Comments on: Using the Cloud to Setup a New Mac

By: พระเครื่อง

พระเครื่อง — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:51:13 +0000

It’s very useful for me. Thank you. ข่าวพระเครื่อง ตะกรุด มีด เว็บฝากรูป

By: Chris Weiss

Chris Weiss — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:02:11 +0000

Geoff – It doesn’t seem to happen to everyone. I think it’s due to the initial Mac setup was from the factory and I did the restore using an OS-X Leopard disk (couldn’t find the original Macbook CDs at the time). I’m OK with it doing that in the name of security and all, but it sure would be nice to have gotten a dialog or at least been aware of it before hand (I would have spent more time looking for the original CDs!)

By: Geoff Caplan

Geoff Caplan — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:47:50 +0000

I did not experience any of the the changes and issues that you did. Guess I was lucky.

By: Chris Weiss

Chris Weiss — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:45:23 +0000

I used Time Machine to do a full restore when I upgraded the hard disk in one of my Macs. The restore operation itself was pretty smooth, but I found it made several changes (I believe in the name of security) to the restored image that have me no longer trusting it. The most frustrating one was to reset my login password (I had to boot off the OS-X disk and use the Password Reset utility to get it back). It also disabled all file sharing.

Also +1 on Jono’s suggestion of using DropBox rather than iDisk. I’m always getting random “could not connect” errors when using iDisk, but DropBox seems to be pretty bulletproof. Like iDisk, it’s also got a Windows client and Web interface.

By: Geoff Caplan

Geoff Caplan — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:32:03 +0000

I see there is some disagreement with my method of migrating from the older MacBook to the new one, but using the Time Machine back up data from an external hard drive was extremely easy, seamless and quick. It worked great for me. I was surprised and pleased at how perfectly it worked.

By: Jono

Jono — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:45:07 +0000

I’ve tried using iDisk to sync automatically between 2 Macs a few times, but it’s been an awful experience. Not sure if it’s because I’m in the UK but iDisk is painfully slow for me.

I left one Mac doing nothing but uploading about 1 GB of data. Weeks went by with sync errors, conflicts etc. (even though the data was supposedly only uploading 1 way to the cloud). In the end I’ve had to scrap the idea of using the iDisk at all.

Now using Dropbox for my data files which has been working flawlessly.

By: chris weiss

chris weiss — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:23:01 +0000

I follow much the same process when setting up/restoring a new Mac. The one additional tool I like to use is AppFresh in combination with iusethis.com. It stores a profile of apps I use and automates the process of downloading or updating said apps just about as smoothly as is possible (some apps with dynamic download pages will cause AppFresh to spawn a browser window and ask you to click a download link link).

By: Tom Reestman

Tom Reestman — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:56:31 +0000

This wasn’t a typical transfer of data from an old Mac to a new one. It’s one where most of the data I wanted is synced in some fashion.

Almost all the data I want on both machines is synced on my iDisk (where most of my non-media documents reside). Just copying that data between machines would not maintain the sync. And simply migrating the sparsebundle file to a new machine does not “rebuild” the iDisk. A sync is necessary at some point to keep both machines in, well, sync.

In my view, it was best to just have a fresh iDIsk built from the Cloud. This guarantees data integrity from the start. Likewise, may as well freshly sync the other MobileMe options.

Perhaps another way to envision this is that the iMac wasn’t the true “source” of migrated data. In a synced world, the Cloud is.

By: Armas

Armas — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:26:45 +0000

Wow, you usually spend more time setting up a new Mac? It seems like a lot of extra work you did there. Why not allow Migration assistant via gigabit ethernet ( faster than FW400) and have the whole user moved into the macbook in minutes? Then everything would be exactly the way it is on the iMac.
I don’t get it… am I missing something?

By: Geoff Caplan

Geoff Caplan — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:22:31 +0000

I just sold my black MacBook and bought the new silver MacBook. I used TimeMachine from ane xternal hard drive to configure the new computer. It was flawless. TimeMachine brought in all of my former settings, applications and files from the older MacBook. I highly recommend this method of going from one Mac to another. I was amazed at how well it worked.