What is the best way to make sure my laptop is as much a mirror of my desktop as I want it to be?

MobileMe can sync most all account settings. I think.

thank you Dave. I shall explore that furter as an option.

Try out the brilliant Dropbox service for 2GB of free Sync’d storage – that could prove really handy.

I would use CalDav along with Google calendar and iCal to sync my Calendars (if not going for Mobileme). You could also set your e-mail up to go through Gmail, harnessing the IMAP protocol to sync the read / unread / deleted status of e-mails in your account across both the laptop and desktop (and any other client you throw in)..

I think most things MobileMe does can be replicated if you’d rather geek out than spend, overall. It’s just a question of how you view the time spent / money trade-off.

Excellent suggestions as well benseven. That Dropbox is something else. They are really on to something! I did manage to get my email figured out. With the rest of your and Dave’s tips I think we have this.

Thanks guys!

No worries. I think the most exciting thing about Dropbox is probably that they’re looking to implement being able to specify any folder on your system as a Dropbox folder – so vital docs folders etc could be sync’d in place, rather than having to exist in ‘Dropbox’ folder.