Backup, Backup, Backup

Many of know someone who has lost something in the past on their computer when it failed. This is something that should not have to happen. There is some cost involved and how much depends upon how you want to protect your data. I am a photographer and losing photos that can never been replaced is just not an option.

The following is what I do to ensure that my data is never lost on my Mac:

1. I use Apple's built in Time Machine backup on a portable HD. This is automatic and there is no harm in letting it do its thing. With how incredibly cheap high capacity drives are these days there is no reason NOT to do this if you own a Mac.
2. I use SuperDuper to create and maintain bootable images of my Mac. In a pinch this would be an easy way to recover data from a failure.
3. I subscribe to Carbonite Online Backup which stores all of my data, encrypted, off site. This is a very important step as relying solely upon local backups still leaves you vulnerable. As of this blogpost they are still working on more solid compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows 7, which is something to keep in mind.
   

Now is it actually impossible for me to lose something? No, there is always some bizarre scenario given that computers hate us all that something will still be lost. What I have done is to cover all of my bases when it comes to backups.

Other options include burning to a series of DVD's (which can be tedious to keep track of) or synchronizing to a portable HD and moving it off site periodically.

I have heard it repeated many times that if you only have one copy of something then you do not really have it at all.

Wait, what do I do if I run Windows? All you have done is offer advice to Mac people!

There is a great tool that is free from Microsoft called SyncToy. If you have a portable HD then you can use SyncToy to keep a duplicate of your critical folders from your computer. You can download a copy of SyncToy by clicking here.

Out of touch

Ladies and Gentlemen I found the following quote here and found it to be a gem. The following is about the best definition of being out of touch. This is a prime example of the OLD way of thinking of controlling content within a walled garden. It is a dead or dying practice.

"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content," Murdoch said. "But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators—the people in this hall—who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph."

Awesome right? Well the article makes an excellent point at what their real motive may be and I think it may be giving them to much credit.

The old ways are done and it is time to adapt or perish.

Humble beginnings

Many of us who work in the tech field stumbled into the profession in one manner or another. My beginnings were doing front line technical support for a local ISP. I found the position after asking someone on-line one afternoon on IRC what they did for a living. They told me they worked for an ISP and as luck would have it, they were hiring.

You have not lived until you have troubleshot an Internet connection with Windows 3.1 using Trumpet Winsock.

In fact I think many of us started out in the support field and used that as a way to get our feet in the door. Yet more and more often, that lowly front line job is being out sourced. I am very grateful for having had the opportunity but worry that same chance is disappearing. Now I agree if you are persistent and want to get into the profession, there are numerous other ways. But still, given that it was how myself and many other people I know got into the business it is sad none the less.

As always, I am curious how did you get into the tech business?

Deauthorizing Computers with iTunes

Have you reached your limit of five computers authorized for iTunes? Do you no longer have access to the other machines to remove their authorization? While it should be a simple task of removing the computers from a list this is not the case.

The following will work ONLY if you have reached your limit. The option is not available otherwise.

• Login to your iTunes account
• You will see a new button called "Deauthorize All" in the account information screen.

Note that this can only be done once a year via this method. If for any other reason you need to do it later you will need to contact Apple directly.

Our electronic children

I know that I am not the only one out there who treats their prized gadgets as though they were kin. Just the other day while waiting for someone at a Future Shop I inadvertently sent my iPhone 3GS tumbling onto the ground. Now I have heard many a story of short drops onto non carpeted flooring doing major damage.

So there I was, seeing it flip through the air feeling my heart stop and the rest of the world around me. Sound dramatic? Considering that the warranty on the device does not cover dropping it and a new one would be in excess of $700, it was no small deal.

I was lucky in that it only suffered the smallest of dings on the bottom right corner. It may be the device is either sturdier than I assumed or I was just damn lucky.

So my question would be, do others obsess over their digital friends such as I find myself doing from time to time? We are all so increasingly tied to our devices, be them an iPhone, Blackberry, Pre or Android. Are we to dependant is another question. Everything now is a moment away. No waiting.

Snow Leopard Days

I have been using Apple's new operating system now, "Snow Leopard", for a few days and have gotten a feel for what it is going to do for me. For now. That is the elephant in the room in regards to "Snow Leopard", in that much of the benefit for every day users is not there yet. Until applications really begin to take advantage of technologies such as "Grand Central Station" and "OpenCL" the benefits may not seem to spectacular.

Now I have an obsession about upgrading and trying out every bit of new technology that I can get my hands on. I fully understand that as a result I will have to occasionally battle with compatibility and other issues. So the question is if you are completely happy with how your computer works or you cannot risk downtime can you wait? The answer is yes.

Waiting for 10.6.1 or 10.6.2 likely will not impact anything that you are doing now. Given the price of Snow Leopard I can see developers requiring it in the future but that will not be in the immediate future. Not to mention some of those developers may not be so ready to cast off the PowerPC users such as Apple has done in "Snow Leopard".

Further Impressions

So far as the "new" features go I still have to say I like the new Quicktime but worry about the direction Apple is taking in removing so many high end features. I wonder if they have a card up their sleeve to release a new product to replace those features and leave Quicktime strictly for the masses?

Otherwise, to be honest, I am using my Mac the same as before. I liked the experience then and I still enjoy it now.

Snow Early Leopard Impressions

Apple's "Snow Leopard" has arrived and I installed it late last night on my Mac Pro without, so far, any ill effects. Pursuing through the Apple forums I can see that there are many people having problems and as with any big release of OS X we will see a 10.x.1 version released pretty soon. As for myself I had backed up my system three different ways, just in case, but it turned out to be for nothing.

Given that this is my first major upgrade to the Mac OS I have no overt opinions of the previous methods. It is obvious that Apple wanted the process to be as stream lined as possible. Just about anyone could install this OS as there are virtually no options given to you anyway. While there are ways to do a clean install there is no clear cut, click of a button method as there has been in the past. I decided to give the "over the top" installation a try and was very impressed.

One tip that I have seen in numerous posts is that upgrading Leopard to Snow Leopard from any version less than 10.5.8 has reported more issues than those who do. It may be nothing, but, all in all you should be keeping your system up to date anyway.

Just about every single release of an OS, regardless if it is a point release, a service pack or whatever you will see people raving about how much faster it is. Sometimes that may or may not be the case but with "Snow Leopard" it is noticeably faster. Some of my larger applications that took a few bounces to start pop up almost instantly now.

Program Compatibility

So far any of the applications that I used on my late 2008 Mac Pro have been working just fine. Many popular programs such as Growl have not yet updated for Snow Leopard but so far appear to be working just fine. Those programs Control Panel entries will cause it to restart into 32bit mode before launching, which is mildly annoying.

Possible Issues

I have been reading that in some cases Mac's which are capable of using the 64bit kernel are booting into the 32bit kernel. The easiest way to find out if you're capable is to drop to a prompt and paste in:

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

If you are 64bit ready then you will see the following, if not then you are booted into 32big mode:

"firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">

Check out this page on 9to5 Mac for information on if you are 64bit capable and what to do about if you're for some reason booting into 32bit mode: click here.

Personally I do not think it is a terribly big deal, for most people, if you are not using the 64bit kernel.

Overall opinion

All in all "Snow Leopard" does exactly what it was supposed to do, improve and optimize your leopard experience. It was in my opinion a rather bold move to forgo the typical fancy, shiny new (and possibly useless) features that so many of us expect from an upgrade. This does, however, set the bar pretty high for 10.7 which people are going to expect to be a huge upgrade.

So if you are very happy with Leopard, unless you're using a PPC, there is little reason to rush out right away and get it. Yet, at $35cdn there is very little reason NOT to get it either.