You can follow the very safe procedure that Kate MacKenzie has accomplished.  Click here to read.

Hemma på vår gata, där vi bor, parkerar visst folk hur de vill.

Har vi haft besök av bästaste rörmokaren? Jajamänsan. Han är grym. Han bör klonas.

So I’ve been very quiet! There’s good reason.

I’ve had two traumatic events these last two/three weeks. Firstly, I’ve been moving house. Well, moving apartment to house to be more exact. Of course I have the same typical traumas associated with moving house as anyone else, but moving in Dubai can be a little “extra special”. We’re getting there slowly. Broadband and wireless is working fine (a little slow in the living room and kitchen but I’ll buy another Time Capsule to fix that problem), TV is still not operational (due mainly to my obsession to get it streaming over a dedicated wireless network), CDs are finally sorted, filed and stored but my vinyl doesn’t have anywhere to live at the moment. I guess I should have blogged about the move. But until the BlackBerry WordPress app starts working over BlackBerry Internet Service this is not going to happen!

Trauma 2. My 17″ MBP (MacBook Pro) collapsed. I discovered I was one of the lucky recipients of the NVIDIA graphics adapter manufacturing defect. Bottom line I’ve been MBP-less for almost two weeks now. Of course, I could have blogged from the MacMini or the download PC (yak!), but I didn’t. Luckily I’ve been able to work off a low-powered MacBook (12″) for the last two weeks, booting from an external USB. All praise an thanks must go to the app of the moment SuperDuper, without which I would not be easily booting externally and working (semi) normally. The MBP should be back this weekend so I’ll resume normal service here, and I’ve got plenty to write about.

Until the MBP returns…….cheers. p.

The folks at the wikidot.com site have put together a nice list of application compatibility (or not) with Apple’s new OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” release.

“Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Compatibility List“

Don’t see any big “show stoppers” for me or my particular client base so far. Frankly considering the “under the hood changes” looks like they did a pretty good job in not breaking a lot of “older” stuff.  Maybe Microsoft could learn a few lessons here?

Of note:

Adobe CS4 is officially supported.  CS3 is reported to run with a few minor bugs…hopefully Adobe will be all over this (maybe??).

Office 2008, make sure you update to SP1 or better (you should anyways, duh) to address reported performance issues.  Hey just get OpenOffice or even better (IMHO) iWork ‘09 and get back to work.

QuarkXpress 8.1 is officially supported. v7.3 is reported to work, but they don’t officially support it?

Quicken 2007 will run under Rosetta. Ugh, IMHO try GNU-Cash anyways

RealVNC is reportedly horribly broken under 10.6.

RapidWeaver, current versions are okay (cool!).

Microsoft RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) v2.01 (latest) is fine (very cool, I use the heck out of this one).

Server Admin 10.5.3 is listed as a no go? I hope the newer versions are fine?

SuperDuper has minor bugs (see note), I know they are reportedly working on a version for 10.6. (it just came out, get v2.6)

Toast – latest version has some issues. I would expect them to release an update soon.

VirtualBox v3.0.4 is okay under 32 bit kernel. Okay, what about 64 bit? Mixed info on whether Snow Leopard boots 32 bit by default?

That’s just a few things that caught my eye in a quick glance over this list.

SuperDuper! es una aplicación muy sencilla que permite hacer copias de seguridad arrancables (bootable), lo que puede sacarte de más de un lío si tenemos problemas, como me sucedió hace algún tiempo, que estuve a punto de perder todo el contenido del disco duro del Macbook. Es la mejor garantía para recuperar y restaurar de forma segura nuestros datos, siendo, además, un completo sistema de clonacións. Una herramienta imprescindible en nuestros equipos.

Con SuperDuper podremos clonar todos los datos de un disco duro a otro, lo que facilita, en caso de tener un problema grave en el sistema, tener de nuevo todas nuestras carpeta a salvo.

Todo el proceso es fácil e intuitivo, os animo a que lo probéis.

]]> http://tarun.me/2009/06/09/creating-a-multi-layered-backup-strategy-for-mac/ Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:19:50 +0000 tarun101 http://tarun.me/2009/06/09/creating-a-multi-layered-backup-strategy-for-mac/

Apple Blog has a good article on how to create a multi-layered backup strategy:

http://theappleblog.com/2009/06/05/my-multi-layered-backup-strategy/

Some software worth considering are:

• Time Machine or Superduper! for daily painless backup. this is your first line of defense
• JungleDisk or Mozy for the off-site backup (just in case time machine is corrupted or your house is on fire. This is your reserve backup
• Dropbox or Syncplicity to sync files to other machines on your network (good to have a backup of “critical” files). This is for the worst case

There is also CrashPlan that is a little expensive but can take care of all these three facets.

It would be safe to say that you most likely treasure a good majority of what you keep on your Mac’s hard drive. What is a hard drive, you ask? The simplest answer I can give you is that a hard drive is where your pictures, movies, music, and documents are stored in your computer. The slightly more complex version is that a hard drive consists of a thick, CD like disc, a circuit board and an arm with a laser. From the moment you start up your computer it begins working; the disc spins, the arm passes back and forth from the outer edge to the inner edge and back, at precisely the same time the laser scans the disc while it reads and writes data to and from the disc.

You probably now have hundreds, maybe thousands of precious photographs, music and even movies stored on the hard drive. Maybe you even have invaluable documents and other personal and business information on it too. Increasingly more everyday we do things with our computers and save things as we go.

What’s the worst that can happen? Well, in an instant, without notification, it can all be lost to the mechanical failure of the hard drive. At best case you can have it recovered via software tricks, however at worst case you will not be able to get any of your cherished data back from the dead hard drive.

What can you do to prevent this from happening? First thing I will tell you is that it is not a question of if the hard drive fails, it is a matter of when it fails. The only thing you can really do to prevent losing all of your pictures, movies, music, and documents when a hard drive fails is to have your computer’s hard drive backed up. Meaning, make copies of the contents of your hard drive on to an external hard drive, perhaps on multiple DVDs, and/or having it backed up off-site (using an online backup storage website).

How do you go about doing this? The easiest thing to do is, if you have Apple’s latest operating system (OS X 10.5, Leopard), to get ahold of an external hard drive (preferably one with a Firewire connection if your computer can handle it), get one as big as you can afford. ( I recommend Western Digital (although their portables are not so great), or OWC for excellent quality and reasonable prices.) Then hook the hard drive up to your Mac,  almost instantly Apple’s built in back up software, Time Machine, will ask if you would like to use the hard drive to back it up, to which you will answer, yes. Then Time Machine will take over and make one initial full backup from your hard drive, from then on it will make hourly backups of any changes that you have made on your computer. Recovery from this method is usually very simple, however Time Machine is not 100% reliable. The backups have a tendency to become corrupt leaving you out of luck when you need to recover your data.

The software I tend to recommend for most home and small business users is called SuperDuper. This creates what is known as a “bootable” clone of your hard drive. Which basically means that you can run your computer from the clone that SuperDuper makes on your external hard drive. A very powerful option for times when disaster strikes and you need your computer immediately. Not only can it produce bootable clones of your hard drive, you can also schedule it to do so as often as you need. It also does a much better job at creating a backup that does not take up too much room than, say, Time Machine does on your external hard drive. All this and more for a mere $27.95!? It’s an absolute steal for the peace of mind you gain!

I could go on and on about backup strategies, but the most important thing I want to convey is that you get a backup strategy and use it. This will prevent you from the horrid pain of losing your most valuable data. I spend mornings as a Mac Technician in a Mac repair shop called PowerBook Guy, where the #1 thing we deal with is hard drive failure and replacement. I cannot tell you how many tears I have seen from clients who lost all of their data because they failed to backup their data. It’s always a painful loss. So prevent it and BACK IT UP!

One last thing I will state about hard drive failure and replacement is that, you should not panic and run out to buy a whole new computer if it happens. Hard drive replacement is a fairly inexpensive repair for a computer. I am talking under a couple hundred bucks in most cases, which is a lot cheaper than a new Mac. So, especially if you were wise enough to back up your computer, there is no reason to panic when your hard drive starts clicking and making grinding noises. When that happens, just give DandyMac a call, or send us an email and we will get your Mac back for you!

I just made up the most crazyawesome word yesterday. Uberduper. If you are over saying superduper this is the word for you.

Ich hatte heute das grosse Glück, dass ich meine MacBook Pro Platte nicht nur bekommen, sondern auch direkt und günstig, bei gleichzeitigem Erhalt der Garantie, eingebaut bekommen habe.

Damit hatte ich also eine neue leere Platte im MacBook, eine alte Systemplatte in der Plastiktüte und ein Time Machine Backup des Systems. Prinzipiell eine optimale Situation – man schiebt einfach die Installations DVD ins Laufwerk, bootet und startet das Time Machine Restore Programm von der DVD. Danach muss man noch 1, 2 oder 3 Stunden warten und alles ist wieder super.

Bei mir war es leider nicht so, da mein MacBook beschlossen hat, dass es die Installations DVDs nicht mehr lesen will. Andere DVDs – auch die Installations DVDs vom MacBook meiner Liebsten – klappen einwandfrei. Letztere haben mir aber auch nicht geholfen, da sich davon kein Time Machine Restore starten lies, da die DVD ja auch kein System auf meinem MacBook Pro installieren kann.

Da stand ich nun und hatte ein echtes Problem, denn einfach mal die alte Platte einbauen ist leider bei meinem Book nicht drin. Und hier kommt dann auch schon das erste Defizit eines Backups von Time Machine im Vergleich zu einem Backup mit SuperDuper! zum Tragen – Time Machine Backups sind nicht bootbar!

Im Endeffekt bin ich zum Saturn gefahren, habe ein externes Gehäuse für die alte Platte gekauft, diese und das MacBook Pro (im Target Disk Mode) ans MacBook meiner Liebsten angeschlossen und dort mit SuperDuper! das System kopiert.

Für mich heisst dies in letzter Konsequenz das Folgende:

• Ich werde mir eine externe Platte mit Firewire Anschluss kaufen, die richtig gross ist – mindestens 1TB.
• Darauf gibt es dann ein Time Machine Backup für die täglichen Bedürfnisse und um die Vorzüge des Zeitstrahls nutzen zu können.
• Wöchentlich werde ich dann noch ein Systembackup mit SuperDuper! auf eine weitere Partition erstellen.

Damit sollte ich für solche Situationen gewappnet sein, denn die Platte kann ja auch einfach mal ausfallen und nicht nur aufgrund von Platzproblemen ausgetauscht werden. Es ist auf jeden Fall trügerisch, wenn man nur auf Time Machine setzt.

P.S.: Warum SuperDuper! und nicht CarbonCopyCloner? Weil SuperDuper! tolle imkrementelle Backups beherrscht und dies mir auch schon unter Beweis gestellt hat.

If you’re here, that means you’re serious about backing up your Mac. Trust me, that’s a good thing. Remember, we’re thinking about our backup fundamentals of redundancy, frequency, and spread.

Throughout this article, I want you to think to yourself: “what is my data worth to me?” In my case, My Mac holds pretty much everything important to me in my life:

• My photos – including every digital photo I’ve ever taken. Ever.
• My music – including every terrible Enrique Iglesisas song I downloaded off iTunes (Because you just can’t have too much “Don’t Turn Off The Lights”).
• My writings – including that 7th-grade English report on Captain America that everyone made fun of me for. Who’s laughing at my detailed analysis of Cap’s Adamantium/Vibranium alloy shield now? That’s right, none of you.

I can’t be sure what you’ve got on your computer, but chances are it’s just as important to you as my stuff is to me. And believe me, if something were to happen to your stuff it’s impossible to underestimate just how much you’ll miss that fanfic of you getting Bat-grapple freaky with the Dark Knight. My stuff’s important. Your stuff’s important. What you have to remember is:

You need somewhere else to put your important stuff

Your stuff is currently on the hard drive inside of your computer, which is great. But if something happens to your computer, or even just your hard drive (they have been known to die on their own from time to time), you’re toast. What you want to do is secure an alternate location to stash your stuff. And that means…

You need to get yourself an external hard drive

No kidding. You really do. How big is up to you, but I would recommend getting one at least twice the size of your current hard drive. Right now external hard drives are running about $100 to $200 for the kind you’ll likely need. Pick a size that works, read some reviews, and get your hands on some external storage goodness. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to:

Grab a good piece of software for backin stuff up

I’m going to start with the easiest. If you’re running Mac OS X 10.4 (Panther) or later, then you need to get SuperDuper. It’s free. It makes an entire bootable clone of your hard drive. You can set it to run overnight and have your backup done by morning. Why are you not downloading it right now?

If you’re willing to throw some cash down, I’d recommend buying SuperDuper for $28. When you buy/register the free version, you get access to superfun features like scheduling, so you can set your backups to run periodically.

Registering SuperDuper also gets you access to the program’s SmartUpdate feature, which is a fantastic way to backup. With the free version, every time you backup with the program it just makes a clone of your hard drive, file for file. That process can take hours, which is why you usually want to run it overnight. With the registered version of SuperDuper, you can set your backups to run more intelligently. The very first time you back up, the program makes a complete clone of your drive. But every subsequent time you back up, SuperDuper just compares all the files on your source drive to those on your backup drive, and copies/deletes only the ones necessary to make your backup drive identical to your source.

The upshot? Your first backup will take a few hours, but all backups after that tend to take about 20 minutes. A huge timesaver, and great incentive to backup more frequently.

That about does it for this post, but stay tuned. In my next post, I’m going to cover the backup features built in to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), the current feature of the Mac operating system. We’re also going to talk about online backup solutions, so stick around!

Habe soeben das “SuperDuper!” Backup getestet und leider festgestellt, das die Backup Partition nicht bootbar ist. Ich musste das Backup nochmals umstellen, damit es jetzt wirklich funktioniert.

In keeping with the spirit of the previous post, I’m adding the 10 apps and utilities that I’ve installed on the new MacBook Pro. These aren’t full commercial packages, but in looking for apps to replace the PC apps of the past, they are what I needed at the time.

1. Firefox – Goes without saying, it is the single most popular browser out there. The changeover to the Mac is made easier when the software is a direct replacement. Others may be faster, or your preference, but Firefox gives me what I need, and most importantly, what I’m used to.
2. Thunderbird – Looking for a mail app to replace Outlook is a tough one. I have tried Entourage, and found that it isn’t quite what I was looking for. Thunderbird is nice, and seems to be fairly flexible. There are also a great number of plug ins available.
3. Cyber Duck – An easy to use, simple ftp client
4. App Zapper – Makes uninstalling applications simple
5. Super Duper – A full system backup / Imaging package. No replacement for Time Machine, but allows you to create a full system backup for restoring if need be.
6. Stuffit expander – Necessary for handling .sit files.
7. Dock Spaces – I use lots of apps, and love having them availabe in the dock. This app allows me to set up several docks, and cycle through them as needed.
8. Taco Edit – HTML text editor. Helpful for the times that Textedit ust isn’t enough.

did a backup just now on TM, and realised there is a error in it. no ideas why, but i deleted a huge file which i find unnecessary and is the reason why the update of TM is 8gb more. wierdly, the time machine becomes successful and if anyone noes the reason why please comment!

aniwaea for u guys who are searching for alternatives please check out these programs!

carboncopycloner : 

i recommend this if u are backing up your time machine drive

superduper!

have not explored much of this, but have read raving reviews bout it.

personal backup4

no idea wad this does, please comment!

next tip, will be checking out some word processors for mac. useful for school goers.

Patrik gjorde en visit till mig och till Avesta i helgen och för just det älskar jag honom.
Han skulle åka runt jorden om jag behöver honom. Han uppfyller alla mina krav för att vara just den perfekta pojkvännen. Han borde få ett diplom för att han stått och står ut med mig dag ut och dag in.

Det är helt otroligt omöjligt att förklara känslan i min mage.
JAG ÄLSKAR DIG

I can also heal the deaf

From the People’s Cube:

1. When a tree falls in the forest, Obama hears it.
2. Obama can clap with one hand.
3. Obama can calculate your guilt just by looking at the numbers in your checkbook.
4. A microphone into which Obama has spoken, heals asbestos-related disorders and colorectal cancer by direct application.
5. Every time Obama talks about “hope,” coma patients regain consciousness and chant “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
6. Obama’s famous stare once converted 15 Islamic fundamentalists into secular progressives, all of whom are currently employed by Countrywide Home Loans.
7. Everything Obama touches begins to vote Democrat.
8. More dead people voted for Obama than for any other Democrat candidate in the history of Chicago politics.
9. The tingle that crawled up Chris Matthews’ leg has taken control of his brain and is reporting a full preparedness to take over the world.

There’s lots more there – some of my suggestions:

• Obama can cause your tires to correctly inflate to the appropriate pressure just by laying hands on your car hood
• The delay in announcing his Vice Presidential candidate is caused by the genuflection which instinctively is practiced by all in his presence, the inability of mere mortals to look him in the eye, the inarticulate wonder of his presence is causing some interview problems
• The water used to wash Obama’s shorts has caused spontaneous reanimation of the dead

Apple has just released Mac OS X 10.5.3 update and the changes are not earth shattering.

Here is a list of changes in Leopard OS X 10.5.3 posted at Apple Support.

Most important to me would be this one:

“Addresses reliability issues when performing a full restore from a Time Machine backup.”

[Hint: don't install the Leopard 10.5.3 update for a week or two if you aren't suffering from any of the problems fixed in the list of changes. Why? Remember 10.5.1? That was a fiasco that led to so many problems that 10.5.2 was quickly released to "fix the fixes". Basically, let others find the bugs within 10.5.3 and have Apple fix those before you install the update. If there are any major issues with this latest release, you'll avoid the worst of them by waiting a couple of weeks. I'm actually still using 10.5.0 since it's rock solid and the updates released since don't affect my day-to-day usage. I'd rather have reliability than having all the software that I don't use up-to-date.]

That’d be pretty annoying to use Time Machine religiously and when finally disaster strikes and your backups aren’t fully useable? Ouch.

Regardless, I’d still recommend SuperDuper! for bootable Leopard backups in concert to Time Machine file backups, since Time Machine’s backups do not give you a bootable backup disk to restore from. If Time Machine backups are all you have, you’d have to reload Leopard from DVD, then restore your settings and documents from Time Machine.

With SuperDuper! you could simply connect the drive you used via FireWire/USB, reboot your Mac, hold down the alt key, select your SuperDuper backup and be working from that drive like nothing has changed.

Even more hard-core, you could simply remove the failed drive within your Mac, install the SuperDuper disk in its place, boot, and theoretically you should be operating normally as if nothing had happened.

Leopard 기본 기능인 Time machine 기능이 10.5.2 부터 필자의 컴퓨터에서는 잘 되지 않는다. 집의 Mac mini와 Macbook Pro도 동일한 증상을 보였는데, 타임머신 백업 중 약 15G 정도 부터는 아주 느리게 (12시간 돌려도 10G 정도) 백업되었고 때론 백업 실패 메시지도 표기된다.

Activity Monitor를 분석보니 초기 빠른 속도로 time machine이 백업을 하더니만, Spotlight을 관할하는 mdwoker process가 약 20%정도 이상 차지하기 시작했을 경우에 백업 속도가 갑자기 느려졌다. OnyX를 이용해 Spotlight 옵션을 꺼도, 해외 Forum에서 가이드한데로 새로 외장하드를 포맷해도 마찬가지였다. 일부의 특정 환경에서의 10.5.2의 bug같다. (왜 두대 다 똑같이 나만.. TT)

이전 Mac mini때 time machine 기능을 한 번 써보아서 OS/기초 환경 구성이 1시간 30분내에 전 환경 그대로 복원되는 그 막강함을 알기에 이 기능이 안되는 것이 은근히 불안하였다. 우선은 백업을 해야겠기에 work around를 찾아본 솔루션은 SuperDuper! 라는 프로그램이다.

최근 2.5부터는 Leopard를 지원하기 때문에 설치/사용이 무난하였다. Time machine과 비교해보아서의 차이점은 아래와 같다.

1. 타임머신은 하드의 모든 데이터만 백업하고 스스로 부팅기능은 없는 반면, Super Duper는 자체 외장하드로 부팅까지 가능하다.

2. 타임머신은 스스로 1시간 단위로(물론 timemachineeditor와 같은 3rd party utility를 통해서 주기를 조정할 수 있다) hard link 백업을 하는 방식이고, Super Duper!는 초기 백업 모드 이후에 사용자 정의에 따라 증분 백업 및 mirror형태의 백업을 할 수 있다.

3. 타임머신을 통한 복원은 OS X Leopard 설치시 타임머신을 통한 복원기능을 이용하는 반면, Super Duper!는 Disk Utility의 Restore를 통해서 복원시킨다.

4. 타임머신은 일부 환경설정 (구매한 iTunes Stores 컨텐츠를 재인증해야한다거나.. 일부 App의 license를 새로 입력등)이 필요하나, SuperDuper! 는 백업당시의 사용자 환경을 그대로 복구시킨다.

5. 타임머신은 “Mac OS Extended” 포맷된 외장하드에 몇 대의 Mac을 같이 저장할 수 있는 반면, Super Duper!는 전용 mirror 외장 파티션이 필요하다.

필자가 선호하는 것도 일주에 한 번 정도 일정 주기로 타임머신에 의해서 백업하는게 신경도 안쓰이고 편한데.. 상황이 이렇다 보니 어쩔 수 없이 SuperDuper! 로 백업을 하게 되었다. 이렇게 하면 타임머신의 하드디스크 기록을 막을 수 있는 장점도 있다. (우선 안심이 된다) 50G 정도 분량의 백업이 약 1시간 30분 정도 걸린 것 같다. Leopard에서는 대부분 Time machine을 쓰겠지만, 하드디스크의 과도한 access가 부담스럽고, 초기 백업만 필요하고 데이터 백업을 증분/mirror백업 해도 된다면 SuperDuper! 도 좋은 대안이 될 수 있다.

참고 :

#01. 타임머신의 장단점 비교 : Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review

#02. Linux에서 타임머신 효과 : FlyBack: a “Time Machine” backup utility for Linux

#03. 타임머신 10.5.2에서 매우 느린 효과에 대한 증상 : Topic : Full Back-up Too Slow? 6 Hours and Only 17.57GB done?