Shared account between iMac and Mac mini

[Fleetwood Mac]

First off, if this has been asked before, I'm terribly sorry. I did check the search page, but couldn't find anything relevant.

Here's my situation:
I have had a Mac mini for about two-three months now. It was a major upgrade for me, I had had a G3 box since around 2001. The speed (for the mini) was ok. I was kind of disappointed at how much memory OS X uses compared to any of the classic systems. Anyways, I've been using it quite happily (it runs everything great except for Office and Limewire-saddly my favorite two applications), but was looking forward to the day when I could get an upgrade. Upon seeing that more RAM (1GB) would cost me about half as much as the mini, I decided this probably wasn't the best route.

So, we bought and iMac. Its great, real zippy. It runs Office and Limewire to my liking and has lots of cool goodies I don't know how I lived without. Now, I find myself with a problem though. I have two computers with two separate user accounts. This is hurting my productivity quite a lot. If it were up to me, I'd use the iMac all day, but there are other people living here and I wouldn't want to deprive them of this lovely machine (iMac/Lizzie).

Is there a way to keep my user accounts synchronized? I don't mind getting my hands a little dirty with the setup, but I've only been using OS X occasionally for a year or so (full time the past three months) and my unix skills are somewhat non-existant. I'll need a good readme/guide.

The accounts don't need to be completely synchronized if that'll end up being problematic, but things most important to me are mail, music, and documents. I don't care about speed at this point.

One last thing, as I mentioned, I did just purchase an iMac. Budget for this project is zero. I have an abundance of extra hardware lying around though, so there's always a chance I might have something you think would help.

If this impossible, I don't mind you telling me so.

Thanks,
-iDuck

 

[OutThere]

I'd say you should set up a log-in item that is an applescript or shell script that runs the rsync utility.

Rsync is a program that finds the differences between two locations and copies files to match.

You can get started by opening the terminal and typing "man rsync". This will give you enough information to pour over for a while.

I may be able to help out but I don't have time to figure out the exact rsync command you should be using for your specific situation.

If someone knows an easier way, do tell.

 

[trainguy77]

hmmm this really has got me thinking. I don't know if this idea would work.....and it would give you performance slow downs when on the mini(don't know how much) but what create a alias pointing to your home drive on your imac. And replace your home folder on your mini with the alias. You would have to create the alias on the mini of coarse. But this may not work as file permissions may cause problems, but if you do try to do it, make certain both user names are the same and have the same password. Second don't do it with your primary account create another account to try it on. Just in case as this is just a idea never tried it.

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

hmmm this really has got me thinking. I don't know if this idea would work.....and it would give you performance slow downs when on the mini(don't know how much) but what create a alias pointing to your home drive on your imac. And replace your home folder on your mini with the alias. You would have to create the alias on the mini of coarse. But this may not work as file permissions may cause problems, but if you do try to do it, make certain both user names are the same and have the same password. Second don't do it with your primary account create another account to try it on. Just in case as this is just a idea never tried it.

I thought about this. In classic I think it would have been easier, but in OS X replacing any file with a network alias is hell. You have to jump through hoops to even mount a network on login, let alone tricking the computer into thinking its a system drive. If you can think of a way to make this work though, I'm ears open.

I've seen rsync. I kind of tried it, it was real super complicated and I can't find any good guides for what I'm trying to do here. I suppose it might be my only option.