The Real Deal 148: Mac and PC side by side

If you use a Mac and a PC, we have some tips for making the combination smooth and in sync.

MS Live Sync Box.net Dropbox. http://www.getdropbox.com/ has versioning, sharing, but $100/yr for 50GB

Office sort of - or Open Office Google Docs

VMWare Fusion shared folders settings for e-mail/mailtos

WHS for backup

LogMeIn^? for remote access Or MS Remote Desktop from Mac to PC

A good stand! -mStand

Apps that sync themselves Foxmarks Evernote Google docs

Things to make a Mac more like a PC Witch - adds alt-tab equiv Input Remapper - http://www.olofsson.info/ MacFuse^? and NTFS3g - Read AND write NTFS drives. http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ -- Tom's video on MacFuse^? - http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-32399.html

Via twitter: pcubed: @Rafe Dropbox, Office/OpenOffice, & using syncable e-mail/contacts (like Gmail) help alot.

julianrendell: @Rafe freeware tool called synergy. Lets you 'remote' keyboard and mouse from 1 machine to others. Also cut & paste. But bit odd to setup.

*

Hi Rafe,

* I use MSFT RDC to get into my work computer when I'm working from home or in another office. I have an old iBook G4 on the go and I must say it runs much smoother than I would have imagined. On my Intel iMac, it works very well!

* I've also found that Keynote in the iWork suite from Apple exports to PowerPoint^? and can be read by my Windows machine better than the same export from PowerPoint^? for Mac does. I did a presentation in PowerPoint^? for Mac and I discovered that it didn't save my images properly when opened in Windows.. some sort of Mac only image format. When using Keynote I didn't have these problems.

* I use more web apps now that I'm in a multicomputer / multiplatform environment. Google Reader is my easy way to keep up with my RSS feeds regardless of any computer I'm using.

* MSFT Office can sync with Google Calendar now and that now sync with Apple iCal. I know it works in principle, but I'm a little scared to try it and lose all of my events.

I still have not found the holy grail to sync my contacts effortlessly between Outlook (and therefore my Blackberry) and Apple Address Book.

Hope this helps,

Kenric

*

Rafe,

Foxmarks just released v1.0 of "Foxmarks for Safari"; also Internet Explorer (for Windows) is available but still in beta.

A good backup service that's cheap and accessible via the web or through a mounted share drive on a Mac or PC is JungleDisk^?. It works in tandem with Amazon's S3 service and is dirt cheap to sync files on a very regular basis. I don't think I've ever paid more than $2.00 in a month, usually more like a dollar or so. They make Mac & Windows versions of the client that integrates with S3 and performs the backups, etc.

RDC is worth noting as a method to connect to a PC from your Mac and vice-versa.

Picasa from Google has a Mac client now, so users of that photo service have alternatives for both Mac & Windows now.

Isn't there also another Microsoft product other than Live Sync? It's some sort of backup/file storage service. I can't recall the name at the moment, but I think it's free.

OK, that's what I've got for you.

Carl

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