ChronoSync - Simple, reliable back-ups

So when is the last time you've done a back-up of your computer? Most people think about doing back-ups just after their hard drive crashes...which is about 2 seconds too late. Apple has provided a great tool in the recent years with their OS, Time Machine. Time Machine is a great application. If you plug a high capacity drive into your Mac, it will ask you if you want to use Time Machine to create a back-up. However, Time Machine isn't for everyone. Specifically, if you don't want to back up your whole hard drive, maybe you just want to back up specific folders. An example of this would be if you wanted to take a group of files from work to home and back (and for some reason didn't use DropBox) you wouldn't want to use Time Machine.

Let's say we have  a folder on our work computer that we need to work on at home or at work. So we copy the folder onto a flashdrive and carry it with us. Even if you only work off the files on the flashdrive when you're at home, you now have 2 copies of these files: one on the flashdrive and one at work. It won't take long and you'll have them out of sync. Enter ChronoSync to solve the problem and keep you in sync.

ChronoSync allows you to select folders that you want to synchronize between two different drives. There are tons of features in this application. It will archive files that are deleted, synchronize files between drive or from one drive to another, start when a drive is mounted, or on a set schedule, and so on. Even with Time Machine, I still prefer ChornoSync. I have two large external hard drives, one at home and one at my office. Every week I connect my laptop to these drives and ChronoSync goes to work. It looks for files I've changed or deleted and makes sure that whatever I've done on my laptop is backed up to the external drives. It's fast and reliable. I have it set to back up only the information I work with, not all my applications and files. Just my "stuff" like my documents, photos, music, and so on. In the event that I need to recover something, I can connect to one of these drives and recover the file(s) I need.

The archiving feature has also been a real help at times. I've deleted files, only to realize a month later, I really shouldn't have deleted them. ChronoSync keeps an archive of files I've deleted for 6 months (this is a setting you can change). If 6 months have gone by, I likely don't remember the file or what was in it, so ChronoSync will delete it for me.

There are two other great features of ChronoSync. First, you don't have to sync to a large hard drive. You could set this up to sync files/folders to a jumpdrive if you wanted. The other great thing about ChronoSync is the company. They provide lifetime updates for free. So as they improve the application, you don't have to shell out more money to get the improvements. You just have to download and install the new version.

If you don't have a back-up strategy, get one and use it. Technology fails, that is part of what technology gives us. Technology also has a very keen sense about when would be the worst possible time to fail. So back your information up.

MobileMe

When MobileMe (formerly .Mac) first came out, I paid my fee to be a loyal Apple supporter. I never actually used any of the products. I had my own web server so I didn't need online storage or websites. Nor did I need another email address. After things for Apple started to turn around, I let my subscription lapse.
Then something happened. I kept all my information (e.g., calendar, contacts, and so on) on my laptop and I synced all of this info with my iPhone on a regular basis. I also regularly backed everything up. Then I got a shiny new iMac in my office. This meant I wasn't taking my laptop back and forth to campus any more. However, I wanted to have all my information synced between the two computers and my iPhone.

I started looking at solutions like the apps from Google, like Google Calendar but I was just seeing too many hurdles to make it all work. The price for many of these options was really low and even free, but the set-up and hoops just seems like a barrier. So I started using using MobileMe. Like most things Apple, it just works. My contacts, bookmarks, calendars, etc are all synced between my computers, iPhone and now my iPad. If I make a change on one, it's updated everywhere. Also, I can access this info from the Web if I'm without my iPhone or computer. Additionally, the "Find my iPhone/iPad" option found at me.com is huge! iPhones/iPads aren't cheap and the ability to locate it and even lock it remotely is worth the yearly subscription cost.

While $99 a year is a little salty, the convenience is worth the cost. In addition, I do get 20GB of storage online and it could handle some back-ups, etc. I don't use those features, but they are available if I needed them. It is pretty handy to put albums up from iPhoto for others to download images. I don't have to do much to get the album up there so it's a time saver for me as well.

If you haven't tried MobileMe, you can try if for free for 60 days. If you have multiple devices, I'll bet you find it worth the $99 a year.