Posted on March 21, 2007 at 5:04 PM in how-to
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
I've been looking for the smoothest possible way to work from two different Macs (one at home and one at work) with an absolute minimum of hassle and without resorting to all web applications. I stumbled upon a solution about two weeks ago, and it's been working out great.
In addition to the two computers, you need four things:
- A suitable USB flash drive - mine is 2 gigs but the bigger the better
- OSX Portable Apps
- A syncing utility for safekeeping (ChronoSync works, or an automator script would work too)
- A jaw to go slack with amazement
The OSX portable apps are a suite of Mac applications written to run off of a flash drive. They cost between free and $2 suggested donation, and are well worth it. The instruction text and system messages are a little cryptic, so this isn't for the faint of heart.
The basic process is to install each application on your USB flash drive, and then run it from there. The first time you run it, the application will ask if it's ok to copy your preferences from the computer to the drive. Click "ok", and wait. It took a good long while, especially for Portable Mail, and it may look like nothing's happening. Plan for some time away from your desk, and let the process run its course.
When it's done, from then on whenever you want to use the application, run it from the flash drive. You'll be carrying all of the associated files around with you, so if you then want to run the same application from another computer, all you have to do is plug in the flash drive and run the app from there. I use portable Firefox, iChat, Address Book, and Mail.
Because you're now carrying your very important preferences and data around with you, you'll probably want to have good backups in case you forget your flash drive, get caught in a rainstorm, or forget to take the lanyard off when you take a shower. I've found two ways to do this -- ChronoSync($30) or an Automator script (free plus elbow grease and know-how). I've set ChronoSync to listen for the flash drive being mounted, and automatically make/sync a back up to my computer every time that happens.
You'll also want to look at SyncPAppX, which can re-sync your flash drive apps to your desktop apps if they ever fall out of sync (if you accidentally use the desktop versions for a while, for example).
If you try this out and get stuck at any point, let me know and I'll add some more detail.
Special thanks to a Lifehacker article for the pointer, and to FREESmug for creating the oh-so-useful PortableApps.
Comments
Ooooo. i just may have to try this out. Thanks for the tip Dave :]
Posted by chris holland | March 21, 2007 5:13 PM
I'm glad it's working out for you. I would probably do the same thing if I had more on-site work with a Mac and/or I used my laptop outside the apartment often. It might be cool if there was some way to do this online, like have some site you could log in to and have it take over those settings (though I would imagine there would also be some privacy and security concerns).
Posted by Jeff D. | March 23, 2007 2:18 AM