[OS X] staying in sync

[Andy Jacobson]

Howdy,

I work on several different Macs, and I don't have a .mac account to  
perform address book, keychain, and iCal synching (although maybe I  
should).  I don't try to keep these machines all perfectly in-sync  
with one another, but I do try to set up new machines with the data  
from an older machine.  Usually you do this during the OS  
installation by connecting two machines with a firewire cable...the  
installation utility does a great job of moving everything over.   
Recently however, I started using a machine for which I wasn't free  
to wipe & reinstall.  This meant that I had to migrate all my  
settings and data by hand...yuck.

First, from the horse's mouth, here's how to move Address Book data,  
keychains, Mail settings, and Safari bookmarks:  http:// 
docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301239.  One clarification:   
keychains are just single, simple files, located in ~/Library/ 
Keychains.  They can be freely copied to a new machine.

I don't use Safari, mainly because I prefer the AdBlock and  
FlashBlock add-ons in Firefox.  I pay the penalty of not being able  
to store web passwords in my keychains, and some releases of Firefox  
can be slow or crash-prone.  I am in syncing Nirvana with Firefox,  
however, thanks to the excellent Google Browser Sync add-on.  It  
optionally syncs cookies, saved passwords, bookmarks, history, and  
even tabs & windows.  It falls into the category of "everything just  
works" (for me anyway--your mileage may vary).  This is all done via  
a Google account...i.e., you have to sign up for Gmail first.

Another benefit of having a Google account is that you *can* do some  
interesting calendar synching, but that should be the topic of  
another discussion.  It's a little complex, and the best features  
require that you have access to a webDAV server.  Any interest in a  
write-up about that?

Cheers,

Andy

--
Andy Jacobson
andy.jacobson at noaa.gov

NOAA Earth System Research Lab
Global Monitoring Division
325 Broadway
Boulder CO 80305

303/497-4916