Nuclear reset for .Mac syncing

Merlin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:37:01 -0500

How-To: Truly reset your .Mac sync data [Ars Technica]

I never have trouble finding company when it comes to whining about the reliability of .Mac syncing. It's surely not fair to lay all of this at the feet of the .Mac developers -- sync is, we are often reminded, "hard." But if you want to rely on syncing your Calendars, Contacts, Preferences, snippets, Yojimbo, and what have you via .Mac in a battlefield environment, you're going to need a strong stomach, a lot of patience, and reliable backups. Plus, friends, you will regularly have to _reset frickin' everything_.

Entirely overfamiliar with that particular reality, I was pleased to get pointed toward David Chartier's tutorial on saving your .Mac's village by burning it to the ground. It's a handy, illustrated companion piece to Apple's own advice on scorching earth. Very handy, and, yeah, you will eventually need it. So print it out. Maybe even have it laminated.

Apple's .Mac syncing features are sometimes no exception to these problems, and even though Apple provides a number of decent solutions in its .Mac sync support pages, they don't always work. Fortunately, a brief adventure using .Mac sync chat support (found at the bottom of that aforelinked page) cleared up a repeating "merge/overwrite" sync dialog problem for me, and we felt the procedure was worth sharing.

FWIW, here's a few other things I do (as a raving .Mac paranoiac):

manually backup Address Book and iCal Calendars once a week ("File > Export..."); periodically ".bz" and Gmail them to myself
backup all important "~/Library" files offsite via something like Mozy
Whenever it occurs to you, burn a quick CD of your iDisk (or at least throw your most important stuff onto an encrypted Disk Image on a USB stick)

Also -- and I loathe admitting this -- I have accepted that one of our household's Macs is "the master" (i.e., the "the first Mac you re-register" mentioned in David's piece). This means one Mac in the house gets extra-special backup attention as well as being the "winner" whenever I have to do the (increasingly weekly) nuclear reset David describes in this tutorial.

In an ideal world, you should have so much redundant reliability that you can reset from any recently updated machine -- I mean, isn't that the point of syncing? But, as you quickly learn, that's simply not feasible when things suddenly go kerplooey on multiple Macs over a short interval. But, by always knowing where to restart your electronic Marshall Plan -- which box is the true "original" in the .Mac chicken-waving ritual -- you'll have quicker recoveries and a less frustrating experience in general.

There's no pride to be found in being a .Mac whiner. As I've said before, I believe the .Mac offering is the vorpal blade that Apple's hiding under its cape. Done well -- fixed well -- .Mac has the potential to reliably unify every Apple user's digital world. But for now? Yeah, it's more like owning a Fiat where your toolbox always gets to ride shotgun.

[via]

”Nuclear reset for .Mac syncing” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 26, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Geek Throwdown: How to sync two or more Macs?

Merlin — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:20:52 -0400

Enter the Octagon

Here’s an experimental new feature: The Throwdown. Take a problem that lots of people face and tell us your personal favorite way to deal with it — in as much detail and with as much persuasion as you can muster.

Today, a lot of us are living on two or more Macs -- which is great, except for the challenge of keeping the contents and settings of multiple machines effortlessly in sync.

Now before you pop in, holler "dot mac," and jump back on your Segway®, consider that many folks (including your author) are looking for a lot more than simple document syncing and perfunctory preference sharing. How about if your needs are more nuanced:

Can it intelligently sync "~/Library" stuff like "Preferences" and "Application Support" for your apps (so that Quicksilver, for example, is with you and tweaked to perfection wherever you go)? Is it smart enough to know which items not to sync?
Can it do smarter comparisons than "which one is newer?" -- consider that someone on 4 or 5 Macs may run into complex versioning problems that currently make .Mac very confused. For text, can it do diff3-style merging?
Will it update often enough (and automatically enough) that I can trust when I sit down at a new machine, I'll know everything's up to date without checking (or manual re-updating)?
Can backups be easily automated? And is it easy to restore across all machines?
Does it work for people on airplanes? If your solution requires a live internet connection for active usage (e.g. traditional WebDAV), what happens when that access is no longer available?

You get the idea. You have a system; now tell us about it. Bow to your sensei, then spare no detail.

How do you sync your Macs?

rsync? ChronoSync? Synchronize? Unison? Something you made yourself?

What are using to sync your Macs, and how are you using it?

”Geek Throwdown: How to sync two or more Macs?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 12, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Dotmac

Nuclear reset for .Mac syncing

Geek Throwdown: How to sync two or more Macs?

Enter the Octagon

How do you sync your Macs?