Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Fallout Shelter

Quick and Easy Disk Maintenance and Backup for Your Mac

- 2006.02.22 - Tip Jar

Many people have different methods and use different programs for maintenance and backups of their Macs. I'm going to share my method, which is what I do every week on my main systems. All of the software I use is open source or freeware (with donations always accepted by the authors).

The first thing you want to do before backing up your system is run your maintenance programs. Apple's Disk Utility works for fixing your hard drive and repairing permissions, but I prefer an all-in-one solution.

My pick is AppleJack. With it you can repair your disk, repair permissions, remove swap files, validate preference files, and clean up cache files. It's a great (and fast) program with both auto-made or manual selection for each task. The best thing that I like about AppleJack is that you run it when you start your Mac in single user mode (press ctrl-cmd-S), so it will work even if your Mac is having problems starting up.

AppleJack screen shot

Now that you have your system up to par, it's time to back it up. I connect an external hard drive for backup. I chose iBackup for this. I know there are more advanced backup programs out there, but I really like the ease of use that iBackup offers. Features include: built-in restore option, automatic selections to do backups of your preferences and applications, set custom profiles, plugin support, support for burn folder, can automatically compress your files, and much more. I really love the restore option; I use it when I move from one Mac to another, and it restore all my Mail settings and inboxes and all my bookmarks in Safari.

iBackup

Lastly, now that you've created your backup on an external hard drive (or on an internal hard drive), you can burn it on a CD or DVD with Apple's built-in burners. Another way is using Roxio's Toast, which is free with some burners. I have the paid version, and it's great for burning backups of my external backup drive. I know making backups of your backups sounds strange, but it's always smart to have multiple backups. Toast also has a option to encrypt your media so no one else can access your backups.

Toast

I have a 160 GB external hard drive that I use to back up all my machines, and I keep the latest backup on it. I have at least the last three backups for each machine on DVD-RW and even keep a copy at an off-site location just in case.

On a last note, I don't like making bootable backups because it's a lot easier (and more fun) to just install whatever newest OS on the machine you want to restore and then restore your preferences. Than you're done. I did this when I upgraded to Tiger from Panther, and Tiger accepted all of my old preferences.

Link: AppleJack
Link: iBackup
Link: Roxio Toast

If you find Joe's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Fallout Shelter articles

My Newton: Why I won't buy an iPhone or iPod touch, 09.07. The iPod touch and iPhone sound wonderful, but I love the handwriting recognition, fax support, and email abilities of my Newton MessagePad.
Network administration tools for Mac OS X users, 06.25. Thanks to Mac OS X, today's Macs are great network citizens and excellent tools for doing network administration.
Apple's secret battery reset utility for WallSteet and Clamshell iBooks, 07.05. If your old 'Books battery isn't taking a charge like it used to, Battery Reset 2.0 could help recover its useful life.
Replacing Lombard with a TiBook: Which one is enough?, 04.19. Nice as the Lombard was, it has a new owner. The new 'Book should have FireWire, G4 power, and run Tiger nicely. How much TiBook is enough?
More in the Mac Fallout Shelter index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Mac mini Core Solo, Feb. 2006 - The only Mac to use a Core Solo CPU, this model ran at 1.5 GHz, has integrated graphics, and includes a Combo drive
Group of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
November 23 in LEM history: 99: Should I buy a USB card? - 01: Can a low-end Mac be an only Mac? - Palm Desktop without a PDA - CyberDog saves the day - 05: How Consumer Reports could compare Macs fairly - Speakers for your Mac - Living with the hi-res 15" PowerBook - Birth of the PowerBook - Daystar 1.9 GHz iMac G4 upgrade - 1.92 GHz PowerBook upgrade
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.23. Used 867 MHz SuperDrive, $348; 1 GHz Combo, $379; SD, $519; 1.33 GHz, $529; 1.5 GHz Combo, $549; SuperDrive, $609.
Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.17. Used 1.83 GHz, $750; 2.16, $800; 2.33, $900; refurb 2.4, $1,299; 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,899; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.17. Used 400 MHz, $50; 933 MHz, $80; 500 dual, $60; 867 dual, $90; 1 GHz dual, $150; 1.25 GHz dual, $225; 1.42 GHz, $499.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 Deals, 11.17. "Leopard" upgrade, $80; single user license, $135; 5 users, $173; Mac Box Set, 5 users, $230; Server, 10 users, $340; unlimited, $850. Shipping included.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Mac Fallout Shelter articles copyright ©2005-07 by Joe Rivera. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.