Tag: backups

Backups: How not to assume nuthin’

I am using Carbon Copy Cloner to backup my MacBook. Any suggestions on how to confirm the stuff is there?

You bet. First of all, whether you are using it manually or on a scheduled basis, you’ll get an error if things don’t go well. You can go to the Window menu and to CCC Log, and while the log might look a little geeky, you can see if there were any errors.

Also, open external the hard drive on your desktop, go into Users, then into your home folder (probably has your name on it). Go to the View menu and view as List, then click at the top of the Date Modified column to sort the folders in date-order. If you see files with the same date as your last backup, you should be golden.

Your backups: Don’t assume nuthin’


Funny how situations seem to arise in groups: I received several calls from folks these last couple of weeks whose automatic backups were not working. One of them LOST THEIR DOCUMENTS.

Fortunately they were able to retrieve the important stuff with the help of FileSalvage, which thankfully most of us will never need.

When I put a backup solution in place, I ask that our client be sure to check regularly to see that the backups are happening. It’s the one place where, regardless of how comfortable or tentative someone is with their Mac, I kind of insist that they become familiar with the setup, at least enough to know when it’s broken. 

Backups can fail for any number of reasons: 

~ The external backup drive (the box sitting outside your computer) can fail.
~ Power can go out and confuse the backup software.
~ The software can get broken by an update to the Mac.
Suffice to say that it’s crucial that you not assume that your backups are happening. If you’re not sure how to check them, or which backup software we installed, please give me a call. We should set up at least a short appointment to go over that stuff. Erick or I can write up very quick instructions — 5 to 10 clicks and you’ll be golden.

Thanks for reading!

Macworld keynote: the Cliff notes

My impressions are the same as everybody else’s, I suppose. So here’s a quick recap.

Yay, movie rentals!

Boo, 24 hours to watch ’em!

Yay, movie rentals and other shit on Apple TV, justifying the money early adopters (including your humble) paid.

Yay, iPhone updates!

Boo, lame iPhone updates!

Yay, MacBook Air!

Yaaaaaaaaay, MacBook Air, although the maximum of 2Gb RAM is a smart move by Apple to prevent it being used for serious work like graphics or photo manip. (I make grandmas buy 2Gb for their Macs.)

Yay, Time Capsule!

Boo, not letting existing Airport Extremes use their Air Disks for Time Machine backups! (Although one can do it with Mac OS X client or server.)

Yay, Manhattans at Jilian’s next door to MacWorld…………!


Security cables

A little while back, the offices of two of my clients got broken into, only a couple of days apart. The similarities were weird! Both doctors’ offices, and both got 2 iMacs ripped off from the front desk.

This started to read like a Dickens novel: In one office, we had daily backups running to a server, and that office ran out the next day and got new machines (ultimately reimbursed by insurance). We restored from their backups, and they were back in business. In the other office, they had ignored warnings about backing up, and they had to re-input months of data. Some files, including pictures, could never be reproduced.

But in both cases, the entire situation could have been averted if security cables had been attached to the machines in the first place. Almost any computer — certainly any Mac — and many peripherals such as external hard drives come with little holes in the chassis that accommodate a security lock standardized by the peripheral manufacturer Kensington. Several companies make cables that fit into these holes, and are locked by key or combination.

It is nearly impossible to force the lock out of the hole without ruining the computer’s case (and thus its resale value), and most would-be burlgars don’t carry the bolt cutters necessary to sever the cables.

Here are some Amazon links to cables by Kensington and Targus. I bought a couple of each, and they’re fine. Be careful, as this one by Belkin (a company I usually like a lot for its quality and lifetime warranties) doesn’t fit some locks.

All of my home Macs, and their backup drives, are now locked down to their furniture, and I have a cable with me always for my laptop, in case I need to walk away from it in a busy environment.

Happy — and secure — computing!

End User: Nirvana for Gigabytes

Published in San Antonio Current, July 19, 2007

Data, welcome to Nirvana: a small black box with lights, called Drobo, the “data robot.” One pull quote called it “the iPod of mass storage.”

I’ve been waiting a decade for this.

The Drobo (drobo.com) is the first device that can take multiple hard drives — of unequal size, by any manufacturer — and unify them into one giant walk-in closet for your digital stuff. If any one drive fails, you just pop in a new one. If you run out of space, you buy bigger drives and swap them in. All the while, the Drobo stays on, and you don’t lose access to your files for even a second.

If you’ve heard of RAID, Drobo takes RAID out to the shed and beats it with a belt.

For four years, I’ve made almost every one of my clients buy an external hard drive to sit on their desk, automatically backing up their stuff. Each time, I’ve said, “When that drive fills up, we’ll get you a new, bigger one and you can stash the first one in a closet.” It may seem wasteful, but as I discussed in my last column, very few computer users can afford to lose what’s on their hard drives.

I want to mention here that, if you do suffer a hard drive failure, services exist that can typically recover your data. Drive Savers of California has one of the best reputation (and employs a crisis-intervention counsellor). Their work can run between $1,000 and $3,000, but there are more affordable and locally based agencies. Also, the $89 software SpinRite, by Steve Gibson at grc.com, reportedly does the best job at recovering data outside of a clean room.

Back to good vibrations: Mass storage used to be unnecessary for non-geeks. Now any new computer can help anyone become a musician or filmmaker, work that takes lots of space to produce.

On the other end, internet-based consumers have put billions of dollars into pure 0s and 1s, assets that exist nowhere but hard drives. In January, the iTunes Store sold its two billionth song, and it offers more than 500 movies, and whole seasons of many TV shows. Amazon recently announced its own forays into digital downloads of music and video. Sales of physical albums continue to drop, while downloadable purchases claim bigger market share every day.

Then there are the terabytes of free (or free-if-you-know-where-to-look) files being downloaded every day. (Between us, did you know you could have your computer automagically grab new episodes of your favorte TV shows, sans commercials, without any subscription? Whatever you do, don’t visit tvrss.net, and don’t download, for example, Miro-né-Democracy Player, which also has wonderfully legitimate uses.)

So, the Drobo lets you stash that multimedia audio-visual glut in an expandable, protected space. Now that the first 1Tb (terabyte) internal hard drives have hit the market, the Drobo can combine four of those puppies for a total of 2.7Tb redundant storage. (Redundancy in computerdom, as opposed to, say, a philosophy major, is a boon.)

I can’t report that this magnificence comes cheap. The Drobo is $500 for the enclosure alone. But gigabytes have become very cheap, indeed; a year ago I advised people to be happy getting $1/gigabyte. Today, I paid $100 for a 500Gb drive. Three of those will put 930Gb in my Drobo. That, my friends, is 2,000 movies or 300,000 songs, whichever comes first. By the time I fill that (and I will), drives will be more capacious and markedly cheaper.

The Drobo currently only connects over a slightly slower USB 2.0. Many forum-posters have griped about this limitation, but it makes sense in the way the iPod makes sense: Keep it simple, and fewer things will screw up.

I bought my Drobo in August, and it is everything I expected. I feel a lot more secure knowing my data is (almost completely) safe from drive failure.

And… iPhone… Ooooh, you knew I was gonna sneak it in somewhere!

Jonathan Marcus publishes online at themacwhisperer.blogspot.com.

End User column: Out of Range, Out of Mind

No, it has nothing to do with the iPhone. Yeah, right. Next time there will hopefully be something else to talk about.

BTW, I’ve helped two clients work with three iPhones, and they do rock, but we’ve definitely run into some limitations. I’m looking forward to the software updates, and to the next generation.

Published in San Antonio Current, July 4, 2007

Roswell, NM, two days before release of the iPhone — Yes, I asked if this motel room included wifi. Today, I asked. Yes, they have it, or at least they feature it, but today, it’s out. You’ll like this: They claim it’s out due to “a few car accidents.” I’m still picturing that.

Phone signal’s gone, too. I’m writing from a dial-up connection. Feh.

Thankfully, I have saved upgrading my notebook until autumn; some modern laptops don’t even include modems anymore.

Sunday, July 1 — Now we know: Should you buy an iPhone? If you’re a person who would right now spend $500 on the coolest gadget on the planet to entertain yourself, hie thee to the Apple Store. At just the right size and weight, the device does what it does marvelously. I found it responsive — snappy, says the geek — and almost tactile. Browsing the web on the big, bright screen kicks butt, typing works pretty well, and the audio/video experience cannot be beat. The iPhone owners I have talked to this weekend knew what they were getting, and while some had to overcome minor hurdles to get going with it, they’re generally very pleased.

If you wanted, however, to consider that $500 a business expense to make you a better, stronger, faster thing-doer, then you might want to wait. Among the iPhone’s failings, for example, the fact that it won’t cut, copy, paste, or even select text tops my list. I’d go crazy not being able to grab a snippet from a web page or easily forward just a portion of an email. Very strange, Penny Lane. So, I didn’t buy one, and I’ll have to wait for 2.0.

OK, no more iPhone today, I promise.

Avoid the worst day of your life: File this under “mundane, but vital.” If you store anything of value on your computer, you should know that storage is doomed to fail. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, Ilsa, but hard drives (the main storage mechanisms inside computers) are extremely delicate, and many are faulty right out of the factory.

Please, please, please backup, backup, backup: Always keep multiple copies of everything, and in at least two different places.

To start with, do yourself a favor and go to Mozy.com to sign up for 2 gigabytes of free online backup for personal use. They offer very smooth software for Mac and Windows that waits until you’re not touching your computer, then it backs up any files, or categories of files, you choose.

Extra cool: If you refer a friend to Mozy, they should enter your email address when they sign up, and you will each get an extra 256 megabytes of free storage.

Mozy Pro for business use starts at only $4.45 a month for 1Gb. One lovely alternative is, surprisingly, Amazon’s S3 (“Simple Storage Service”), which costs $0.15/Gb/month. Other online backup services exist, but they tend toward pricey.

It would take too long to back up your whole computer across the internet, so I encourage (read: rabidly demand) that everyone buy at least one “external hard drive” to sit next to your machine and receive daily automatic backups. CompUSA carries several models, as does the Apple Store. Then it’s best to download and set up software to make the backups happen for you. Grab a geek if you need help there.

(Microsoft Windows has semi-OK backup software built in, and Apple’s next version of Mac OS X will include something new and purportedly very snazzy called Time Machine.)

Finally, to be thorough, upload all those precious photos to a site such as flickr.com or picasaweb.google.com. They offer more space than most people will ever need, and you can make images either public or private.

Then kick back and congratulate your wise self. You’re safe to surf.

Next time: nothing about the frickin’ iPhone, maybe.

Jonathan Marcus publishes online at themacwhisperer.blogspot.com.

My new tech column – End User: That syncing feeling

The San Antonio Current has asked me to pen a bi-weekly column. Two have run so far, and I’m enjoying the project. I used to be arts editor, and later production manager, for the Current, and I’ve kinda missed the gig. Fine, I’ll say it: I’m a byline whore. But I always felt a bit of a dilettante writing arts reviews and features, so this tech bent feels more legit.

{OLD VERSION: Dontcha know the iPhone has been on my mind, and this first jaunt is really a two-parter: here and here.}

So here’s the first one:

Published in San Antonio Current, May 31, 2007

If you want to practice swearing for an hour, try getting your contacts from your Gmail to your Yahoo! address books. Then try migrating your calendar.

It’s doable if you, the trained Googling bear, want to Google through a few hoops to get it done. None of the hoops are on fire, but you might still feel burned on your beary behind.

Wait, now comes the trapeze act: Try syncing your address book or calendar between Outlook and Gmail and Yahoo! accounts. By “sync,” I mean having your information flow, in both directions, between one or more devices or databases. Make a change in one address book — on your phone, say — and that information shows up in Gmail, and Outlook.

Believe it or not, more than one internet page refers to this idea the “Holy Grail of synchronization.”

Now, if computers can make Britney Spears a singer, could this syncing thing possibly be that complicated?

More mysteries: Sometimes I wait 15 minutes for my Treo to sync to my Mac. Sometimes it duplicates every contact in my address book, or every calendar event, or just makes multiple copies of the email addresses in each card. That’s a real laugh riot when I’m trying to get out the door. So I make backups almost every day, before I hit the sync button.

To be fair, Windows has long had nearly instantaneous sync with Windows Mobile devices. Plug a Windows-based smart phone into your computer, and pop! your data is the same on both. Also, Apple offers a $99/year online service called .Mac (“dot Mac”) that will, albeit slowly and not dependably, keep your address book, calendar, and bookmarks synced between Macs.

Stray just a little, however, from Apple’s or Microsoft’s closed systems, and you find yourself inventing new swear words.

I have found a couple of pages that discuss methods to attain the “Holy Grail,” using software and services with snappy names like GcalDaemon, Funambol, and ScheduleWorld. I messed with GcalDaemon, and it works, but it involves command-line heavy lifting — sudo chmod -R yadda yadda — that would daunt any non-geek. Even I didn’t enjoy it.

Another semi-option is Plaxo, a useful online address book that syncs Macs and Windows with Yahoo!, but only imports one way from Gmail.

iWait

So what’s to come? Speaking of holy grails, we return to the iPhone, that obscure object of desire. We still don’t know if the damn thing works, but here’s my latest penny for the iPhone wishing pool (I’ll probably end up throwing my Treo in):

Yahoo! is offering free mobile-syncing mail accounts with the iPhone. Google has teamed with Apple to make a cool Google Maps program for the handset. I would love it if these three entities have put their brains together, and will release an open system for syncing, one in which everyone (except probably Microsoft) agrees on the fine points and plays well together.

I’ll have bunting and confetti and party hats and T-shirts that say “Sync This!” printed and waiting for the day.

(Side note: One netizen has created a contest called the “notMac Challenge,” to offer a cash prize to anyone who develops a viable and easy-to-use replacement to .Mac.)

Back dat s*** UP!

I use several different backup packages, depending on the job and the need. Deja Vu, SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner (though I haven’t gotten scheduled backups to work in its latest Intel-ready version) are great for bootable backups, and Deja Vu also works well if the user doesn’t want the backup to get in their way (or you don’t want them to screw it up ;-).
Recently, I’ve come to absolutely adore ChronoSync for just about every other task, esp. backing up to a networked volume. ChronoSync will email you when a backup is complete; it also organizes your backup sets in the most logical, and least screen-hogging way.

SuperDuper errors

A registered SuperDuper! user writes:

Got these errors in SuperDuper:

If SuperDuper ever throws a red “X” at you, go to the Log. See the button at the bottom called “Send to Shirt Pocket…”?

After you do what I suggest below, you’ll want to click that button, and do whatever it tells you.

It occurs to me that there is a chance that — don’t freak — you have data corruption. I’d bet even if you had it, it’s not bad, because you have been able to transfer and backup successfully at least twice.

But if you know how to run Disk Utility from your installer discs, that would be wise. Do it on both your internal and external drives. If you have TechTool, DiskWarrior, or Drive Genius, great, run ’em just for kicks.

And if you have anything with the name “Norton” on it, please put it in the nearest garbage pail. Seriously.