so to speak. Instead we make building automation projects (like HVAC controls), and the workflow generally goes like this:

1) We make cabling lists for electricians 2) we make HTML graphics, do PLC programming (say 1 to 5 days for small projects), 3a) we wait ~6 months until electricians have finished cabling (they have to wait for construction workers) 3b) while also installing our own control devices and testing the software, 4) project is finished, but are often revisited to add new features, fix something, answer questions, ...

If someone calls us and asks e.g. what kind of valve is at location 13, project 154, it's difficult and slow to checkout the project first and then access some file. And If we keep everything synced at all times, it's about 200 projects and 6 GB of data. It's not great to have a 6 GB git project or 200 git projects that we'd have to juggle.

Also we know the current solution is technically really ugly, but it works. Even our manager knows how to press a button to sync everything. Or how to access/edit/add a document from a 4 yo project, while talking on the phone and leaving the office in 2 minutes. Also note we have 5 laptops (i.e. 5 people), but 3 programmers, so not everyone is so tech-savvy.

Thanks for your answer. I will look into TortoiseSVN. As I wrote above, of course we do know about git and the like, but the problem has been usability. We are not familiar with easy to use GUI clients. The solution should be something you could make your mother use (because of our CEO and installer, not the programmers).

OP here. Of course we have heard of version control, git and the like.

Does git accomplish this? Our programmers are comfortable on the command line, but our installer and CEO are not. Which solution would use you use with your mother?

Let's imagine your mother has received a PDF document in her email, and she has to add it to the repo. Would you really make her use git? Just making her email the file to you isn't a good solution in this case.

But it's for 10 lights, so that's $3.99 per light. That's much cheaper.

...except maybe the European parliament?

Technical progress often takes the form of a repetitive S-curve [see figure 4 in the .pdf] It could be that we're just in a somewhat horizontal part of the curve now, and the industry will experience another boom in the near future.

Biometrics? Hmm... I would not necessarily want to lock my car or house with a fingerprint. Don't forget that you can steal fingers, eyeballs, and all that jazz too. A normal person would not do that, but a psychopath might.