With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings

This is a screen I had hoped to NEVER see - the screen of doing a complete system restore on my MacBook after another Hitachi 160 GB Hard Drive died:

Once the new drive was installed (5 minutes) it is only the matter of loading the OS-X 10.5 Disk, going just a few steps into an install until the upper menu bar shows, select “Utilities” and follow the prompts for a Restore from Backup.

The actual backup will be timed a few hours before the Macbook’s internal disk went out.  It looks like the actual full restore will take about 2 hours.

As the “Restore from Backup” option only offers Full Backup Images to restore from, I am hoping I can use the hourly incremental backups to later bring my system up to at most an hour off of when the failure occurred.

This is the fourth Hard Disk in this Macbook.  I’m going to write to Apple to see if they can offer a solution to what appears to be a non-enviornmental host machine problem.

It sure does seem that TimeMachine used with a decent external hard drive saved me from having the sort of significant data loss of the earlier disk failures.

73

Steve

—-

Previous TimeMachine Posts:

Deja Vu OS-X Style - Timemachine Revisited

First Use of TimeMachine - This Rules!

Going Back in Time - “Time Machine” on the Macbook

Apple has released a clever ad about the Timemachine feature of OS-X 10.5 Leopard.

(Click on the picture for the movie)

(Click on the picture for the movie)

I’ve written before about Timemachine, and again it is simply a fantastic integration of backup technology into a graphical user interface and software suite.

Going Back in Time - “Time Machine” on the Macbook

First Use of TimeMachine - This Rules!

73

Steve
K9ZW

Ok where did those 43 emails containing notes and article write-up outlines & stubs go to?

I know I wasn’t at my best when I was trying to move them to their own folder last night…. but it turns out I managed to close OS-X Mail without pasting them anywhere!

Essentially I Cut them and Dropped them in electronic ether…. bad move.

They disappeared.

Forty-Three articles in the making zapped by significant user error… or perhaps not?

Enter OS-X 10.5’s TimeMachine Backup system.

Painless to roll back to before I messed up.

Simple to select the messages needed, and Clicked to Restore them.

A bit of whirl and screens moving before the restored messages were restored to a special “Timemachine Restored Messages” folder.

Check out my previous posting on Timemachine for more details!

http://k9zw.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/time-machine-on-macbook/

73

Steve
K9ZW

A quick jot about the impressions of the Time Machine feature of OS-X 10.5 Leopard.

Apple has given me the tools to dissect my computing. 

1. OS-X “Spaces” gives me the Linux-Like multiple desktops open for one user.
2. “Bootcamp” gives me the OS-X or Windows choice.
3. and “Time Machine” gives me the dimension of being able to work with a file in its various past incarnations.

So my computing options are like a 3-D matrix - easy navigation through which Operating System, which Work Space and which point in time Back & Forth through Time Machine.

And most importantly after blowing up a couple hard disks is the full backup that resides on my Time Machine serviced External Drive.

Pretty neat options and rather well implemented.

73

Steve
K9ZW

That Apple Computer rolls out of Leopard OS-X 10.5 this Friday is hardly news. 

The Media is full of public announcements telling us all about it.

But the reasons why I am extremely eager to put it into use are more personal.

A number of the new features look to have direct applications for my use.

The enhanced iChat will make supporting relatives living around the world so much easier.  By being able to “share” their desktops I will be able to have a good look at their questions & needs.  Should be slick!

Time Machine backup system is a double edged sword.  Recovery of children’s lost homework or the file I loose will be helpful.  My XYL Alison thinks being able to scroll back and forth through various edits is really trick.  But it does bring home that a deleted file may live on in systems with backups on-line.  It will be interesting to see what the explicit-delete-file process is.

The improved Desktop will help keep me organized with “stacks.”  I use project folders currently, but this looks like a nice way to arrive at the same point with a bit more flare.

A better integrated Mail and iCal system appears to have automated or semi-automated a number of task that frustrate under OS-X 10.4 or under Windows.  The way it handles email-to-calendar and email-to-Address Book will be a great improvement.  The harmonization started in Tiger OS-X 10.4 certainly will move way ahead under Leopard 10.5.

The implimentation of Linux Spaces will be another incorporation of the best of other systems into the Apple OS-X product.  I can see having a Blog Space, an Amateur Radio Space, a Correspondence Space and a Fun Space running like I do on a Linux Box.

There is much more, but so far the details look to really support one of my goals with computers, to make the machine & software as transparent to the task as possible.

I have a copy (family pack) arriving on Leopard Day and then have four machines to update with the new OS-X 10.5

More after the this Friday!

73

Steve
K9ZW