6 posts tagged “mac”

Getting it all set up will be a weekend project, though.

Imac

New Computer #1

I threw in the towel on my work machine, after a series of ineffectual attempts by our outsource IT firm to fix whatever was ailing it. I felt all along I needed to just start over, do a complete clean install of everything from the OS on up. So I did that today. Now I'm running a clean (Vista) machine and my new system is about 90% of where it needs to be. However, getting it that way pretty much sucked up a whole day. But it needed to be done.

New Computer #2

Tomorrow, my new iMac arrives and I'll face a similar installation & setup task for my home machine. It's funny how I'm upgrading to both Vista and Leopard in the same week. After I get everything working on the Mac side of my new iMac, I'll install Vista on that. That will give me the flexibility to work at home without dragging my work "laptop" home. (Our work laptops are the butt of many a joke given their girth and weight.) The main thing I need on Windows is Visio, which is where I do the bulk of my design work. I think it will seem very strange to see Windows running on a Mac.

-- > Drake's mom gets Drake's computer.

-- > Drake gets my computer.

-- > I, well...I get a new computer.

I just pushed the button on a new, Leopard-installed 24-inch iMac.

This is precipitated mostly by Drake's mom's computer, an ancient first-generation iMac, which seems on its last legs. Drake will back visiting his folks in a couple of weeks and can get her all set up on his (former) computer. And I've been wanting to switch to an Intel Mac for some time, but decided to wait until Leopard. So the timing was right.

Since my hard drive failure early in September (from which I recovered fully, but not without some effort), I decided to implement a more robust back-up system for our home computers. Drake and I both have iMacs which are situated side-by-side in our home office.

You would think it would be as easy as buying an extra drive and installing some backup software. But noooo, it's a bit more involved than that. Thanks to the eBook Take Control of Mac OS X Backups I am now fully educated on the intricacies of a robust backup system, including a bootable duplicate of my system and an archive of user-created files. And yes, these are different and you need both. And, guess what - not all Firewire drives are capable of creating a bootable volume (this is not something that is highlighted on the box). And, oh, it's best that you partition your back-up drive so that your Archive and Duplicate reside on separate volumes.

Here's what I used for my system:

Take Control of Mac OS X Backups - this is 97 pages, minus the Apendixes, and I did pretty much read the whole thing.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Hard Drive - two of these - one for Drake, one for me

SuperDuper - software to create the bootable duplicate.

Apple's Backup 3 - software to create archives. If you don't have a .Mac account, the Mercury Drive comes bundled with Retrospect Express, which also works for archiving.

iDisk (or other Internet-based disk storage) for critical and working files you would need to access in case of a big disaster.

I also have my iPod Video set to copy full-resolution versions of my iPhoto library to it as extra insurance. This is how I restored my photos after my September drive failure.

We finished getting this all set up this afternoon. One big tip: you can schedule overnight backups even if your computer is off or asleep by going into System Preferences > Energy Saver > Schedule... and setting your computer to start up/wake up about five minutes before the backup is schedule to start.

So here's to finishing one big fat to-do on my list.

Happy Mac

I got my iMac back today, with its new, completely empty hard drive. When I fired it up, it asked me if I wanted to transfer information from another Mac equipped with Firewire. OMG - yes, yes, yes - my little 12" PowerBook is basically a mirrored configuration of my iMac. So I booted up my PowerBook as a Firewire drive off my iMac. (I forgot you could do this: you connect both computers via Firewire and boot up the "drive" computer by holding down the "T" key). Now all my laptop files - including all my apps, network config, etc. are happily copying over. I still have data files I'll be restoring from a combination of my iPod, DVDs and my .Mac account, but what I was truly dreading was re-installing all those applications. Apple Computer, you saved my bacon! (Or at least salvaged my weekend.)

Sad_mac

I guess it was time. I bought my first computer in 1986 and since that time I've never experienced a hard drive failure. Till now. I brought my iMac to the Apple Store this morning and they confirmed what I suspected. My iMac will be ready on Thursday with a brand-new spanking-clean hard drive.

I'm pretty well backed up on everything. Most recent work (except for an essay I was writing for my professional blog) is on .Mac; other stuff on my iPod or backup DVDs. The only thing I decided NOT to keep backed up is my iTunes library. I don't buy from the iTunes store; we have a huge CD collection and selections from that were in my iTunes library - so I guess in one sense it was backed up - in that I can restore those from the original CDs.

It's going to take some time to put everything back together (including reinstalling apps) but it's also a chance to start over with a clean drive. In the mean time, I'll be using my trusty little 12" PowerBook.