The Mac Observer Forums

Search Forums   Log in to Post  

How to set my new Mac up

1 of 1 Pages

 

  • New2Mac 2007

    Posted: 18 January 2009 12:35 AM

    Hi all,

    I just bought a macbook to use for work and home.  I still have my 24” iMac which I will continue to use.

    I used the migration assistant to move alot of stuff over to my new macbook. Of course, the macbook now has the same accounts on it as my iMac did.  My question involves the use of Moble me.  With the same accounts and logins on my macbook as my iMac and I going to have any problems syncing up Moble me between the iMac, Macbook and iphone?  Already the macbook has prompted me to back up using backup to moble me.  So far I have not let it backup because I would like to have separate backups of critical files on both the MacBook and the iMac.  Do I need to change anything on my macbook to allow backup to backup my new macbook files to a new location and not overwrite my iMac backups?

    Mail seems to be working ok so far.  I had gmail set to use pop mail but I changed it to IMAP on my macbook.  I believe that if I do not change to IMAP on my iMac when I pull down messages on my iMac I will not have them on my macbook.  If I change to IMAP on my iMac will mail know that 2 different machines are accessing mail and get mail to both machines or do I need to change something on my macbook to allow this to happen.

    It seems to me that by using migration assistant I have basically made a clone of my macbook from my iMac.  I am thinking this is not a good thing from a Syncing to the cloud and email point of view.  What do I need to do to make sure everything functions so that my macs play together nicely.

    Signature

    Wow this is so much better then my old Mac Plus!
    Steve

         

  • Fastflyer

    Posted: 19 January 2009 02:06 PM #1

    I keep three macs synced. Whatever changes on one automatically appears on the others. Don’t worry - be happy! You don’t have to do anything. It just works. By the way, I have two users on each mac, so I am really syncing six users. Just make sure they are all named different so you can keep them straight. iDisk also syncs on all users. Sweet.

         

  • jpashin

    Avatar

    Posted: 19 January 2009 02:14 PM #2

    Now that you’ve used the migration assistant, you should have two nearly identical systems. Now just sync your e-mail, calendars, contacts, etc, to MobileMe, and you should be set. Each time one of the computers connects to sync, it should merge any changes or follow whatever customized behaviours you want to follow using the options in the MobileMe preference pane.

    You definitely want to use IMAP e-mail when possible. The modern way is to make the server the center of your e-mail, not an individual computer.

    You can maintain backups of critical files on MobileMe - this is where the iDisk can be very handy. Personally, I have better luck syncing files with iDisk manually rather than automatically. You can use Time Machine for this purpose. You can also use other backup utilities to automatically back up files to your local iDisk and then sync at your convenience so that changes are carried off site. I use a utility called Deja Vu for this type of activity.

         

  • bweels

    Avatar Moderator

    Posted: 19 January 2009 04:09 PM #3

    I’ve had some trouble from time to time syncing my Mac Pro and work and my iMac at home. I’ve had conflict errors come up in iCal a number of times, but the biggest one is Mail rules. I have two or three rules (out of about 25) that turn themselves off when synced. I have tried to solve it by resetting everything in MobileMe to clone my work computer, then I go home and reset everything on my iMac based on the information I uploaded earlier from work. When I start up Mail, those couple of rules have turned themselves off. Weird.

    Signature

    Brian

    It depends on what you look at, obviously,
    But even more it depends on the way that you see

         

  • New2Mac 2007

    Posted: 20 January 2009 11:34 AM #4

    Thanks for the info guys.  One thing I do not think I made clear is that while I did use migration assistant, my macs are far from near identical.  I only have a 250GB drive on the macbook and a 320 on my iMac, my iMac has a huge amount of photos on it, my macbook very few photos.  My iMac has my iTunes library on an external disk, my macbook iTunes library is on the internal drive.  I have work related documents on the macbook and I have none of these on my iMac.  I have my work email address on my macbook along with my personal email addresses but only personal email addresses on my iMac. I also run Fusion on my macbook and I do not on my iMac.

    The thing I am worried about is Backup - I still have not yet run it on my iMac because I want to have two separate backups - one of each machine.  I am afraid that if I just allow the backup, each machines backup will overwrite the others when it backs up.  With both macs having the same username (and probably computer names) what do I need to to to make sure each computer saves its own settings to my iDisk?

    Syncing mail sounds interesting but does it work in most cases?  I know bweels is having problems with it.  Would syncing email mark messages I read on my macbook as read on my iMac?  Can I do this with gmail and with .me mail?

    Signature

    Wow this is so much better then my old Mac Plus!
    Steve

         
     

1 of 1 Pages