I have a complex set of issues here so please read fully. I have already spoken with AppleCare and reached confusion. Here is my situation.
I have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. I migrated from the Mac Pro to the MacBook Pro (user accounts are clones). I have MobileMe syncing turned on. They both access POP and IMAP mail accounts, sometimes from the same IP (this has been causing mail to download half to one machine, half to the other, from both IMAP and POP!!). I want to sync documents folders so that if I edit a picture on my laptop, the edited version shows up in the Mac Pro (I just use Finder to organize and Photoshop to edit, so no iPhoto or other database-based management programs like Aperture or Lightroom to muck up).
I installed ChronoSync to synchronize documents and it works well. Also I manually drag-and-drop when I've just made one or two changes and I'm aware of what I did. Pretty happy with syncing over-all, except for the fact that e-mail was becoming a major problem.
To solve the lack of e-mail syncing, first I tried creating a new gmail account and forwarding a copy of all mail to it. Then I would check the new gmail from one computer, and the old gmail from another. However, gmail is annoying... it would only forward SOME of my mail, for no good reason! So I still wasn't getting all my e-mail on both machines. AppleCare suggested that I change the short-name of one of my user accounts, since having them both have the same Unix short-name was causing the e-mail server to think both machines were the same machine. I was skeptical, since why doesn't the server use a more sophisticated way to identify each machine?? But OK I took AppleCare's advice and I changed the short-name of the user account on my laptop.
But now when I bring up the laptop over target disc mode, I can't access any of the files in my /User/newshortname/Documents folder, since it appears with the "red minus sign" symbol on it (meaning I don't have permission to access it). Also, if I synchronize files, I'm going to end up with the nightmare of having some of my files have a different user as their Owner on both machines!
SURELY there is an easy way to fix this in Unix, right? Like, can I just add both users to a common group called "UsersWhoAreMe" so then they can all access each others' files happily? Or was the AppleCare guy wrong, and really, the short-name does not matter at all when checking your e-mail? Perhaps was the real problem caused by the fact that both machines are checking e-mail from the same IP (behind a router)?
I greatly prefer to have both machines have the same user short-name, since it really makes life much easier. Can someone please tell me what the solution here is? Because I'm going insane. I am to the point where I feel like I want to just get rid of the laptop entirely... This should be easier... why doesn't Apple provide for syncing documents between two computers? Ugh!
Thanks for any help
I have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. I migrated from the Mac Pro to the MacBook Pro (user accounts are clones). I have MobileMe syncing turned on. They both access POP and IMAP mail accounts, sometimes from the same IP (this has been causing mail to download half to one machine, half to the other, from both IMAP and POP!!). I want to sync documents folders so that if I edit a picture on my laptop, the edited version shows up in the Mac Pro (I just use Finder to organize and Photoshop to edit, so no iPhoto or other database-based management programs like Aperture or Lightroom to muck up).
I installed ChronoSync to synchronize documents and it works well. Also I manually drag-and-drop when I've just made one or two changes and I'm aware of what I did. Pretty happy with syncing over-all, except for the fact that e-mail was becoming a major problem.
To solve the lack of e-mail syncing, first I tried creating a new gmail account and forwarding a copy of all mail to it. Then I would check the new gmail from one computer, and the old gmail from another. However, gmail is annoying... it would only forward SOME of my mail, for no good reason! So I still wasn't getting all my e-mail on both machines. AppleCare suggested that I change the short-name of one of my user accounts, since having them both have the same Unix short-name was causing the e-mail server to think both machines were the same machine. I was skeptical, since why doesn't the server use a more sophisticated way to identify each machine?? But OK I took AppleCare's advice and I changed the short-name of the user account on my laptop.
But now when I bring up the laptop over target disc mode, I can't access any of the files in my /User/newshortname/Documents folder, since it appears with the "red minus sign" symbol on it (meaning I don't have permission to access it). Also, if I synchronize files, I'm going to end up with the nightmare of having some of my files have a different user as their Owner on both machines!
SURELY there is an easy way to fix this in Unix, right? Like, can I just add both users to a common group called "UsersWhoAreMe" so then they can all access each others' files happily? Or was the AppleCare guy wrong, and really, the short-name does not matter at all when checking your e-mail? Perhaps was the real problem caused by the fact that both machines are checking e-mail from the same IP (behind a router)?
I greatly prefer to have both machines have the same user short-name, since it really makes life much easier. Can someone please tell me what the solution here is? Because I'm going insane. I am to the point where I feel like I want to just get rid of the laptop entirely... This should be easier... why doesn't Apple provide for syncing documents between two computers? Ugh!
Thanks for any help