Macs & OS X

Yes. Another Backup Lecture.

Merlin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:35:58 -0400

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. Because, unfortunately, most people you know (including me) have already repeatedly been struck by backup's biggest and most profound cliche:

Perform automated, redundant, and rotated backups as often as you can afford to lose every single bit of information that's been changed or added since your last backup. Because it's going to go away.

The Holy Trinity

Seriously:

If it's not automated, it's not a real backup.
If it's not redundant, it's not a real backup.
If it's not regularly rotated off-site, it's not a real backup.

Doing any one of these things by itself or in tandem produces "a copy." A copy is handy, and it may really save you, even a majority of the time. But, making casual copies is optimistic at best. Someday, you will need the benefits of all three layers, and you'll thank John, me, and your chosen $diety that you sweated all those years of monkey work and aggravation.

The Next Layer

I do have three suggestions to append to John's excellent setup:

Schedule Every Rotation; Then Do it. Peg your off-site rotation to a date-certain (like how you probably changed the 9-volt in your smoke alarm for Daylight Savings Time yesterday). I do my rotations within the first five days of each new month. So, yes, do automate the creation of backups, but then also do the physical rotation like you'd pay your mortgage. On time and without fail.¹
Make and Update Specialized Disk Images. If the photos of your baby, the videos of your wedding, or those gigs of torrented Radiohead MP3s you've hoarded mean anything to you, give them extra-special treatment. At least every six months or so, burn them all onto drive(s) and rotate them off-site too. Either stick them in a safe-deposit box, or, even better, burn a new DVD of your kid's progress every month, then mail it to the relatives. Distributed backup plus familial bonding = win/win.
Make and Update Multiple "Go-Sticks". Buy a bunch of good 4GB+ USB sticks and use them to hold 256-bit-encrypted sparsebundles of your "Holy Shit!" files. Keychains, 1Password files, bank account numbers, insurance records, etc. Anything you need to either start recovering from a catastrophe or go on the lam. Make multiples, schedule update reminders, swap them out in known locations, and, if you have the skillz, maybe set up an Automator script that automatically updates the contents of each drive whenever you plug the little buggers in.

You're so sick of hearing this: automated, redundant, and rotated.

The Godfather of Ass-Saving

Also, a second high-five for DiskWarrior. I can't count the number of times that this annoying, ugly, slow, and hard-to-use application has saved every last strip of my bacon. Like John says, yeah, start with Disk Utility, because it's got 90+% of the firepower needed to fix the disk problems you'll encounter this year. But, DiskWarrior will do everything right up to the impossible. And, again, yes: you will need it. I sure have.

Go. Do it. Now.

Backup is boring, it's tedious, and it's not cheap. But once you've had your ass handed to you by a badly-broken drive, you really get the importance of a zero-latency recovery. It's positively liberating.

But, for now, right this second: go Gmail your kid's baby pictures to yourself. Do it.

I realize I'm asking you to buy a lot of hard drives here. Can't change that, but I will say I've been very satisfied with 1TB Seagate Barracudas from New Egg (Personally, I buy them five at a time and always have at least 3 spares). The performance is fine, if unremarkable, in both my Macs and my two Drobos. Plus, the price is right, and New Egg is, in my experience, a proven and bulletproof retailer. Also, if you're the tidy type, you can cheaply pick up a case of Wiebetech boxes to transport and store your naked drives. ↩

”Yes. Another Backup Lecture.” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 15, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

`Nerdgasm.txt` - Notational Velocity Now Syncs with Simplenote

Merlin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:34:38 -0500

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.

[via Fletcher, whose SimplenoteSync.pl has been a godsend in the interim]

”`Nerdgasm.txt` - Notational Velocity Now Syncs with Simplenote” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 01, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Video: Merlin's Talk, "Toward Patterns for Creativity"

Merlin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:27:38 -0500

Merlin Mann - "Toward Patterns for Creativity" - Macworld PULSE

Here's a video of my presentation, "Toward Patterns for Creativity," from earlier this month at Macworld, here in SF.

My slides were kind of a mess thanks to a bonehead technical problem on my part, but you can follow along fine below.

As I said, I'm very interested in seeing where a topic like this could go. Because I truly believe it's an idea that could help push a lot of people to the next level.

Related: if you're interested in where my head was as I prepped for this, be sure and catch the previous post, The Problem with “Feeling Creative”.

Also, if you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor, and pick up the book I highlight in this talk: The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharpe.

Addendum: 2009-01-28 06:42:03

It should not go without mentioning five (5) John Gruber-related things:

Seriously. I really did like John's talk, and I think he's totally onto something with the Auteur thing. (cf.)
John very kindly let me borrow his laptop after my learning that my own was un-dongle-able.
The slide problem stemmed from my preparing the presentation on a newer version of Keynote than John had installed.
I'm pretty sure John did have Helvetica Neue installed. Because he's a giant type nerd.
John invented Markdown. In which I write everything. Including this.

Which is just to say that John is a friend as well as my favorite person in the Apple universe. So, upon watching this a second time, I realize I'd hate to leave you with the impression that I feel anything other than embarrassingly abundant aloha for him.

Thanks, John.

[video via: Macworld Pulse: Merlin Mann | Macworld]

Like the Talk?

A big part of what I do these days is delivering talks like this and others all around the US and beyond. If you’d enjoy having me visit with you to present at your company, event, or conference, drop a line and my ninja assistant, Erica, will be happy to take your details and check for availability.

”Video: Merlin's Talk, "Toward Patterns for Creativity"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 27, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

43f Screencast: Merlin's First Desktop Tour

Merlin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:20:25 -0500

Merlin’s First Desktop Tour on Vimeo (Full HD Version)

After a recent “Most Days” episode, several people asked to see what all's in my menu bar, so I made this little video using ScreenFlow. It's a “proof of concept.” A “pilot program,” if you like. Again: an experiment. (Hint: this looks way better in full HD)

Watch this space next week for more info on these apps, plus discount codes and more.

Liked this? Want to see more of these? Got ideas? Stuff you'd like to see or have ever wondered about? Leave a nice comment on the Vimeo page. But, be gentle. It's my first attempt at a screencast, and I'm no Don McAllister.

Seeing Your App Here?

NB: If you’re a developer of one of the mentioned apps and want to give my readers a sweet discount via a coupon code, hit me up at macstuff at 43 folders dawt com with the subject “I Love 43f Readers.”

”43f Screencast: Merlin's First Desktop Tour” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 23, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Best Mac Ever? Duh. SE/30.

Merlin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:27:56 -0500

The best Mac ever | Editors’ Notes | Macworld

I knew what the near-consensus would be before the page opened. Everybody knows.

The SE/30 (with a hard drive) was, pound for pound, the best Mac ever made. Not only was it when the Mac arrived as a serious tool for normal (albeit deep-pocketed) people, but it felt faster than homemade snot, and still had the awesome old-school form factor.

I liked using Ci’s and Cx’s and Fx’s and Quadras and whatnot, but no Mac ever brought the total package like the SE/30. In 1991, I laid the shit out of some PageMaker on my SE/30 and a big-ass Radius monitor. Good times.

If I could get away with it, I’d probably still be writing on one right now.

[via Daring Fireball Linked List: The Best Mac Ever]

[Note: This post originally appeared on our daughter site, “43 Folders Clips,” and we liked it enough to republish it here.]

”Best Mac Ever? Duh. SE/30.” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 21, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

James Fallows on GTD apps

Merlin — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:20:11 -0400

Bright side #5: interesting GTD software, including for Mac

The Atlantic writer (and recent Mac convert) James Fallows covers three apps that have caught his attention, including OmniFocus, ThinkingRock, and MonkeyWiki. Fallows says:

The GTD Way mainly involves habits of mind and action, but it also places a lot of emphasis on having the right tools, gizmos, and gimmicks to support those habits. Over the years I've used a variety of software to set up GTD-based systems on my computer.

And, if you're in a real "grab the shovel" mood, don't miss his link to a metric buttload of GTD apps.

As ever, though, friends, just remember: GTD's power is in what it does to your approach and to your thinking; it's not about magic beans and doo-dahs. Never allow yourself to obsess over tools to the exclusion of actually completing tasks. This is about action.

”James Fallows on GTD apps” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 02, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"