I just got a shiny new Apple laptop to compliment my desktop Mac. Is there a way to easily keep files synchronized between the two computers? For example, I have a folder full of important documents. If I add or change a file in this folder on my laptop, I’d want it to automatically add it to my desktop as well. I could do it manually through the network of course, but is there an easy automated Apple-it-just-works way of doing it? You can sync address books and email through .mac, but not actual files as far as I can tell.
I’d also like to keep my iTunes files syncronized, so if I buy a song on my laptop I can easily upload it to my desktop.
You can sync files through .mac but you do have to pay about $100 a year for it.
Some cheaper options that don’t involve trusting your files to the internet are discussed here
I keep one master, and then just use the built-in rsync to sync to my other Mac and my NAS box. It’s quick as hell, but you really need one “master” box.
Heh, and here I was, specifically not mentioning rsync because it’s more of a “geeky” than “Mac-like” way to do the job as it’s a Unix utility. Truth be told, most commercial file sync apps are using rsync internally, but natively, it’s not particularly user-friendly.
eg: if you know what this means:
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/stuff/ othermac:"~ftp/pub/yourname/stuff"
you are a Grade A Unix geek and wouldn’t be asking about file sync utilities. 
Not a grade A Unix geek myself (despite this), but I’m not uncomfortable there. It took me a long time to adopt rsync because I wanted to do it the Mac way, but nothing else ever suited me. It actually wasn’t rsync that was the learning curve, but figuring out how to set up public-key authentication for ssh between the Macs and Linux box that made me drag my feet! It was worth it, though.