Setting Up .Mac Sync

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With the advent of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Apple integrated something called .Mac Sync into the operating system. This simply means that Mac OS X knows how to talk to your .Mac account and share your important information with it. To enable your Mac to do that, you first have to set up the .Mac System Preferences to work properly.

To set up .Mac Sync

1.

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu to open the application.


System Preferences launches, and the main System Preferences window opens.

2.

Click the .Mac icon in the Internet & Network section (Figure 5.2).

Figure 5.2. Click the .Mac icon to load the .Mac preferences.


The .Mac pane opens, with the Account tab selected by default (Figure 5.3).

Figure 5.3. The .Mac pane opens, by default, to the Account tab.


3.

Make sure your .Mac member name and password are entered in the .Mac Member Name and Password fields, respectively.

4.

Click the Sync tab.

The .Mac Sync preferences load (Figure 5.4).

Figure 5.4. Clicking the Sync tab opens the .Mac Sync preferences, where you can control what is synchronized, and when.


5.

At the top of the pane, check the Synchronize with .Mac check box. This turns .Mac synchronization on.

6.

From the Synchronize with .Mac pop-up menu, choose whether you want synchronizations to take place automatically, every hour, every day, every week, or manually (Figure 5.5).

Figure 5.5. From the pop-up menu, you can choose whether synchronizations happen automatically, hourly, daily, weekly, or manually.


7.

Check the boxes next to the items you want synchronized. Your choices are Bookmarks, Calendars, Contacts, Keychains, Mail Accounts, and Mail Rules, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes (for a rundown on each of these, see the sidebar "What .Mac Sync Synchronizes").

8.

If you want to have the Sync icon appear in the menu bar, check the "Show status in menu bar" check box at the bottom of the window.

9.

From the System Preferences menu, choose Quit (Command-Q) to quit System Preferences and save your .Mac sync changes (Figure 5.6).

Figure 5.6. From the System Preferences menu, choose Quit System Preferences to quit the application and save your changes.


Tip

  • You can click the Sync Now button at the bottom of the .Mac Sync preferences window to perform a synchronization at any time.


What .Mac Sync Synchronizes

You may be curious about what each of those check boxes in the .Mac Sync preferences represents. After all, it's good to know what information gets synchronized to your .Mac account. Here's a rundown:

  • Bookmarks Your Safari bookmarks

  • Calendars Your iCal calendars

  • Contacts Your Address Book contact information

  • Keychains Your Keychain-managed login information (including passwords)

  • Mail Accounts Your Mail account information for all accounts

  • Mail Rules, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes Rules, signatures, and any Smart Mailboxes that you've set up


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    .Mac. Visual QuickStart Guide
    .Mac
    ISBN: 032130473X
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 97

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