Hello all, I am going to send this to the SMUG group, who helped me out a lot yesterday morning when I was in a slightly frantic panic, and to BNM because there are a lot of mac users, and freelancers who may benefit from the advice here. I wouldn't usually cross post like this, or write such a long essay of an email so I hope this is allowed in this case.
After yesterday mornings "dead computer" situation I am pleased to report that I am already back up and running, repaired and everything. Apple store turned the repair around for me much faster than I was anticipating, not because I got any special favours, but because they were quiet at the moment, they already had the necessary part in stock etc. I was lucky in this case, I know this. So I was prepared to be without my main computer for approx 1 week, and I would like to announce the programs, and lessons learned so that everyone here can see how a very real potential disaster was made rather painless indeed. I rely on my computer for my work, as I'm sure many of you do too, so I strongly encourage everyone here to look at their own situations and how much you rely on your own tech and what you would do if the worst were to happen... 1) have a spare computer. Mine is an old but working G4 tower, It was free from this very group (cogapp was clearing out), and its now running OSX 10.5 server. It was too slow for me to carry on the photoshop work I was doing. Opening a 600dpi tif file even in preview took rather a while so I wasn't going to entertain the notion of doing any touch-up work. *Lesson learned*. If you have a spare computer, It can be quite old, but make sure that it is at least capable of running the applications you need, even if you don't keep them installed. If I needed any intel only apps I would have been stuck, so a backup computer capable of running the same OS would have been ideal, but this did the job. I was able to finish the scanning I was doing, the touch-ups can wait until the main computer is back. 2) backups! Time machine is good, but you can only access your backed up files from another mac using the time machine interface. I have moved away from time machine and now use crashplan which works in exactly the same style as time machine, but you can restore your files (including different versions of them) from a PC, linux, mac os, or even web page interface. You can use it to backup any computer to any other computer for free! regardless of the OS! I pay them $5 a month for unlimited online storage (for one computer) and right now it feels like the best $5 I have ever spent in my life. * * *Lesson learned* - I had removed my scanning folder from the backup set, as it would have been sending hundreds of 50-60Mb files up and down the internet which weren't going to be staying as TIF for very long as they get worked on and resized down. This was foolish, because when the computer failed, these were exactly the files that I needed to get to the most, and I'm paying for unlimited online storage, so I may as well not be scared to make use of it. Luckily I was able to move them using target mode into.... 3) Dropbox. The documents I need to keep handy, such as my invoices and receipts are in Dropbox. Theres also some company sensitive stuff in there too, so luckily I was able to use my mac in target mode to remove the Dropbox folder before sending it in for service. Dropbox doesn't have a remote-wipe functionality, which would in hindsight be a nice feature, but it allowed me to access my important documents from my iphone, and from public computers using the web interface. All this for free! its beyond belief. I feel like I should give them some money because its so good, but their free product meets my needs perfectly well. 4) passwords. I live by keychain in macosx. I randomly generate password for everything and keep them all in keychains. You can access your keychain as a file, the default one is ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain When you go to another computer, just copy that file with you. optionally rename it to "my passwords" if you wish, and double click it. When you are on the other machine you will still be able to access your webspace / ebay / bank / wifi networks by entering your old account password. *Lesson learned!* keychain is great, like time machine, but its mac only. I have been meaning for ages to move away from keychain and start using the program called 1passwd. like crashplan, it does the same thing as keychain, only you can use it on windows as well, and even your iphone. So with the combination of those programs I was able to send my computer straight into the apple store for repair, rather than having to spend half a day faffing around getting my important stuff off it first and hoping I had remembered everything I needed... the sooner it goes in for repair, the sooner it is back working. For the benefit of the BNM readers, I am obviously using a mac here as my main computer, but the programs mentioned are all available for windows and sometimes linux too. This means that I could at a moments notice effectively carry on with my work on any computer I had to hand. If sony hadn't removed linux support from the PS3 I could have even used that as a reasonably powerful machine instead of the G4 tower. This week I have 3 pieces of work on, plus an interview on wednesday, so its not exactly an ideal time to be without my computer, but then again, is it ever an ideal time for these things to happen? Please all learn from my positive experience and prepare yourselves for the disaster before it actually happens. Most of the programs I have mentioned are either free or very very cheap. Toby -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. 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