Blogs

Daring Fireball: An Ode to DiskWarrior, SuperDuper, and Dropbox

Hard drives are fragile. Read as much as you can bear to about how they work, how incredibly precisely they must operate in order to cram so many bits onto such small disks. It’s a miracle to me that they work at all. Every hard drive in the world will eventually fail. Assume that yours are all on the cusp of failure at all times. It’s good to be spooked about how long your hard drives will last.

John’s article, advice, and success story about doing smart backup is exactly the reminder that a lot of people need to hear right this second. Because, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of automated, redundant, and rotated backups. Trust me. You will need them all. Soon. Repeatedly. Forever. Always.

Worst of all, every stupid cliche about backup that currently makes you roll your eyes in exasperation will be visited upon you tenfold if you’re not using some flavor of the anal-retentive system nerds like John and I live by.

I’ll have a more proper Monthly Pimp on-deck here soon, but – time being of the essence here – I wanted to make sure and extend an invitation for something I’ll be doing in town today.

If you’re one of my nerdy band of brothers who’s in San Francisco this week for [MacWorld][macworld], please do come visit me between 1:30 and 2:30 (today, Friday, and Saturday), at the giant, glistening, Oz-like [Omni Group][The Omni Group] booth ([#760][8]).

Asked and answered by the wonderful Frank Chimero:

Anonymous asked: ‘How do you maintain focus (on work, dreams, goals, life)?’

You do one thing at a time.

You might be amazed how many times–and over how many years–a given person can ask this same simple question, hear that same simple response, and still find themselves casting about for the great and arcane “secret” to achieving real focus.

But, this is pretty much it. Mostly.

Although, I must add one important “Step Zero,” borne of my own tedious experience.

Before you sweat the logistics of focus: first, care. Care intensely.

Mark Pilgrim on The Setup

I’m a three-time (soon to be four-time) published author. When aspiring authors learn this, they invariably ask what word processor I use. It doesn’t fucking matter!

[…]

Picking the right text editor will not make you a better writer. Writing will make you a better writer. Writing, and editing, and publishing, and listening – really listening – to what people say about your writing.

As I said in that interview with Seth Godin, most people are taken way aback when they unknowingly receive the advice they really need — rather than the advice that’s just fun to listen to. Well, guess what, Fiddly McMaybewriter? Mark’s your new coach, so get ready to run some bleachers.

Forgive the site some hiccups over the next few days. After what feels like decades of neglect (read: ugh, book), I’m happy to say I’ll be returning to occasional 43f posting this week.

Notational Velocity - Version 2.0β2 Release Notes

Two of the best things on my Mac now sync programmatically and without the need for either spit or baling wire— that means syncing with “the cloud,” syncing with my iPhone (App Store link), and, by extension, syncing with every computer I own via the game-changing Dropbox. Yes. Big.

If you live in text files and crave seamless, no-brainer syncing (that doesn’t require growing a neckbeard), that little icon represents a milestone in the evolution of simple, low-friction workflows.