A Work Of Obsanity

I let my .Mac expire several months ago after going back and forth in regards to renewing it. A lot of people complain about the price, $99 for a year, but I feel for the average computer user it is a good deal, especially if you don’t have a web host. I do however have a host so I was basically shelling out a Ben Franklin ever year for one reason: keeping my laptop in sync with my desktop. Or more specifically, keeping my Address Book, iCal and Safari bookmarks current on my portable.

Having joined the growing number of people who are leaving .Mac behind I needed a solution to the above problem. For the past several months I have been using Apple’s Remote Desktop, which is an incredible program, to log into my MacBook Pro to replace those three folders with the current data from my PowerMac. But wouldn’t you know, being the type of person I am, I would occasionally forget to do that and find myself on the road with an outdated calendar and missing that one new phone number from my address book that I added the day prior. It was time to get squared up, I thought.

I fired up Automator and quickly got to work. I have a purchased copy of the awesome FTP program called Transmit which already has a few plug-ins available. Using a couple of those, along with several from the Finder category, I knew the hard part was already done and I just needed to build the process.

For this workflow to function, you must have Transmit installed!

The first thing I decided to do was to make a place on my web server outside my public_html directory where I could store my files but also have the security of keeping them away from prying eyes. I created a folder in my root called “data”, but you can call it whatever you want.

Next I went back into Automator and started building the first application which would grab the data from those three programs and put it in that directory I just made on the server. There are three folders in the workflow that you will need to change from the values I have listed.

TIGER > Users > abraham > Library > Application Support > Address Book
TIGER > Users > abraham > Library > Application Support > iCal
TIGER > Users > abraham > Library > Safari

Most likely you will have “Macintosh HD” instead of “TIGER” and your username will certainly not be “abraham”. So click on the [ + ] button for the first section called “Get Specified Finder Items” to add your three variables and then highlight each of the original three and click the [ - ] to erase mine.

I now needed to copy those three folders and place them on the Desktop by using the “Copy Finder Items” command. Once done, I then followed that up with the “Create Archive” command so I have a nice and tidy ZIP file to upload to my server. I decided to call the achive “DATA.zip” which you can see in the third command.

It’s time to use one of those default Transmit plug-ins to get this ZIP archive online. I have used generic values in the workflow that you will need to replace with your own FTP settings. The once that you need to make sure you also change is the last one called “Upload Path”. This is going to be that folder you created outside of your public_html folder that I did in Step 1. I called my folder “data”, and using the format in which my server is set up, the value for that field is “data/”.

The last thing I needed to do was to get rid of all those temporary files that are now on my Desktop. I am very particular about clutter and the less time I have to look at those files, the better. The last two commands in the workflow, “Get Specified Finder Items” and “Move To Trash” do just that. Now everything is nice and tidy again!

I saved the workflow and then re-saved it but this time turned it into an application which I called “Sync Up”. I copied over the icon from my iSync application and placed it on my desktop. Make sure you read my tip at the bottom of this how-to.

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Now that my data is successfully achived and placed in a private directory on my web server, the only thing to do next is to pull it off using my laptop and replacing the old files. The process is virtually the same but reversed. This is going to require a new workflow which we will again turn into a stand alone application once it is completed.

This first step for getting our data off the server should be an obvious one; we need to log in and download it. I used the same data for the server settings as I did uploading it with one difference; the “Direction” needs to be adjusted so it reads “Download”.

This next step took some trial and error. Not because of what needed to be done, but because my computer was doing it to fast. Basically, we want to tell the Finder to located the “DATA.zip” file it just downloaded and open it up so all the files expand on to the Desktop. I had to put a pause for 5 seconds before and after this step because… well, I just did.

It’s time to remove (or delete) the old data from all three applications. Just like in the first version we did to upload the files, you can use the “Get Specified Finder Items” command to do this. Make sure, just as you did above, to use the [ + ] to add your own file paths and then the [ - ] to remove the three of mine that are there by default. After that a simple “Move to Trash” and another “Pause” command help round out this task.

We have three folders to take care of. Two of them (Address Book and iCal) go into the “Library/Application Support” folder while the other (Safari) goes just in the “Library” folder. Same as above, we use the “Get Specified Finder Items” along with the “Copy Finder Items” to complete these two separate tasks. By doing this we are essentially replacing the files we just deleted.

The only thing left to do now is clean up! Again with the “Get Specified Finder Items” to select the two temporary files on the Desktop along with a “Move to Trash” to round out this download application.

Make sure you save this as a workflow on your portable (or where ever you are downloading the files to) along with saving this as an application bundle.

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So there you have it. Two applications, one for each computer, and ten minutes of your time is all it took to remain friends with Mr. Franklin. I took this one step further by creating an iCal calendar called “Sync” and making a daily entry that launches the appropriate program. For example, my desktop alerts iCal at 6:00 every morning to run the upload application. At 6:30 a.m. my laptop runs an iCal event to launch the download program. Using this method, if I decide to go work from the pub coffee house one day instead of from home, my laptop has all my current information.

Download Automator Files