bryce_d wrote:
I want to sync the entire computer with the entire computer so they are virtually identical.
Not to burst your bubble or anything, but my personal experience with "syncing" has had small, but significant issues. Most notably duplicates. When the syncing protocol can't figure out which is "newer", then you either get a duplicate, no sync, or worse, overwrite/delete files. (Murphy's Law will of course make it the wrong file that gets kept. 😟 ) I have a client that recently experienced such an overwrite. (I won't go in to the details. Suffice to say he believed the marketing and did not believe that there would be any problems, despite my repeated warning. End result: file permanently deleted by sync system.) Most people don't have too many issues, if any. My point is that the level of "perfection" that most people want with syncing as you're describing, is very difficult to obtain. Meaning it may be 99.999% reliable, but just that one failure could ruin your day.
Me personally, I try to avoid syncing in general because of the above. For things I really need access to from multiple computers, I have it "in the cloud." For example, my email is IMAP, which does not keep copies on my local drive. My documents are primarily on my home network (NAS box) that I can access from my home Windows PC, home Mac Mini. If I really need to, I can access the NAS over FTP to copy the file to my Macbook when I'm not at home. But my normal method for access away from home is to remote control my home computers. (Windows Remote Desktop, Screen Sharing, or LogMeIn, depending on the need.) In the end only
one copy so no need to sync. (Yes, two copies, if you count the backup. 😉 )
Arguably, MobileMe is probably best for if you only have Apple devices and apps. But you do have to subscribe. Really, YMMV greatly depending on what sync protocol you use. The only thing that I have "syncing" is iCal to Google Calendar. I still get issues, (primarily deleted entries) but Goggle Sync has had significantly less problems than any other calendar sync I've used in the last 10 years. However, it does still reinforce my point that I can't blindly rely on sync. But I can deal with occasional deleted calendar entries more readily than deleted files. So I accept the less then perfect Google Sync for calendar, but won't have my documents sync, which are more important to me.
Perhaps as an alternative to sync, you instead put all your documents on a small portable external hard drive (or flash drive.) You then plug in the drive to which ever computer you're using. No syncing involved. You should still use normal backup procedures to have a copy of the external drive's contents, of course. (Just a thought.)
I'm not saying that you won't be able to get sync to work. I'm just saying that sync plays dice with Murphy's Law a little to much for me. So the
importance of what you're syncing should have weight in determining if you should sync or not. (i.e.: Safari Bookmarks failing a sync is not a big deal. Quicken failing a sync is a BIG deal...BTW, that was one of the documents that was deleted in the above issue with the client.)
