How do I keep two laptops synched?

[eVolcre]

Here's the (happy) situation. I have a 17" MBP. Just came into posession of a little macbook. Quite cute but it won't be my main machine. Just days when I travel or have meetings.

So how do I keep both machines synched so that I have my docs and files. I am buying a external HDD and super duper to make a bootable clone. I'm assuming I can use that clone to get an initial replica on the Macbook. How about the documents folder? I don't really care about itunes/photos etc. This is mainly my portable BIG smartphone

I have .mac and could go the idisk route but its too slow for me.

I'd really like to wake up in the morning, look at my calendar, and pick up the appropriate machine knowing the other one has the exact same info on it in terms of documents and files

Thanks in advance. It's a nice problem to have, isn't it?

eV

 

[Scarlet Fever]

There's some way to have your user folder on an external HDD in Leopard, which might suit your needs. I'll look up the pages now, but maybe someone can beat me to it

 

[eVolcre]

There's some way to have your user folder on an external HDD in Leopard, which might suit your needs. I'll look up the pages now, but maybe someone can beat me to it

well, my external HDD is a desktop one. Not sure I want to carry yet another thing around with me.

I know Time machine does incremental backups from your main machine. I wonder if you can tell it to do incremental reverse backups to a different machine, with only specified folders. That would work beautifully

 

[Maui]

If you have SuperDuper, use that to clone the 2 home directors. That's what I do with my Mac Pro & MacBook Pro. The clone excludes things that won't fit on my MBP, e.g., iTunes.

 

[rogersmj]

Look into RSync. It's quite technical, being a Unix command-line tool, but I've built scripts that allow me to keep my iTunes libraries at home and on the MBP in sync. It's wonderful.

 

[Consultant]

user partition on another volume

You can carry your user folder in one place on an iPod. No syncing required (or u can sync it if you want). Trade off is that it's slower.

10.4
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007041217125440

10.5
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071025220746340

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Seems like you are using MBP as a desktop, as you said you will travel with the MacBook? In that case, I would sell the MBP, get an iMac or a Cinema Display for the MacBook.

BTW, 17" MBP is pretty easy for me to travel with. It weights the same as wintel 15" or heavy wintel 14".

 

[eVolcre]

You can carry your user folder in one place on an iPod. No syncing required (or u can sync it if you want). Trade off is that it's slower.

10.4
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007041217125440

10.5
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071025220746340

-----------------------------------
Seems like you are using MBP as a desktop, as you said you will travel with the MacBook? In that case, I would sell the MBP, get an iMac or a Cinema Display for the MacBook.

BTW, 17" MBP is pretty easy for me to travel with. It weights the same as wintel 15" or heavy wintel 14".

Oh don't get me wrong, I LOVE my 17" MBP. Been travelling with it for over a year now. And I'm not selling it. Love the thing. Buuut .. this is a free little MacBook and I'm not going to turn it down. So I'm trying to find a way to work it into my life. I think I prefer the idea of a 4 gig USB drive over the ipod. Would work perfectly and I can use .mac every morning to bring my calendar events from Entourage over.