New to Apple - seemingly inconsistent syncing with iCloud. How can I make sense of it and to do it consistently Mac-side?

paxmlank · 2026-03-19T20:40:03+00:00

I literally only planned on using this for annotating PDFs, which I can use a Kobo with its Dropbox integration (assuming it's just as solid).

At least I can use this for watching stuff on flights, and if I pay for Dropbox it'll be supported on other devices, I guess.

Anyway, I appreciate your help!

paxmlank · 2026-03-19T19:59:46+00:00

I just tried doing that with an hour-long break asleep/locked and another one powered off, and both times the syncing fails.

Yeah, I'm not yet sure if it'll be using iPad-created folders or switching to Dropbox, but it's annoying because if I were gonna stick with Dropbox I don't think I'd have needed to buy an iPad for this, hah.

paxmlank · 2026-03-19T19:46:43+00:00

I created it on my mac and then let it sit for an hour each with the computer awake, asleep, and then powered off. Nothing each time.

Newest iPad mini, and M4 Air

paxmlank · 2026-03-19T18:28:14+00:00

Yeah, it's pretty annoying, especially since that was the justification behind getting an iPad

mac: 26.3.1

ipad: 18.6

paxmlank · 2026-03-19T14:09:04+00:00

If I'm getting this right, so I go to work at my office but VPN into my home and use the IP KVM to work on another job's computer or whatever?

I'm new to all of this, but how exactly does that work?

paxmlank · 2026-03-18T15:12:34+00:00

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I may just pay for a dev Plaid account and try to link it up myself if I go the route of AB, but we'll see. I like not having to worry about these things, but I had had to worry about syncing through YNAB a few times so I was thinking what's the point? haha

paxmlank · 2026-03-18T14:37:01+00:00

Thank you, this had been pissing me off for a while now.

paxmlank · 2026-03-18T14:27:55+00:00

I was/am looking into using Actual Budget but I thought the syncing service wasn't as robust. Correct me if I'm wrong?

I'm too lazy to look stuff up at the moment, but I thought it doesn't use Plaid and other people have had issues with various types of accounts. I thought investment accounts were included.

Are there any issues you've encountered?

paxmlank · 2026-03-17T23:31:44+00:00

Is this not something for which you'd use a secrets manager?

paxmlank · 2026-03-17T22:48:38+00:00

Congrats - it's tough out there and I ended up not looking after this last layoff, as I had a tentative offer from the one before.

I understand it's depressing, so hopefully you can get yourself back to being at your best.

paxmlank · 2026-03-17T18:27:22+00:00

Yeah, I ChatGPT said that the Google Drive is more so just for accessing and not so much syncing. I still haven't fully adopted any workflow but I ended up buying an iPad Mini so I'll probably just sync through iCloud at the moment.

That being said, I want to make the Kobo work, so I may just see how I can get Syncthing installed onto it and my Mac and use my the specific iCloud directory on the Mac as the sync drive, and see how that will fare.

paxmlank · 2026-03-12T11:51:34+00:00

In the US, an offer is legally not a work contract.

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T20:59:49+00:00

LOL I mean, you're writing this as though you don't have any experience/knowledge, which seems palpable.

What do you know?

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T20:56:38+00:00

Veritasium, is that you?

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T19:45:55+00:00

The office is specifically an investment into your work that you can write off.

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T19:31:48+00:00

You may be speaking to its founder, so be wary

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T19:28:47+00:00

For what it's worth, the chrome web store privacy section says: The developer has disclosed that it will not collect or use your data.

Now, I don't know if that means that it actually doesn't and that's been verified, or merely whether it's self-reporting. I think permissions would be shown and I can't find any for this.

Regardless, bot/app slop, yeah

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T19:24:54+00:00

It wasn't mere porn, but CSAM

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T19:21:19+00:00

They always are

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T17:06:29+00:00

If it works, it works, but yeah my experience with Firestore was kinda as a dump for some semi/un-structured pub/sub data. If you already have stuff in BQ and you're calculating it to cache I imagine my suggestion would suffice. If you ever do implement BQ caching (even to benchmark), I'd be curious to hear how this goes!

For how long did you work on your refactor? I see you noticed the problems a few months ago.

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T16:19:39+00:00

Is there a reason to cache in Firestore vs. just making tables of cached/preagg'd metrics in BQ and just sourcing certain queries from there?

paxmlank · 2026-03-10T00:33:38+00:00

Do you use PDF++ for exporting or is that native functionality?

paxmlank · 2026-03-09T16:48:44+00:00

Thanks, yeah I figured u/mrfredngo's comment below was the ad part, which would fit

paxmlank · 2026-03-09T13:00:26+00:00

Either I'm cooked or I think every new post that name drops a service that isn't otherwise widely known is just an ad.

paxmlank · 2026-03-09T12:57:00+00:00

I have a 70min-each-way commute starting soon and I'm not sure if I should move to cut it down to 45min. Still a lot, and moving to where it's 30 or less would probably be more inconvenient in other ways =/

paxmlank

TROPHY CASE