If you have more than one Mac, it is likely that you will want to be able to access the same information on each of them. Having two separate address books, calendars and set of bookmarked site invariably means either a period of extensive data entry, or the risk of not having the information you need available on the computer you are using.

One solution is to make use of MobileMe, but if you do not like the idea of paying an annual subscription, fruux is a free tool that can be used to keep key data in sync between your Macs. Although the application is currently in beta, fruux already makes it possible to synchronise your address book, calendars, tasks and bookmarks between computers.

After downloading fruux, extract the zip file and double click the file to install the preference pane. Click the link to create a new account and after providing an email address and password, wait for the confirmation email to be sent out – click the link it contains to verify your details.

Move to the Sync tab and tick the boxes next to the items you would like to synchronise. If you have multiple calendars created, you can opt to synchronise some or all of them, and in the case of your contacts, you can choose to synchronise only certain groups of contacts.

To ensure that your data is always kept up to date, ensure that the Always keep synchronised option is ticked and then click the Synchronize Now button. To be certain that the correct version of your data is stored on the fruux servers, move to the Revert tab and click the Replace in Cloud button.

You can then install fruux on another of your Macs. Run through the same process of configuring just what should be synchronised and then move to the Revert tab. This time, click the Reset This Computer button to download the data that has been backed up to the server. Once this has been done, data will be automatically kept in sync between your computers.

Even in beta, fruux is already an incredibly useful tool and future versions are set to include the ability to synchronise preferences between computers as well as iPhone and web access to your data.