Apple "mobile me" as a backup solution?
 

I know squat about Mobile Me.

But my dad just bought it to connect his various devices, mac, and so forth with respect to e-mail, calendar entries, etc. What he would also like to have happen is his "My Documents" folder automatically synced with his iDisk (say every night or something), allowing him to be able to access files from on the road. But he doesn't want to have to drag them over (lest he forget to do it), and wants it to occur automatically.

I did some googling but couldn't figure out how to make that happen. And not being a subscriber, I wouldn't know how to start having him click around on the mac to figure it out.

Any suggestions?

sounds like sugarsync might be a better solution for him. You can pick and choose all the folders you want it to automatically back up to the cloud. (you can also pick and choose which folders automatically sync between your computers, but that's not what he wants, but it's an added benefit for those with more than one computer, plus it's pc and mac, and also allows access from the internet to your saved files, just like all the others do.)

It's basically got the "set it up once and leave it alone" feature you are looking for. Occasionally it will prompt the user to let it update itself to the next version. You just click ok and type in the passwd when prompted, and it does the rest.

I don't have mobile me or idisk, and the impression I got from reading about it is that idisk is like dropbox, it's a separate dedicated directory (folder).

-David

I've been very pleased with Syncplicity; don't know how much data he has but <2GB is free. Don't know enough about your devices to know whether this is an option but the interface and process is very easy.

They all offer some amount of free space.

Does syncplicity let you pick and choose folders for backup? That would be the key here.

-David

Yes, it does.

Google Docs is free but is a more manual process unless he can change his habits and do all his editing online.

Not possible due to citation managers and such.

It sounds like mobile me won't do what he wants and he'll need another service. Thanks all!

Or you could use MobileMe....
 

MobileMe works nicely with Backup; it's a free utility that moves files and settings from your Mac to your MobileMe iDisk. Takes about a minute to setup for default daily backup of calendar and other settings files. Here how it looks in action. You can modify the default settings backup to add extra files. Not sure how well it would work with large file backups.

Dropbox
 

Cheaper than MobileMe and easier sharing over many computers.

Access via anywhere over the web.

http://www.dropbox.com/

Free (with pay option) and syncs across the board. Just save everything into the native Dropbox folder after installing the app and you're golden. Also comes with an iPhone app.

As for email and calendar, if your father is using an iPhone, you can set it up to synchronize calendars and contacts with gmail. You can also set up iCal in a similar manner and everything should be good to go.

Set up is a little more intensive with gmail but I have found that they offer vastly superior mobile access than MobileMe. Tried checking my email with MobileMe (before I canceled) on my dad's Blackberry (before I had my own iPhone) and it wasn't supported. Nor was it supported on some older browsers. Deal breaker.

Did you really read the OP? He said "automatic". Dropbox is great, but not automatic.

-David

My Dropbox folder syncs automatically without any action from me. What do you mean by "not automatic"?

And I second the gmail calendars and mail suggestion - exactly what I use - with my iPhone and any client. As soon as I debug/de-dupe/prune my address book, I'll be using gmail's contacts as well.

From the OP ...

dropbox is great. I use it too, but it doesn't do that. Like you said, it backs up and syncs everything in your special dropbox folder.

-David

All the OP has to do is copy everything in their Documents folder over to the dropbox folder and treat it as the native Documents folder (as in saving anything meant for the Documents folder in the dropbox one). Not that hard, really, unless selecting the dropbox folder in the sidebar and spending that extra millisecond is seriously tough work. Anything saved in the dropbox folder, as reiterated numerous times, will automatically be synced.

The OP asked for a solution that didn't include copying files to a special folder. It's all there in the OP if you would just take the time to read it. It's not what you or I want or what you think is reasonable.

There are several suggestions in this thread that meet the OPs requirements for his Dad. I imagine that because it was for his Dad, ease of use and not requiring manual copy (or remembering to save documents to a special location) was a key requirement.

Over and out.

-David