Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Geek Throwdown: How to sync two or more Macs?
Merlin Mann | Oct 12 2007
 Enter the OctagonHere’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:
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? 80 Comments
POSTED IN:
 this is where symbolic links come into playSubmitted by Prion on October 17, 2007 - 1:58pm.
Keith many Carbon programs and some other programs like the infamous Installer expect to find the home folder including your library of things that keep them happy on the local harddrive. The reason I asked about symlinks with your solution was that they can be incredibly handy to solve this problem. Indeed this would be possible with your suggestion of letting the home folder reside in a disk image bearing the same name as the external harddrive for when you need the maximum mobility. Disclaimer: I have only played around with this because my Powerbook is the latest generation G4 while my desktop is an Intel iMac so I cannot "go real" with this. But intial testing looks reallly well. What you do: You copy your home folder to its new location preserving its resourceFork with ditto (while this user is logged OUT) and then you create a symbolic link pointing from the old location to the new one. The syntax is: sudo ln -s /Volumes/NewLocation/Prion /Users/Prion This was figured out by people more knowledgeable than myself but it works very well in testing. As soon as my trusty Powerbook fades into nothingness I hope this will give me the best of both worlds: Give me the a home folder with all my programs, all my files, all everything that I just need to plug into wherever I may be without having to lug my Powerbook with me and without being restricted to a laptop in the first place. (By then Pussycat - the successor to Leopard - will be out and perhaps all this will be irrelevant: eeek). I was surprised that almost all of the mobility I requested when I bought the Powerbook was actually moving about between exactly two locations: my office and my study at home. rarely I would take the laptop elsewhere in my house and when I did I would just surf the net or watch pictures etc, not something I needed all my data with me. Carrying my home folder with library etc. instead sounds very compelling though and seems to work. Caveat: Testing works really well, for real life experience I need another intelMac. Prion PS: I really enjoy this discusssion myself, I hope others do, too, and share their experience. » POSTED IN:
|
|
| EXPLORE 43Folders | THE GOOD STUFF |
