EULA blues: How can I synchronize Yojimbo without .Mac?
After comparing many programs for my regular note-taking, I keep returning to Yojimbo. The tagging system and spotlight support are enough for me to find my misc notes. Syncing via .Mac has a nice wrinkle in that it will merge changes to individual files, so if you update a file on one computer, and another file on the other computer, when you sync them both changes are reflected on both machines. Still, while the tagging approach can be fast, creating more complex relationships is difficult, if not impossible. In the end, Yojimbo is not ideal, and I'm still planning on trying alternatives, but this is what I have.
What's worse, I'm kind of painted into a corner because BareBones has decided, in their wisdom, to provide no way at all to export your items except one at a time. There's also no way to export for backup, unless you want to manually back up the Yojimbo Application Support folder in your user Library.
This means that, out of the box, the only way to move files or back up your notes in Yojimbo is to use .Mac ... which is not ideal, when you consider the rather objectionable .Mac EULA, that includes such lovely items such as:
Subject to any specific license agreements for various .Mac software
features (including third party software), Apple may change, suspend or
discontinue any (or all) aspects of .Mac at any time, including the
availability of any .Mac feature. Apple may also impose limits on the
use of or access to certain features or portions of .Mac, or restrict
your access to any part or all of .Mac, in all cases without notice or
liability.
In other words, they can just kill your stuff without consequence. Oh sure, they would never do that! But if not, then why do they claim the right in the agreement?
And:
Apple reserves the right to terminate your access to .Mac at any time,
with cause or without cause, in the event of any breach of this
Agreement by you (or anyone using your account or any sub-account),
your infringement of Apple's or .Mac's or others' intellectual
property, or any other circumstances which, in Apple's sole discretion,
merit termination. Any such termination may, if Apple elects (and
subject to applicable law), be without any refund to you of any prepaid
fees or amounts.
Translation: Apple can arbitrarily cancel your account and keep your money, and you have no recourse.
And:
APPLE RESERVES THE RIGHT (SUBJECT TO APPLICABLE LOCAL LAW), IN ITS SOLE
DISCRETION, TO MONITOR ALL .MAC FEATURES AND CONTENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO A USE OF A USER'S MAIN ACCOUNT AND ANY SUB-ACCOUNTS, FOR THE
PURPOSE OF INVESTIGATING VIOLATIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT.
Translation: Apple can look at all your private files.
Why would I pay $99 a year, or more, for service under such terms? So this is now what I'm trying to avoid.
So does anyone out there know of a way to synchronize Yojimbo between machines without .Mac?



Comments
If you're not worried about the record merging aspect of syncing, anything that synchronizes the ~/Library/Application Support/Yojimbo folder will work. Note that this means you need to be careful about where you edit what and how you sync.
Another option is Mark/Space's SyncTogether. It uses the same mechanism as .Mac syncing, and in theory should work as well. Most of our mutual customers seem to have success, but there have been some reported problems that we have not been able to resolve.
Finally, there are many ways to export data that you seem to have missed:
Select any number of items (or the Library), and choose Export from the file menu;
Drag any number of items from the item list to somewhere in the Finder;
Write an AppleScript to export specific items
If you have other questions or problems, please write to our support department. We have actual human beings, interested in making Yojimbo work for you.
Steve
Synctogether does NOT work with Leopard so that one is not an option. It may never be the way the developer was talking about it.
I'm not sure if this would help or not, but there is a new product called Webjimbo that you might want to investigate.
There perhaps (very) is a another option. Notmac.
http://www.notmacchallenge.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=457
I will try it and see. It wasn't working well with Leopard the last time I looked.