Hi, I'm Sam.

So I have been trying to solve the problem of having my iTunes on all of my computers for a long time. I tried taking my MacBook Pro with me and mounting it in target disk mode, USB powered hard drives, and rsync (which was frustrating and I ended up giving up on that one).

I’ve been using Dropbox (a really sweet file syncing service) for a while now. It’s really hand for syncing files between my computers seamlessly. The MobileMe iDisk is super slow and doesn’t support PCs (not that I care about them though). I mainly used Dropbox to sync all of desktop wallpapers between my computers or to transfer a file quickly. We also use it at work to share a file quickly.

A few weeks ago I started syncing my iTunes library between my computers with Dropbox instead of using my portable hard drive. I had to up my space to 50GB (only $9.99 a month). It’s been awesome! It’s really easy to setup too.

Before you do any of this, I would strongly recommend backing up your entire library somewhere safe by just coping the entire iTunes folder. For my nothing happened, but just to be safe, I would do it anyway.

1. Move your iTunes folder to your Dropbox folder. This will probably take a really long time. For me it took about 8 hours.
2. Launch iTunes while holding the option key (shift on Windows).
3. Click choose library and choose your iTunes library folder in your Dropbox.

That’s it. You’re done. After a ton of waiting, you’ll be good to go.

Some important things to note, you’ll want to make sure you do not use your library on more than one computer at the same time. It will just make headaches for you. I had to go without my music for almost a whole day because it was uploading for a really long time and then had to download on my other computer for a really long time.

You should also make sure you have enough disk space for your library on all of your computers that you use Dropbox on. If you don’t it will make for some fun issues.

Feel free to email me if you have questions. Enjoy.

Update 09/03/2010: Syncing between Macs and PCs does not work due to the way they store file paths in the library file. If you're syncing between the same system, it works fine.

This is a bit technical, but designer friends have no fear.

I want my fonts on all of my computers. Dropbox makes it easy to share files between computers. Why not put my fonts in Dropbox?

Disclaimer: Backup your stuff before doing this.

1. Go to your home folder in Finder.
2. Copy your Library/Fonts folder inside your home folder into your Dropbox folder. Be sure it all copied before moving on.
3. Open Terminal in /Applications/Utilities. Don't worry. This won't be hard.
4. Type sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Fonts and press enter. It will ask you for a password, type the password you use to login to your Mac.
5. Type ln -s ~/Dropbox/Fonts ~/Library/Fonts and you're done!

That was easy right? Repeat these steps on any other Macs you use. Just drag your fonts from this folder into your Dropbox fonts folder and do steps 3-4. Enjoy.

Update: Turns out that Photoshop doesn't like this, so it's probably pointless. I thought it was a cool idea though. Stupid Photoshop.

I really love iChat. I think it's a billion times better than Adium in my opinion. Bonjour alone is really fantastic. Plus, iChat is super gorgeous and Adium is definitely not.

Anyway, there are a few preferences that I really recommend turning on to make iChat way better. To see your iChat preference, choose "iChat" from the menu bar, then "Preferences". Everything I'm going to cover is in the "Messages" tab, but there are definitely a lot of other fun things to tweak if that's your thing.

First, Save chat transcripts. Enable this preference to save all of your chat transcripts (duh). This is great (especially if you're using AIM since there is no way to get your logs online anywhere). I recommend choosing a folder in your Dropbox if you have multiple computers so you can see history in multiple places.

The next preference is my favorite: In new chat windows, show the last 25 messages. This is really great. You can close chats when you're done with them and not worry about forgetting what someone was saying. I constantly get people asking me to send them something again or are confused because they don't remember the context of our conversation. I highly recommend this one.

Finally, Collect chats in a single window. This may already be on, but if it's not, definitely turn it on. Now, instead of having a ton of chat windows, you get a really nice looks chat window that has a list of people you're talking to with their picture. It's really fantastic.

Anyway, hopefully that helps you make your chatting more enjoyable. Enjoy!

By the way, Verbs is hands down the most fantastic chat client for iPhone and iPad. Highly recommend.