AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

Since Beyond Compare has been recommended here, I thought I'd ask here as well as their forums. I'm still learning about the various Beyond Compare (BC3) comparison options. I'm wondering if anyone has a good set of settings that work well in comparing files. Specifically, I'm comparing local dev files to my remote (ftp) hosting environment. The issues I've run into are:

• I can't use Quick Test timestamp since uploaded files are always newer than local files. Is there a way to only look for newer source files?
• I can't use filesize comparison because many uploaded files are off by 2 bytes even though there are no visual differences when I compare them side by side in BC3.
• In the Folder Compare display, using Ignore Unimportant Differences still shows files that are a match except for the 2 byte file differences.
• Is there any way to speed up the overall content comparison? Perhaps by only selecting files changed since a given date or some other tricks?

Thank you if you can help me out.

Is there a way to only look for newer source files?

If you use Beyond Compare (BC) to upload the files, it will try to preserve the timestamp on the file. For example, if the file on your local dev machine has a timestamp of 5/30/2009 10:13:01, then BC will try to set the timestamp of the file on the server to match (after offsetting for timezone differences). BC will also try to detect the server timezone and use that in timestamp comparisons. If the detected timezone is not correct, you can manually set it (see FTP Profiles).

I can't use filesize comparison because many uploaded files are off by 2 bytes even though there are no visual differences when I compare them side by side in BC3.

Hmmm. I've never seen this...at least not with FileZilla or BC, but perhaps it is an artifact of your server.

Is there any way to speed up the overall content comparison? Perhaps by only selecting files changed since a given date or some other tricks?

I exclude file that I do not care about. For example, the AbleCommerce.mdf file in the App_Data folder and log files; and files that will be generated again on the "real" site such as Google Base feed files and SiteMap.xml.