We are getting my mom a new Mac for her 80th birthday. She now uses a 12" PowerBook, but wants a larger screen to layout photo books. A new iMac is probably the best choice, but she'd lose portability. She uses the PB primarily for email and getting photos from her camera, with a little web browsing. For travel she only really needs email.

She is pretty non-technical. Is there a really easy way to set up a new Mac to sync with her PowerBook so that she'd have identical email and maybe Safari bookmarks the same on both Macs? I am looking for something that works like syncing an iPod or using Time Machine. Little or no user intervention to make it work.

She has used .mac in the past, but not iDisk. I don't think she wants to change her email address. She does not have access to IMAP email.

The other option is to get a new laptop plus an external screen, keyboard and mouse, but that complicates her (physical) desktop and would be more expensive.

Thanks.

- Winston

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Be seeing you.

1. Users here will suggest .mac. I have not used it. It may be all you need.

2. Dropbox, if set up thoughtfully, can be used for this. Once set up, it requires no user intervention. You just have to create the proper symbolic links in the dropbox folder. It is free for small amounts of data.

3. Windows Live Sync is the best solution I've found. I have four computers synchronized in perfect harmony. [sync.live.com]
It is free for large amounts of data. It was just updated to work with Snow Leopard.
What I like about this solution is that it creates a P2P connection between computers, rather than relying on synchronizing first with a server.

4. Sugarsync works well, but is not free for more than 2gb.

I have a lot of experience with #2-4, if you have any questions.

.Mac is probably the easiest way. It works great for syncing email and bookmarks between two Macs.

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"They don't call me Colonel because I'm some dumb a$$ army guy" Colonel Homer J. Simpson

Are there solutions which do not require an internet connection?

- W

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Be seeing you.

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volcs0
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3. Windows Live Sync is the best solution I've found. I have four computers synchronized in perfect harmony. [sync.live.com]
It is free for large amounts of data. It was just updated to work with Snow Leopard.
What I like about this solution is that it creates a P2P connection between computers, rather than relying on synchronizing first with a server.

...

how dare you recommend a Windows product to sync two Macs?

kidding aside, I never heard of it until now. so it works pretty well you say, huh? maybe I should take a look.

Quote
space-time

Quote
volcs0
...

3. Windows Live Sync is the best solution I've found. I have four computers synchronized in perfect harmony. [sync.live.com]
It is free for large amounts of data. It was just updated to work with Snow Leopard.
What I like about this solution is that it creates a P2P connection between computers, rather than relying on synchronizing first with a server.

...

how dare you recommend a Windows product to sync two Macs?

kidding aside, I never heard of it until now. so it works pretty well you say, huh? maybe I should take a look.

When Windows Live Sync broke with the Snow Leopard upgrade, I spent the next two months looking for a better solution. I gave Dropbox and Sugarsync serious tries - but they were never as good as Live Sync. Yesterday, Microsoft released the upgrade to support Snow Leopard, and I went right back. I set up my sync folders on my four machines, and now everything is in sync again. Versioning is done right on your machine (when it deletes files that it thinks are old versions, they are saved locally on your machine). And the files are transferred via P2P, so they move quickly between machines.

I have to admit, Dropbox is very slick and good at what it does. But for a more complicated setup, I have yet to find something as robust as Live Sync. And it is free.

Many thanks for the suggestions. I'd not have thought to look at a Microsoft product for this. Free vs. the MobileMe fee is good too.

- Winston

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Be seeing you.

Yeah, Windows Live Sync is one of MS' better purchases. Used to be called FolderShare in earlier versions and from the original developer.

volcs0, do you know of a good "tips" or how-to link for Live Sync? I don't have any specific questions but would like to know more about the what and the how of it.

I tried mobile me and Liked it very much so I bought it off ebay before the 60 day trial expired.

My provider doesn't do imap mail so I just set my old address to forward to my mobileme address.

It works great for keeping 4 macs in our house synced.

gg

Buy an external monitor for the PB and there will be no sync problems.

Let me just say that it is very cool that your 80-year old mother WANTS an imac.

My 70-ish father couldn't tell the performance difference between a 1.2ghz g4 ibook and a 2.0ghz core2duo imac. So he's stuck with the ibook.