Chapter 8. Using .Mac Sync

Your .Mac account doesn't just provide a great ad-free e-mail address, online storage, and the ability to whip up Web pages in a flash. It also serves as a repository for your personal informationyour Safari bookmarks, Address Book contacts, iCal calendars, Mail accounts and rules, and Mac OS X keychains (which hold encrypted passwords for various accounts).

There are two great things about this: The first is that storing this information on your .Mac account lets you transfer it easily to any other Macintosh computer. Copying the items to another Mac is as easy as logging in to your .Mac account from that computer and clicking a button. The second great thing about storing personal information on .Mac is that you can access most of this information (such as your contacts and Safari bookmarks) from just about any computer with a Web browser and an Internet connection. With a little cleverness, you can even copy your information to a cell phone, iPod, or Palm PDA.

Five software tools allow you to do this. You'll need your .Mac account, iSync, Address Book, Safari, and iCal. All of these come with the latest version of Mac OS X, and they can be downloaded from Apple for older versions of Mac OS X. A sixth important tool.Mac Syncis built right into Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger.

In this chapter, I'll show you how to set up Mac OS X 10.4's .Mac Sync, how to use it to synchronize information between two (or more) Macs using your .Mac account, and how to use iSync to integrate other devices in your synchronization routine.