I have one music library on my iMac (running Snow Leopard) and another on my MacBook Pro (BootCamp – running Windows 7 Ultimate).  My wife purchases music on the iMac and I purchase from my laptop.  Sometimes we use iTunes, other times we use Wal-Mart.com.  Hence the need for a sync utility.  I came across Microsoft’s Live Sync while looking for a platform agnostic utility to sync my music library.

Live Sync

Windows Live Sync is an application and web service used to synchronize files and folders across multiple computers and with multiple users.  You can sync up to 20 different folders with up to 20,000 files each.  It also provides a nice web interface for browsing your remote computers’ hard drives (don’t worry, it’s all encrypted).

You can invite friends to share/sync folders and grant permissions as readers, contributors or owners.

In theory, this should have worked great.  My problem was that I already had folders that were out of sync with each other.  Live Sync seemed to have a hard time with this.  It was also quite slow in syncing 10+ GB over the internet.

I use this to quickly and conveniently access files on my home network from anywhere in the world.  This could also be a great solution for musicians who are working on a project remotely.  It’s a user-friendly, FREE way to sync your music projects.

Live Mesh

Home Brew

So, I learned about a couple nice utilities from Microsoft that run smoothly on Mac, but at this point I’ve decided to write my own folder sync utility in C#.  It’s a console app right now.  I have the following config settings available:

• Local folder location
• Remote folder location (supports UNC paths for network shares)
• Copy from local to remote
• Copy from remote to local
• Enable verbose logging
• Log file location
• Append or overwrite log file
• Overwrite files if source is larger – if there are files of different sizes with the same name in the same folder. This option will overwrite the destination file if the source file is larger
• File types to exclude (I use this because I don’t want DS_Store files copied to Windows and I don’t want desktop.ini or .lnk files copied to the Mac)

So far so good.  I copied 10 gigs of files in 5000 directories (on a local 100Mbps network) in about 20 minutes.  This could come in handy if you need to sync a local folder with a network share at work.  Thoughts from the peanut gallery?  Should I turn it into a windows app and post it here for download?

Click here to check out a great blog post about Live Sync, Live Mesh and SkyDrive.

I logged onto Facebook this morning and one of my “friends” had posted a link to something he thought was funny.  It had profanity in the title.  I’m not a fan of profanity, but didn’t want to flat out block my friend, so I went in search of a profanity filter at UserScripts.org. To my delight, I found one and it works great!  For the script to work, you’ll need Firefox, Greasemonkey and the Profanity Filter (install in that order).

I’ve been a devout Firefox convert for a couple years now.  While impressed with Chrome and Safari, I just can’t leave Firefox.  I’ll even concede that, “in my humble opinion”, IE 8 SEEMS FASTER THAN FIREFOX?!  GASP!!! Dare I say?  Nevertheless, the “Add On” features of Firefox will keep me a Firefox user unless the competition does something about it.  Here are my top 5 “Can’t Live Without” add-ons:

1. AdBlock Plus – I haven’t seen an ad on a website in a couple years.  I bet I wouldn’t recognize half the sites I visit if this add-on was disabled!
2. Firebug – a web developer MUST have (features in Safari and IE are comparable, but not up to par)
3. GreaseMonkey – Runner user scripts to make the net more enjoyable.  Here are a few of my favorite scripts:
   1. ExpertsExhangeFilter
   2. Google Account Multi-Logon
   3. PROFANITY FILTER (keep reading)
   4. Facebook Purity: For those annoying survey results on Facebook…blah!
4. CoolIris – The coolest way to search Craigslist!
5. TwitterFox (recently renamed to Echofon, horrible name!) / TinyURL Generator – used in conjunction!

While I’m on the “safe browsing” kick, please check out OpenDNS.org.  Thank you OpenDNS.org, Mozilla, Greasemonkey and the countless open source developers for helping me keep the garbage out of my house!  Surfing without OpenDNS, AdBlock plus and Profanity Filter is like driving without your seat belt fastened.

UPDATE:  This Profanity Filter script for Greasemonkey seems to work with far less latency than the aforementioned.  It also allows for customized replacement strings.

Synergy rocks. In their own words:

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).  Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.

Synergy has been around for awhile.  I don’t pretend to be revealing a hidden gem.  So why do I share?  Because I’ve got an interesting setup that I hope someone else may find useful!  Also, my mother told me to share.

The majority of my time at work is spent in .NET development.  I have a MacBook Pro configured to dual boot to Windows 7 (Boot Camp) and it runs like a champ.  My company’s VPN is such that it disables connections to the general internet.  When I connect to my VPN, I lose my internet connection.  Nooo, it doesn’t support split tunneling or allow me to clear the “Use gateway on remote network” checkbox.  So if I want to work from home AND have an internet connection….enter Synergy! Synergy allows me to control my Windows 7 laptop AND my iMac with a single keyboard and mouse. Also, Synergy connected systems share clipboard settings.  Awww yeeaaah!

I setup my windows laptop as the Synergy server like so:

Next, I created a couple basic AppleScript scripts to connect to and disconnect from the server. The startup script assumes that you have the synergy client in a folder called “synergy” in the root directory.

Client Connect (technically, you can do this without “tell application”, but I like the visual):

tell application "Terminal"
 activate
 do script "/synergy/synergyc -f <ServerHostNameOrIpAddress>"
end tell

Client Disconnect:

set synergyName to "synergy"

set synergyPid to (do shell script "ps ax | grep " &
  (quoted form of synergyName) & " | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'")

if synergyPid is not "" then do shell script ("kill -9 " & synergyPid)

Download Synergy
Download Synergy Client Launch AppleScript
Download Synergy Client Kill AppleScript

My wife makes BEAUTIFUL, custom wooden puzzles.  I used to run a site for her under the domain “PuzzleMom.com”.  However, I recently shut down the site.  She still makes great puzzles.  If you’re interested, you can email her at mowglihuff at gmail dot com.

In their own words, Cooliris “…transforms your browser into a lightning fast cinematic way to enjoy photos and videos from the web or your desktop.” I’ve been using it as a Firefox plug-in for about a year; though it is available for Internet Explorer and Safari as well. Whether searching for new desktop wallpaper or stock images for a website, I would use Cooliris to quickly browse thousands of photos with an Apple “CoverFlow” feel.

Recent Cooliris updates make for a GREAT way to search Craigslist. Previous versions of Cooliris appeared to open as a full screen, modal pop-up which you could “escape” out of. Their latest version actually opens a new browser tab; allowing you to bookmark your favorite image searches. Combine this with Craigslist, and you’ve got a very efficient way to peruse the world’s largest yard-sale!

I’m a musician. So, naturally, I browse Craigslist.com looking for instruments and miscellaneous recording gear at bargain basement prices. I don’t waste time looking at ads that don’t have pictures. This morning, I decided to search for musical instruments for sale in my area and noticed the Cooliris icon was illuminated. One click took me to a magical, Craigslist wonderland! And better yet, when I clicked on the images to get a closer view, the item description was listed along with all other item photos. Here’s how:

1. Download and install Cooliris
2. Browse to your local flavor or Craigslist.com
3. Drill-down to your category of choice
4. Search for listings that have images by checking the “has image’ check box (leave the search text box empty)
5. Click search and then click the illuminated Cooliris icon
6. Bookmark the Cooliris page that opens, rinse and repeat

Here are a couple screenshots I took: