Sync'ing Macbook & Imac

[Philgr]

Just ordered my very first macbook this morning after my 8yr old Acer Notebook died last night 🙁

My main machine is my 20'' Imac i want to have my macbook and my imac in sync with each other, eg, email, calender, address book, itunes, folders etc...

What is the most appropriate way to do this ?, would .mac provide this function or is there an alternative

Thanks in advance

 

[wordmunger]

I currently use .mac for this but it's not ideal.

I use iDisk for most of my most important files -- that way they're accessible on both computers at all times. However, iDisk is not backed up by Time Capsule, which is a problem if you accidentally delete a file on your iDisk -- it's just going to be gone.

I use the Publish/subscribe feature to keep iCals on both computers. .Mac is supposed to be able to sync calendars between multiple computers but in my experience it doesn't work very well -- you're constantly being asked which calendar entry is correct, and it's a big hassle. With publish/subscribe you can only update the calendar on the publishing computer, but it's automatically updated on the other computer(s).

For music I don't keep a complete copy of my library on both computers. I use my iMac as a music server and have a subset of my music on my iBook. But I'm not a big music listener when on the road, so you might want to keep a duplicate on your MacBook. Or you could just use your iPod for that, and simply keep a master music library on your main computer. When you're at home it's easy to listen to your music using either computer.

For email I use Gmail. On my iMac I use Mail as the client; when I'm on the road I access my Gmail account from my web browser on the other computer. I don't use Mail on that computer. But if you used .Mac mail or the Gmail iMap service, you could use Mail as your client on both computers.

 

[Macula]

I currently use .mac for this but it's not ideal. I use iDisk for most of my most important files -- that way they're accessible on both computers at all times. However, iDisk is not backed up by Time Capsule, which is a problem if you accidentally delete a file on your iDisk -- it's just going to be gone.

I don't think this is accurate. Time Machine does back up the iDisk, in other words it does back up the SparseBundle that the iDisk consists of, but it does not provide the interface to access these backed-up bundles. If you want to restore a delete file from your iDisk you will have to guess which SparseBundle it was in, restore that bundle, open it as a disk image and extract the file.

The alternative I follow is an Automator script which I run through launchd, and which backs up all the iDisk contents onto my home folder. Time Machine then backs up these contents in the normal manner. Of course, this results in a duplication of iDisk contents and disk usage.

I use the Publish/subscribe feature to keep iCals on both computers.

Could you elaborate? How does one do this?

 

[Italchef]

Well, I'm sitting here typing away on my new Macbook and just finished synching my new baby with my iMac. I did contacts, bookmarks, email accounts and settings, and calenders..but the one thing that it didn't do that i wanted it to, was synch my entries in iCal. I'm sure that I have a setting incorrect somewhere, but I have no idea where. It only synched my calenders.
This was all using .Mac.

Mick

 

[Philgr]

Thank for replies guys,
Just got home from collecting my new mac Book from the courier, after a failed delivery yesterday, (would have been 26hrs from confirm purchase to delivery 🙂 )

Booted up, entered my .mac serial number and sync'd, all done, i think i have everything, just got to work out how to keep my BT email accounts sync'd

Im sure i will be back with some other issues

Phil G