Quote:
Originally Posted by
JeffDM 
For me, the biggest problem with a satellite mobile computer has to be synchronization. To be honest, I haven't looked terribly hard, but I'm surprised I haven't heard about some kind of automatic data & file synchronization software for computers, seems like it should be a pretty big issue. Mobile Me offers synchronization, but their page doesn't say anything about files that I've found, that's kind of out unless you only use iDisk. From what I've been reading and hearing, iPad does a lot better but doesn't completely resolve it (I think Andy Inhatko called it a reprise of sneakernet), at least docking it makes a backup of everything that's on it.
Mobile Me (iDisk) does a good job for any files you keep on the disk. They are synchronized between all computers. There are a couple of problems with it:
1. If you have a file open on two different computers (or if you change a file and then shut down the computer before it synchronizes, and then open it on a different computer), they can get out of sync.
2. This one is not well known - but Time Machine does not back up your local iDisk folder - so if there's a problem with a file on the iDisk, you don't have a backup. There is a third party solution for backing up iDisk, though.
3. Limited size. My iDisk is 20 GB which is plenty for word processing documents, spreadsheets, etc, but far too small to back up my library of video, photos, and music.
What I've started doing is a little different. I bought a Mac Mini Server and have ALL my files on that. Any time I create a new document, I save it to that server. That way, it's always available to all my computers. If I forget and leave a file open on one computer, it tells me and allows me to open as read-only.
For my iPad, I use LogMeIn to connect to the server. My iPad now has access to not only all my files, but also all the applications that don't run on the iPad (including Flash).
This isn't perfect. It counts on always having internet access - and there's a delay, depending on how fast Internet service is in a location. But it works very well.