Syncronze Laptop and Desktop

Question

Just bought a laptop. Is there a way to sync the two computers data? I was hoping for some thing similar to what I do with my Palm. If I can't, the two most import items are several Appleworks data bases and Quicken. I would like to make entries or changes on either computer, sync and have the same data on each at the end of the day.
Thanks,
Stu

Answer 1

If you have a local network you can transfer files between computers via the network by using file sharing. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "sharing." Also see:
How to Create a Small Ethernet Network
Tiger - Networks & Sharing
You can connect the two computers via Firewire cable and use Target Disk Mode to transfer files between computers.
You can purchase an external Firewire drive and use it to create a common backup of each computer. When files are changed on one computer those changes are backed up to the external drive. Then connect the drive to the other computer and update the computer from the backup. This method has the added feature of providing you with a separate, bootable backup.
All of the above can be done using backup utilities (the network method requires a backup utility that supports network devices.) Use one that has both "backup" and "synchronizing" capabilities.
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
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